The Price Is Right (partially found Australian adaptation of Mark Goodson game show; 1973-1974)

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The Price is Right Australia 1973.png

Screenshot of the show's title card.

Status: Partially Found

The Price Is Right is an American game show that was created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman that premiered on CBS on September 4th, 1972, and is loosely based on another game show of the same name that was created by Bob Stewart in 1956. The show was hosted by Bob Barker who was known for hosting Truth Or Consequences until his retirement in June 2007 and has been hosted by comedian Drew Carey ever since with various announcers coming and going since the show's debut. The show centers around contestants (picked out of the studio audience) identifying the exact pricing of merchandise to win cash and prizes. The show became a rating success for CBS with the show still airing as of the writing of this article with over 9,000 episodes being produced since its premiere. With the show's success, a large number of international versions were produced in countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico and Australia.

Format

The show in Australia had a different format than other versions of the show. While picking contestants out of the audience and contestants' row and playing various pricing games were kept in, the showcase would be played differently. Australia's showcase round would be split into two parts, the first part would be taken from a short-lived pricing game from the American version called "Double Bullseye". Where two contestants are given a price range of which the showcase total is within and contestants go back and forth on guessing the exact total was. The first part ends when one of the contestants guesses the exact total. The second part of the round would be the winning contestant's job to organize the prizes shown in the showcase from least expensive to most expensive. If all seven prizes are in the correct order, they win the showcase, if they get at least one prize in the wrong spot, the game ends and they don't win the showcase. This version of the show also had returning champions, something neither the American version nor any international version of the show had and still have yet to do.

Broadcast

The show's host Garry Meadows.

The Australian version first premiered on February 5th, 1973, [1] (just six months after the American version debuted) on Network Ten in the daytime with a primetime version airing two months later. This version would be produced by Reg Grundy, a producer who would be known for producing international versions of American game shows until 1995 and would be hosted by Garry Meadows[2] who was known for hosting other international versions of American game shows like Let's Make A Deal, The Newlywed Game (known as The Marriage game in Australia)[3] and High Rollers[4]. The set and logo for the show would be very identical to the American set as it would become a trademark of many Reg Grundy productions. While the show was a rating success for Network Ten, it ended on December 13th, 1974, just 23 months after it premiered and three months after its primetime version ended[5]. The show would be revived a few times in the years since in 1981, 1989, 1993, 2003 and 2012. No version of the show in Australia has been produced since.

Availability

Other information on the show's run from the 1970's run is very scarce as only photos from that run have surfaced[6]. Episodes from the show's later incarnations in Australia are widely available, but episodes from the 1970's run are very hard to come by. Outside of the mentioned photos from the 1970's run, clips from the 1970's run have surfaced in a news report on Australia's game shows. On August 21, 2018, Lee Meadows (the son of Garry Meadows) uploaded the first 9 minutes of an episode. The footage looks to be from a studio master of the episode as a production slate is seen at the beginning. The airdate isn't even seen on the slate making the airdate of the episode unknown. Seeing how the show aired during the time that tape wiping was a common practice and footage from the show keeps popping up in various places, it's very likely episodes from the show still exist, although the amount of episodes that do exist is unknown as the total amount of episodes that aired from 1973 to 1974 is unknown.

Gallery

Video

Report on Australia's game shows, Australian Price clips at 0:21 & 5:18.

First 9 minutes of an episode.

Photos

See Also

Pilots

Television

Miscellaneous

References