Any place can be a soda fountain now

[austin_dern]

I've been warm to Drew Carey as the new host of The Price is Right from his debut, and I think a bit on Friday's show has really sealed the deal. Yvonne won the one-bid and got really most excited, and she began to quiver. Carey started out by playing along when he held her hand, and shaking too, but she didn't steady herself after that. Carey asked, ``Have you ever heard of YouTube?'' and she stammered out that she hadn't. ``You're gonna hear about YouTube in a week or two.'' She won the game (Cliffhangers), although she lost the Showcase Showdown to a person who'd spun a dollar, which is just as well as I don't know if she could have survived the Showcase. On spinning the wheel she wasn't any less nervous, and in the ``would you like to say hi to anyone'' part she was only barely able to say ``Hi ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Drew.''

And to prove this wasn't just a fluke but was a deeply weird show, the next contestant won Check Game. Those who don't watch the show probably don't understand how weird that is. Check Game is, in theory, simple: they show a prize, and the contestant has to write the amount of a check. If the total of the prize's cost plus the check's amount is between five and six thousand dollars, the contestant wins both. For no clear reason, no contestant ever knows how to play this game, usually writing all over the giant check wrong. This one tried to write on the lighted-dot blank for the revealed prices. And yet, a win. Weird.

On top of that, come Money Game -- that's the one where they put up nine two-digit numbers, and you have to find the pair which are the first two and the last two digits in the price of the car -- was lost (four wrong picks, so the guy had to go home with the sum of his four guesses in dollars) for the first time since about 1986. And since the universe loves these things, the guy who lost was a wholesale car buyer. Weird show all around.

Trivia: Saint Louis, Missouri, had six competing railroad times for its 14 railroads before the adoption of standard time in 1883. Source: Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of railroad Standard Time, Clark Blaise.

Currently Reading: Attack from Atlantis, Lester Del Rey.

Comments

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, no, nobody's going to fill the same spot that Bob Barker did. But Drew Carey's doing a fine job hosting the show and keeping it fun and cheerful.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

I guess his hand is healed by now.. ouch!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes, he seems to be in good shape that way.

[patchoblack.livejournal.com]

Go to the store and get (HEY!) Great Shakes!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, that's the one.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

That was the first episode of the Drew Carey The Price Is Right I've seen, and watching it with another person, we both agreed that he was in fine form. I'm sold on him as the right choice now, especially after Yvonne.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The only thing I've got serious reservations on is he has a habit of a couple dismissive cracks toward the models -- ``this is the hardest thing about being a model'' when they're switching the prices on Switch? from one stand to another. It's bad form to seem to pick on less important people.