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R.I.P. Bob Barker, ''The Price is Right'' and ''Truth or Consequences'' host and animals rights activist
He guest-starred on Bonanza, advocated for spaying and neutering pets, and refused to host a beauty pageant due to their use of fur. The long-time game show host was 99.
Bob Barker, known for hosting the game shows The Price is Right and Truth or Consequences, has passed away.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, after a decade on the radio, Barker was named host of the nationally televised Truth or Consequences in December 1956 and stayed with that program through 1975.
In his career, Barker garnered 15 Emmy awards. He was presented a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 and was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame five years later.
Barker generated buzz when he refused to dye his hair in 1987 due to the animal products used in hair dyes, The same year, he declined to go on as host of the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants after learning about the contestants wearing animals skins.
You may know his animal activism more from his famous closing line on each episode of The Price is Right, which he hosted from 1972 to 2007, "have your pets spayed or neutered."
Barker trained as a Navy fighter pilot during World War II, though he did not serve on active duty. He found his true calling as a host when during his tenure at a radio station, one staffer failed to show up at the last minute and he did his first audience-participation show. It was an instant spark.
At 32 years old, Barker got an audition for Truth or Consequences. The show went on to become the No. 1 show on daytime television and then went on five times a week in syndication.
In 1998, upon the taping of the 5,000th episode of The Price Is Right, CBS dedicated Stage 33 at CBS Television City as the Bob Barker Studio.
Barker had a good sense of humor and could poke fun at himself, and found a brand new generation of fans when he appeared on the Adam Sandler movie Happy Gilmore, playing himself — and beating up Adam Sandler during a celebrity golf tournament. (At one point, Sandler yells "The price is wrong!" after slugging Barker... which Barker more than returns.) “Nobody had heard of Adam Sandler until I beat him up,” Barker teased. He and Sandler won the 1996 MTV Award for best fight.
Though Barker is known for his game show roles and activism, he did appear on a handful of other TV shows, including Futurama, How I Met Your Mother, and Bonanza where he guest-starred in 1960.
Barker was 99 when he passed.
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The other was at the end of the show and Bob was up in the "cheap seats", showing the world two rows of empty seats (the people who sat there were part of a reunion). He talked for a bit, then held up a full baby bottle and said "This is all that's left".
Come on UP!
Two male contestants were brought up on stage to put on woman's garments over their own clothes from suitcases as fast as they could within 60 seconds. This was the show's regular warm-up gag.
I always wished I could locate tapes of those shows to see if I could spot my buddy and I in the audience as the camera panned over the laughing crowd...
Does anyone remember Beulah the chimp? She was taught to blow a buzzer-like toy when a player failed their task. She was eventually replaced with an electronic buzzer (they still calleded it "Beulah")...
As an adult, I'm suspecting that Beulah the chimp was named after the radio/TV character of Beulah, and if this was so, it was one of those "culturally inappropriate" moments we'd all like to forget... but I can't prove or disprove my theory...
R.I.P. Bob Barker - and thanks for many years of great entertainment...
Oh, speaking of "Truth or Consequences"... My truth was I thought I'd picked up a cold from a worker at my favorite restaurant... The consequence is that it was COVID! Fortunately, all of my shots and boosters have kept this down to a cold-like illness and I'm getting pretty bored self-isolating... but I thank God it hadn't been worse!
My only regret is that my long streak of careful behavior was broken (I have both a pacemaker and respiratory allergies)... I had to take my mask off to eat... The worker had been coughing a bit but told me he was getting over a cold. I didn't think too much of it because I'd figured he wouldn't have come in unless he was past being contagious. I was wrong. He didn't know he had more than a cold, because so many COVID variants are going around now...
The other evening, just of of curiosity I'd tested myself.... Positive! I tested again to make sure I didn't do things wrong... same result... One more test a day later... no different... Although it's now been a week and I can go out with a mask on, I'll just wait another couple of days and hope that when I re-test by the end of the week the result will be negative...
