Jimmy's got it right. I'll expand on the genesis of TPiR with excerpts from "Johnny Olson: A Voice in Time" which includes information gleaned from interviews with Goodson, Barker, Frank Wayne, Wolpert, Dobkowitz, Brockman, Boden etc. There's more in the book about the pre-production development of the format, including the original plan for THREE showcases per episode.
Fred Silverman, former CBS daytime programmer, had turned his attention to
structuring the network’s prime-time grid. CBS hired Bud Grant from NBC as its
new Vice President of Daytime Programming. Grant’s strength at NBC had been
game shows; he understood and had confidence in the genre. With Let’s Make A
Deal a runaway success for NBC, and a 1971 revival of Password drawing a sizeable
audience for ABC, Grant looked to re-introduce game shows into the CBS daytime
line-up for the 1972-1973 season.
He purchased Gambit starring Wink Martindale from Merrill Heatter and Bob
Quigley, the producers behind the success of Hollywood Squares. He also bought The
Joker’s Wild based upon Jack Barry’s three-year-old pilot hosted by Allen Ludden.
With the network’s blessing, Barry re-cast himself in the role of emcee. Barry once
again appeared on American television screens a dozen years after his disgrace in
the quiz show scandals as the host and producer of Twenty One. Soon, Dan Enright
returned from relative obscurity in Canada to reunite with his former partner.
Grant also made a call to a trusted supplier that would change Goodson-Todman’s
fate and change Johnny’s life. Grant learned that Mark Goodson had a revival
of The Price is Right in the works for syndication, and he envisioned the show as the
perfect answer to the Monty Hall-Stephan Hatos, prize-laden hit, Let’s Make A Deal.
He requested a network version of the series for his new daytime block.
Although the show had previously been successful for both NBC and ABC, that
was years before. It took only a few run-throughs for the Goodson-Todman creative
team to realize that the original format of The Price is Right was hopelessly slow and
tedious in the context of the times. Grant encouraged Goodson to scrap the original
format if necessary to build a fresh, flashy, and exciting version of the classic. With
that, the game show guru mobilized his minions for a major overhauling of Bob
Stewart’s original hit. In an unusual demonstration of faith and confidence, Grant
and Goodson ultimately signed for a network program without a pilot episode. Roger
Dobkowitz, a newcomer on Goodson’s staff who later became the new show’s guiding
force, observed after thirty-six years of working with CBS, “The most creative
program people just trust their gut.” [33-1]
As always, development at Goodson-Todman was a group effort; two of the
brightest brains in games were marshaled for the new mission. Frank Wayne, the
company’s senior statesman, earned the title of Executive Producer, and Jay Wolpert
was awarded the role of Producer for The New Price is Right. Director Marc Breslow,
Goodson’s trusted friend, was also assigned to the project early on to devise the presentation
and staging, as well as participate in the overall creative process. Wolpert
recalled, “We worked close to 14 hours a day to develop the show — me and about
a half dozen other creative executives who were part of the Goodson coterie. We’d
sit around his pool. That sounds grand, but believe me, we were not swimming. We
worked very, very hard while Goodson swam in the pool.” [33-2]
Despite all the progress in revitalizing The Price is Right, Mark Goodson expressed
concern early in the development process. Understanding that the brisk tempo meant
drastic reductions in the time between the reveals of prizes, one product description
would follow another and another, sometimes with only seconds between sponsor
plugs. Goodson felt the audience might lose its patience with endless, sponsored
prize and product plugs; he felt that the entire show might sound like a half-hour
commercial. It became apparent that the casting of the right announcer would be a
crucial consideration.
As planned, Dennis James emceed the syndicated version, but CBS had Bob
Barker in mind to host its daytime show. The forty-eight-year-old veteran broadcaster
gained a national following fronting Truth or Consequences, and he had been
on Bud Grant’s radar for a future opportunity. Barker said, “I know that Bud and I
had a close relationship. He appreciated me.” [33-3] The New Price is Right was the right
vehicle for the gifted ad-libber, and Grant told Goodson that the network strongly
supported Barker as host.
Barker remembered the call from Goodson in which he explained the completely
revamped format. He said, “We’re going to call it The New Price is Right. I want you to
host it. Would you be interested?” Barker joked, “And Mark, incidentally, was always
very generous, but two or three years later, I found out that he had talked with Bud
Grant, who had said, ‘I’ll buy that show for CBS if you get Bob Barker to host it.’ I
didn’t know that when we negotiated. If I had, Mark would have been even more
generous than he was.” [33-4]
After Barker agreed to front the program, he had second thoughts. Grant recalled,
“We were in rehearsals, and I got a call from Bob, asking if he could buy me lunch.
We went to the Brown Derby in Hollywood. After exchanging the usual pleasantries
over coffee, Bob said he didn’t want to do the show. I almost fell off the chair.”
Barker told Grant that from what he had seen, he was concerned that the show
could be better produced, and he offered to do Joker’s Wild or Gambit instead of Price.
Grant remembered telling his lunch partner, “Barker, you will do Price because those
other two shows are good, solid game shows that require a traffic cop to run them,
and you’re not a cop. You have far more talent!” 33-2 Barker reconsidered, and he later
declared it to be the most fortuitous decision in his fifty-year television career.
Barker was locked, and attention then turned to the role of announcer...
Randy
tvrandywest.com
