Be a winner at the game of life

[austin_dern]

The Christmas Eve showing of The Price Is Right had another round of Pay The Rent. I didn't get around to it until today because, you know, stuff was going on, like I had to go see The Muppets, more on which later on. This one also got me quite riled up because it looked like they'd made an unsolvable puzzle, but, no, it's not that hard. It just looked like it.

The Christmas-themed prizes this time around were: canned yams ($1.89) (well, you can use yams for Christmas food); Tic-Tac breath mints ($1.09); Christmas cards ($4.99); red-stuffing Oreos ($3.79); gift bows ($4.00); and eggnog ($2.49). My eye was fooled by the second-highest price there having nothing it could be paired with to not go over the Christmas card cost. This is a case where the second-most-expensive thing has to go in the base.

The contestant put the tic-tacs at the base, for a $1.09 layer; the yams and bows in the second level, for $5.89 total; the cards and eggnog in the third, for $7.48 total; and wisely ducked out, taking the $10,000 prize, rather than find that a pack of Oreos is only $3.79.

The only winning configuration seems to be the cards at the base ($4.00); yams and eggnog ($4.38); Tic-Tacs and Oreos ($4.88); and cards (4.99). The total range in prices is a tolerable $3.90, but the range in level prices is a scant $0.99. That's getting really vicious.

So far this season the price ranges have been $10.00, $3.70, $3.90, and $3.90. The level ranges have been $4.00, $1.50, $1.30, and now $0.99.

Trivia: President and Mrs Eisenhower often requested that tapes of What's My Line? be flown to them in Augusta, Georgia, when they missed the live broadcast. Source: Fred Allen: His Life And Times, Robert Taylor.

Currently Reading: Technology Review Science Fiction, 2011, Editor Stephen Cass.

PS: Came On Down: I got another statistical quirk out of The Price Is Right.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Eleven cents between the two top levels on best play? This only further my resolve to, if ever trying Pay The Rent, play to get to the third level and stop.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I didn't track what the differences were on earlier games, but, this is so a game designed to be played to $10,000 and out.

Although if they ever do a Million Dollar Prime Time Spectacular again, I know which game's going to be it.