If I grow up a singer wearing rings on every finger

[austin_dern]

Friday gave us another round of Pay The Rent over on The Price Is Right, which works out well since I didn't feel like writing anything interesting today. The prizes this time around was a bundle of those plastic containers you can reuse or just throw out ($3.49), a pack of taco seasoning ($0.89), some bankrupt mini-doughnuts (powdered, $3.99), RC Cola (still existing, technically, $1.79), a flea and tick collar (pet, $5.19), and dishwashing liquid ($2.09).

The contestant's pick for the base level was the taco seasoning despite Drew Carey's hint that the cheapest item did not necessarily go on the bottom ($0.89); the plastic containers and the soda on the second ($5.28); and she bailed out there with a sure $5,000 won rather than see what came next. As she'd put the mini-doughnuts and dishwashing liquid on the next level ($6.08) she could've got the $10,000; and while the collar was correctly placed on top ($5.19) she wouldn't have got the $100,000 anyway, as who ever does?

Best I can tell there's just one winning arrangement: plastic containers on the bottom ($3.49); soda and dishwashing liquid on the next ($3.88); taco seasoning and mini-doughnuts on the next ($4.88); and the collar on top ($5.19).

The range in item prices this time was $4.30. The season ranges have been $10.00, $3.70, $3.90, $3.90, $6.14, and now $4.30.

The range in level prices was $1.70. The season ranges have been $4.00, $1.50, $1.30, $0.99, $2.00, and now $1.70.

Trivia: When it sold its 35 percent interest in Disneyland in 1960, the American Broadcasting Company realized profits of seven and a half million dollars. Source: Inside ABC: American Broadcasting Company's Rise To Power, Sterling Quinlan. [ Technically, it was known as American Broadcasting-Paramount Theaters at the time. ] [ Also, ooooooh, over seven million dollars! Can you imagine! ] [ The previous bracketed expression should be read as by Frank Nelson. ]

Currently Reading: A People's History Of World War II, Editor Marc Favreau. (Oral histories, several of them taken from Studs Turkel.)

PS: Significance Intrudes on Contestants Row, the first of an attempt at writing shorter pieces as a result of some feedback which amounted to, ``I finally understand what you're talking about but you go on so long''.

Comments

[moxie_man]

Take inflation into account and that $7 million would be about $50 million today. Then again, Disney now OWNS ABC, so, yeah, probably a bad decision back then.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Of course, One wonders if ABC would've somehow managed to screw up Disneyland with various demands to watch out for their money and let's make these changes and such; but yes, it seems a poor decision.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It probably would have changed both corporate histories unrecognizably, but mostly as a side effect of the conglomerate boom of the 60s serving as a way for both to get into things they might not really be up for. I'm not clear on how much oversight ABC had of Disneyland at the time, though, and it's not as though Disney and ABC weren't tied together in programming pretty tightly for decades anyway.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was a more impressive amount of money, and compared to overall corporation values it's an even more impressive amount. But it's still amusing to look back at sums that seemed amazingly large back then. One hates to make Austin Powers jokes, but, this is an Austin Powers joke.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

RC wasn't hard to come by around here last I was paying attention. I quite like it.

I miss the days when Michigan's Adventure was actually an RC park, before they were bought by Cedar Fair and thus became a Pepsi park (ugh).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I was actually surprised to learn RC Cola is kind-of sort-of part of the Dr Pepper Snapple corporate overlordship.