Bob Barker
December 12, 1923 - August 26, 2023
Aged 99
Bob Barker was an American television personality, famous as a daytime game show host. He hosted more than one TV show in his career, but he is overwhelmingly remembered for The Price is Right, which I used to watch as a child in the 1970s. As a youngster I liked it because it was a game I could easily play along with. Contestants onstage competed with each other to guess the correct retail price of various consumer goods until, in the end, the final victor would win the big “Showcase” prize. Even at the time, I wondered how contestants would cart home all the junk they won. Maybe after the show was over the producers gave them the option of taking the prizes back home or selling them back to the studio for cash.
As the host of the show, Barker became so famous that he was considered iconic, and he could play himself in cameo appearances in movies as a spoof.
The show evolved over time, but I remember it with the 1970s groovy font (called “PriceDown Black” font) seen in this black-and-white picture.