TPiR question...

[Kevin Prather]

How long has the audience been helping contestants by shouting out answers? Did they do this on the first show in 1972? On the Bill Cullen show?

[NickintheATL]

Even on the Cullen shows, the audience would frequently shout out "HIGHER!  HIGHER!!!!", and it didn't take long on the Barker version for people to start shouting out answers, I think in it's earliest months people were shouting help, but it became a norm by the time the show turned a year old in '73.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'NicholasM79\' date=\'Dec 28 2004, 04:22 PM\']Even on the Cullen shows, the audience would frequently shout out "HIGHER!  HIGHER!!!!", and it didn't take long on the Barker version for people to start shouting out answers, I think in it's earliest months people were shouting help, but it became a norm by the time the show turned a year old in '73.

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[/quote]

And "FREEZE!  FREEZE!"--don't forget that.

Back then, the screaming audience (and the plugs--and the screaming contestants) was one of the reasons critics liked to pick out "TPIR" as proof of the decline and fall of Western culture.  If they only knew...