* Bob Barker should have taken his victory lap in 2001-02 then left after Price's 30th season - and I will forever believe the main reason he stuck around (besides cash) those last few years was because his ego demanded he first first keep going into his 80s (2003), then get the "50 years on TV" thing by sticking around to December 2006. It's not a coincidence that latter one is when he retired. Many of his episodes from the last ~five years are just genuinely bad. The degree to which I hate Rich Fields as an announcer has some bearing in that as does the stuff that went down with Janice, Kathleen, and Paul Alter, but honestly? After around season 30 Bob just isn't able to be consistently 'on' in host mode anymore and until the adulation comes in for his retirement year he's just a crochety cantankerous old asshole who can't host a fraction as well as he used to and has run out of patience or the ability to improvise as well when things go sideways.
* Related: Firing Roger Dobkowitz is the single best production decision that The Price is Right has made since 1972, even if it took a couple of years to get to the good part in the aftermath. The calcification of that show into the fixed form it held from the late 80s into the first year of Drew's run rests largely upon Roger when it isn't Barker, and the show is orders of magnitude better since the early 2010s than it was at any point since the 80s. (The host's also a way better person which helps, but the producer changes had a massive amount to do with why Price with Drew is good).
Recently I watched an episode from the early-90s and realized the show didn't really need the youthful boost it got from Bob's cameo in
Happy Gilmore. There was still a very palpable energy between 1992-96 that was only rivaled by what Arsenio Hall put out every night. And honestly, the college-age crowd did not gel with the cruise control mode the show entered around 2001. Say what you will about the goofy "Fried Chicken!" showcase, but it was way more tolerable than the "Things associated with the word ___" showcases that they ran into the ground. And don't even get me started on the "Historic moments". The last six or seven years became more and more of
The Bob Barker Show that just happened to give away cars, trips, and hot tubs, and was comfort food that simply existed, similar to
Wheel up until last year.
Oh and another hot take: Ted Slauson gave me the creeps in
Perfect Bid. I couldn't care less about him going Rain Man with the prices and whether or not it was legal. The dude was just strange.
