The Faces of TPIR

[Neumms]

I discovered this through a Twitter from Drew Carey, yet the writer is James Lileks from my local Minneapolis paper. He does a bit he calls "The Faces of the Price Is Right," in which he captions stills from early TPIRs, so early they have the orange displays in Contestants' Row.
http://lileks.com/bleat/
There's one installment a couple entries down and another much farther down.

Lileks also shares observations about contestant selections and race--timely here, given the recent thread on Bob the defendant.

[whewfan]

One thing that came to mind, and it may not necessarily have to do with race... how many SAMOAN contestants were on TPIR in Bob's last years? (and I mean ACTUAL Samoans, not people that pick up or injure Bob in the manner of a Samoan)

I think it goes without saying that Bob must've told Stan "no more Samoan contestants" at some point. Personally, I enjoyed it whenever Bob would make a Samoan take an "oath" promising not to pick him up. Then again, I think, especially in the last 5 years Bob hosted TPIR, most contestants had the common sense to know that Bob was a 80+ year old guy and can't take a beating like he could in the 70s and 80s.

I'd like to see a Samoan in the Drew Carey era. I realize that Drew is larger than Bob, and it's funnier to see a woman 10 times Bob's size take on such a thin guy, but Samoans were part of what made TPIR so great.

[DrBear]

I can see the CBS promos now:
"The Price is Right - now with More Samoans!"
---
Lileks has one of the longest running blogs around; he was blogging before blogs were called blogs. Happily, he's moved the heavy political comment to another blog, and I can do without the Home Depot recitations, but I love his bringing the past to light with a solid ribbing.

[LetsGoMets2003]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' post=\'220267\' date=\'Jul 15 2009, 10:58 PM\']I can see the CBS promos now:
"The Price is Right - now with More Samoans!"[/quote]

Oh, you said Samoans, I thought you meant these were going to be on the show. Then again, I would like to see Drew picked up by these guys more often. (Audience Groans!)

[pentellit]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' post=\'220267\' date=\'Jul 15 2009, 07:58 PM\']I can see the CBS promos now:
"The Price is Right - now with More Samoans!"[/quote]
I actually did LOL.  Good one, thanks!