Quite a nice turn of events for the lucky contestant.
Sort of like Vanna turning the wrong letter but even better because the lady immediately knew the price of the car.
I’m a bit puzzled why the show is so generous. I’ve often heard they simply stop and replay the game if there’s a mistake. I’ve even read the fine print at the end of a few game shows stating portions of the game were reshot.
It’s wonderful that they didn’t just reset and start the car price guessing game over. Congrats!
Question for game show vets. What were you told would happen if there was a technical glitch during the game? Something like someone shouting out answers from the crowd or an answer getting accidentally revealed?
Drew Carey immediately recognized the entertainment value of the moment. Great publicity for the show and that’s why he didn’t get upset.
The pencil pushers and bean counters are the ones that might have a coronary. Game shows are strictly regulated. A result of the quiz show scandals in the 1950’s. (a movie was made about it). I’m not sure what the rules are for this type of situation. I have seen that disclaimer stating portions of the game were reshot. But don’t know why or what happened that required reshooting.
The rules seem open to interpretation. Family Feud usually accepts answers given a second or two after the buzzer sounds. Other shows are hard asses and cruelly refuse to accept it. I watch The Chase and they frequently reject answers on the buzzer.
I’m a bit puzzled that you don’t realize the entire point of the show is to give away prizes which are provided to the show for free by their manufacturers as a form of advertisement to the viewing masses.
No, that’s not quite. These quiz shows are legally required to follow very strict rules. Just like a lottery, sweepstakes etc. The industry got badly burned by the Quiz show scandals in the 1950’s. A lot of rules were put in place to ensure that never happened again.
The attitude you express is exactly what got the quiz shows in trouble originally. The producers were feeding answers to the public’s favorite contestants. Creating a crowd pleaser that drew ratings. The producers didn’t think it was a big deal. It was a show and they were manipulating it like they would a scripted show. But that’s not how the public reacted when the story broke. The shit hit the fan.
Also, in this case, they would’ve had to bring out another car with another set of price tags, or else drag out a game that wasn’t prepared for that taping. I can see it being more trouble than it’s worth.
There is a key difference here, and that is honesty.
The audience and future players are not being deceived about the nature of the game here. They are not being told that this is a game of skill when it’s really the producers who decide who wins - and if it’s a multiplayer game, deciding who doesn’t win. Here they made what is presumably a genuine mistake, and honoured that mistake anyway, while being completely open about what they were doing.
IIRC, in Thom McKee’s last match as TTD champion in 1980 (he was playing against challenger Erik Kraepelien, who would eventually become the champion), the category was “Numbers,” and Wink asked him, “In Washington Irving’s famous classic, how many years did Rip Van Winkle sleep?”
Thom came up with the right answer of 20, but when Wink asked the judge if it was in time, the judge said that it wasn’t, and the answer was not accepted. That’s how it all went down, IINM.
Sure it is. They can give away prizes given as payment for advertisement by the manufacturer and still maintain honesty and integrity. Those 2 things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I’m sure Hyundai isn’t complaining. Now instead of being just another car given away on the Price is Right it becomes “The” car that was mistakenly given away and is shown on every news site and news show for a week. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.
There was a time when Bob was still hosting that one of the contestants just revealed the answer to one of the prizes and IIRC they just gave the thing to him…and he was just being an asshole instead of a genuine mistake.
Good for TPIR for just being stand-up people about it, a great story that gives GREAT PR.
Many, if not most, of the prizes on game shows are supplied by the manufacturers. They are always disclosed at the end credits.
Big prizes like cars can be purchased by the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if the car manufacturer supplied them for free (at least, to show at the studio and then returned when it’s not won). If they do charge, it will be at a major discount over the sticker price (hell, few car purchasers pay the sticker price). Hyundai may even be happy to write off their cost (which, of course, is less than sticker) for the publicity – which in this case was well worth the price of the car.
The rules for game shows don’t really regulate how prizes are obtained. At most, they would require mentioning donor, and I’m not even sure if they require the listing of who donates the prizes, since the donor would insist on credits anyway.
And it’s not like a $21,000 sticker price car is some gigantic, rare prize for The Price Is Right. They probably average more than 1 car per episode anyway. It would probably be different if for instance Regis had accidentally given away the answer to the 1 million dollar question back on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
They are smart enough to know honest mistakes from things that seem shady. A few years ago someone bid the exact right amount for a showcase. Rather than be excited, you could tell from Drew’s demeanor that they assumed there was some kind of foul play. It aired and you can tell Drew was weirded out because he assumed the guy must have cheated somehow and they would eventually have to throw out the prize. As I recall he technically won legitimately by basically doing the TPIR equivalent of counting cards (memorized the Prices of common prizes they gave away and then just added up the ones in his showcase). I could be misremembering but I think that was what happened.
This was completely different and was clearly a mistake from the start.
It was great publicity for the show. I haven’t watched regularly in years. Now I’m thinking about setting my vcr to record it again. yes, I still use a vcr. lol
On a side note, the movie Marty figured prominently in that story, being the academy award winner for best picture in the 1950s. So last year I decided to watch Marty - hey, I like good movies from any era.
Boy, was it a stinker! 1955 must have been a really bad year for movies if that one won.
I remember that happening, and someone (I can’t remember who) ran a story about a guy who was in the audience who also knew the exact amount because of the same thing. He counted the cards. It’s not completely off the rails either because a standing joke between me and my roommate in college was whenever they had a gumball machine on it was always $999. So we would see gumball machine and scream out 999!!
I believe this because Manuela is one of the better (if not best) model on the show. I can’t even imagine that this isn’t even kayfabe (yay wrestling terms) but the producers and Drew literally just do not care.
Game shows are strictly regulated. A result of the quiz show scandals in the 1950’s. (a movie was made about it). I’m not sure what the rules are for this type of situation. I have seen that disclaimer stating portions of the game were reshot. But don’t know why or what happened that required reshooting.