Article on Drew Carey.

[alfonzos]

Carey relates well with the studio audience and is often very funny but he stumbles through the explanations of the pricing games. He doesn't play to the television audience at all. In contrast to Barker who did both very well (it's prize ladies with which he has trouble). Carey toss to the ticket plug is particularly lame. ("Here's how to get a ticket if you want one.")

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'182739\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:03 PM\']
Matt's exactly right
[/quote]
Shouldn't that be somebody's sig?

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'182742\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:30 PM\']
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'182739\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:03 PM\']
Matt's exactly right
[/quote]
Shouldn't that be somebody's sig?
[/quote]
Why?

[tvwxman]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'182742\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:30 PM\']
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'182739\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:03 PM\']
Matt's exactly right
[/quote]
Shouldn't that be somebody's sig?
[/quote]
Seconded!

Signed, the other white-Matt.

/It's a take on a slogan.
//It's not racist.
///Honestly.

[Robert Hutchinson]

I'm kind of splitting the different between the opinions of Matt O. and Chris C.--I think it's obvious that Carey is capable of being more polished, and is choosing (assuming it's entirely his choice) not to be. But I don't think that we have therefore seen all the improvement we're gonna see. Even if he doesn't stick to a script, playing the games more and more can only make him more and more comfortable with the rules. Just to give one example, he's gotten much better at explaining Grocery Game, telling the contestant very clearly that they can buy more than one set of products to reach $20-21, and that the total is cumulative.

For some of the other things mentioned: I actually don't have much of a problem with his showcase reveals. Yeah, he dropped the ball on the MDSes, and he does occasionally take too long to acknowledge the winner, but I don't mind him slipping in a "sorry, man, you were close" before congratulating the winner.

And . . . considering all of this examination of Carey's loose style, I find it very weird that he always says "here's how to get a ticket if you want one" without so much as a syllable out of place. The only explanation I have is that Drew thinks it's silly that anyone in 2008 who is interested enough in TPIR to want to be in the audience doesn't already know the procedure. I mean, considering the way he treats the rest of the show, he surely can't be uninterested in having people show up for tapings.

(I should mention that all of this doesn't mean I think that Drew Carey's work on the show merits an A+. He does have other habits that drive me up the wall, like saying someone's name 20 times in 3 seconds when he's trying to get their attention.)

[tpirfan28]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'182742\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:30 PM\']
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'182739\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 02:03 PM\']
Matt's exactly right
[/quote]
Shouldn't that be somebody's sig?
[/quote]
Ooooh...then I'd win as a Master of the Obvious!  

[chris319]

Carey is not going to get much better, this is it for him. The polish you're looking for is not going to happen.

Drew is an experienced showman and it is an insult to him to say he is not capable of improving his performance or that he's not going to get much better. There are things Drew does which absolutely need to be worked on and he is perfectly capable of improvement.

Replace him with a smoother but less amusing unknown and that 15% drop from before is going to start looking really good.

Oh come now, that's pure conjecture. Some of that erosion is due to the departure of women (18 - 34?) who took off when Barker left and some is due to factors not pertaining to Drew (overall decline in viewership). But to say that Drew alone is keeping the ratings propped up and replacing him with someone else is going to hurt the ratings is simply conjecture (it would be quite a P.R. gaffe to be sure).

Today, a statistically insignificant number of "fans" (roughly equal to the number of people who even know with certainity who Todd Newton is) recognize that if Drew was a "real" game show host, he'd be getting better by now. The general viewership, on the other hand, just sees the famous funny guy, and oh look how cute, sometimes he messes up when he's trying to explain something.

More conjecture. That assumes only fans and not the general audience notice or care about Drew's lack of polish.

Drew brings a different sensibility to the show the same way Richard Dawson brought his own sensibility to FF, and that's great, but it's time to get him off the training wheels. He can start by working some variety into his language.

you should have done something about Dick Martin

Why would we have replaced Dick Martin on a show which didn't even finish its original 26-week cycle (read: the game sucked)?

Here's what I don't get.

They hold auditions for months and hire the guy who won't do an audition.

I don't get it either, Christopher. They probably figured Card Sharks Meets Grand Game was close enough to an audition.

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'182760\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 06:22 PM\']

Carey is not going to get much better, this is it for him. The polish you're looking for is not going to happen.

Drew is an experienced showman and it is an insult to him to say he is not capable of improving his performance or that he's not going to get much better. There are things Drew does which absolutely need to be worked on and he is perfectly capable of improvement.
[/quote]


One thing that we are missing here is that Barker had 20+ years of continuous radio and TV experience under his belt before he came through the doors the first time on TPIR.

