The Best Of The Price Is Right (BCI Eclipse DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B
The Price
Is Right continues to be one of the most successful game shows of all
time. It began as a radio program in the
days of radio drama, then turned up on NBC hosted by the great Bill Cullen, then moved to CBS where
Truth Or Consequences host Bob Barker took over and made it a phenomenal hit
that all the way to his retirement was the number one rated daytime television
show, even over all soap operas. Barker
recently retired and the show goes on with Drew Carey, still a hit, but the new
The Best Of The Price Is Right DVD
set is an excellent collection of 4 discs showing the growth of the show and
why barker became a television icon.
Cullen
would have moved to CBS with the show, but for health reasons could not move
around the stage, so Barker got the job and the rest is history. Even in Barker’s first few years, the show
was a half-hour, but it was soon turned into an hour and became the anchor at
CBS for a series of hit game shows, all of which it sadly outlasted. DVD 1 has some of the best Cullen shows with
Don Pardo (later of Saturday Night Live,
where he would spoof this role in many a game show) as the announcer, then
switches to Barkers first shows. DVD 2
shows barker catching on and the show going to an hour. DVD 3 shows the early glory years as the show
and Barker (along with the late, great Johnny Olsen) fire up the audience like
no game show ever had before. DVD 4 is
the last week of Barker’s broadcasts and is a sad goodbye after 35 years of
being #1.
The twist
you have with the older shows is not being for sure what the prices used to be,
how funny some of the old cars look, how good many of the classic games were
then and some very cool items they used to have up for bid that many would pay
much more for now if they could find them.
It was a bright new day in TV America and Barker was king. I am glad they included Cullen and found the
set overall to be loaded with surprises, laughs and even suspense. Not broadcast for many years, The Best Of The Price Is Right joins
BCI’s excellent Match Game and All-Star Family Feud Box sets (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) as excellent classic game show television that is
outright classic television.
The 1.33
X 1 image quality varies throughout, but not by much, with the Cullen shows in
black and white and either off of kinescopes or film backup copies, while the
Barker shows are color NTSC videotape all the way. The best possible transfers of this material are
here, original flaws and all, with the earlier Barker shows coming from 2-inch
reel-to-reel videotape. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono sound throughout gets better as the shows become newer and are
as good as they have ever sounded. You
do not get any extras on any of the DVDs, but the case comes with a nice
booklet about the show and these specific episodes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