Drew had about half that -- in TV only.

That said, Drew may not improve much more, but at least he's personable, believable, and he appeals to the younger crowd -- that's more than what many emcees of the past have done.

[Casey Buck]

If you want an idea on how Todd Newton would have hosted TPiR, watch this clip from the Vegas live show:

http://www.priceisright.com/price_is_live_in_las_vegas

Granted, this was probably done way before he was an audition contender last year, but he seems REALLY Gus Glitz-like here.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'182762\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 04:46 PM\']
Drew had about half that -- in TV only.[/quote]
...and the other half as a stand-up comic in front of often-intoxicated audiences.

Fail.

[JasonA1]

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'182764\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 08:14 PM\']On a second note...I take back what I said about Rich Fields being annoying.  Whoever keeps talking during this clip is worse.[/quote]

I'm not going to defend Randy for the simple reason that he posts here, but realize that the role of the TPIR Live announcer is different than that of the in-studio announcer. They're playing to/encouraging the live audience, and not there to be perfectly polished because their words will end up over the air. I also wonder how much of what he was saying outside of copy was going over the PA - could have just been lazy audio on the part of the clip maker.

-Jason

[joker316]

Let me try again, you don't have to agree or be swayed. Frankly it may not happen because all of your opinions are very well spoken and thought out. I'm still getting my feet wet here.

When I referenced the "Carson to Leno" transition, I meant that the "new host" should host one day a week, similar to what Leno did for years before he became host. I read "The Late Shift" and agree the way the network handled everything was wrong.

I can honestly say that I love the "old school TPIR" and that Drew's arrival was a "shock to the system"; but over time he has grown on me. We can all nitpick forever, but I believe the drop should have been expected. No matter what we think of Barker, they were replacing a man with 35 years on the same show. It would be a similar shock if say a different person played "Captain Kangaroo", some just can't accept the change. Some people looked at TPIR and saw, perhaps the last vestiges of a bygone era left on TV. With all the Oprahs and Springers loose on daytime, TPIR was the last bit of, dare I say, "Nice TV" left. Some see Drew for his standup act or "Whose Line" and the craziness on that show , and can't separate the two.

It's too bad. Drew is doing fine. He's no Barker. And that's a good thing.

[JasonA1]

[quote name=\'joker316\' post=\'182768\' date=\'Mar 28 2008, 11:08 PM\']
Drew is doing fine. He's no Barker. And that's a good thing.
[/quote]

Which is the popular opinion around here anyway.

What bears mentioning, though:

We can all nitpick forever, but I believe the drop should have been expected. No matter what we think of Barker, they were replacing a man with 35 years on the same show.

As much as I like Drew as a choice and as a host, it's funny they went through such hell auditioning people to avoid such a "drop" from happening, and ended up choosing somebody totally different.

-Jason

[chris319]

One thing that we are missing here is that Barker had 20+ years of continuous radio and TV experience under his belt before he came through the doors the first time on TPIR.

Drew had about half that -- in TV only.

There is another subtlety here. Drew is accustomed to using prepared material, whether doing stand-up or sitcoms. The greatest of the game show emcees have one thing in common: they used to be disk jockeys. No prepared material, just open the mic and beguile the audience. Barker, Dennis James, Gene Rayburn, Bill Cullen, Hugh Downs, Garry Moore, Monty Hall, Geoff Edwards, Bob Eubanks, Wink Martindale -- the list goes on. A big part of a disk jockey's job is to make everything he says to the audience seem fresh.

I understand Todd Newton underwent a transformation around late 2006/early 2007 to groom him for auditions for the TV show. I've seen him in Las Vegas since then and the improvement is noticeable. He is more down to Earth and much less the cheap, imitation Barker that he used to be. He has the format down slick but then again he has a limited repertoire of games in Las Vegas. Still, even though he has to play It's In the Bag five days per week or whatever, he does a great job of making it seem not mundane (I pulled his name out of thin air because he's the only TV auditioner I've seen).

[JasonA1]

On a similar note, I'm quite surprised we never got reports on the other auditioners. I gotta imagine some of our CA-based membership made it out to at least one not-for-air taping. Or at the very least, somebody got to see a playback at some point. I only have slight rumblings and the occasional anecdote to go on when it comes to Dave Price, John O'Hurley and George Hamilton, for instance.

-Jason