User:Daniel Benfield/Price Is Right Half-Hour Daytime Video Archive

CBS Daytime: September 4, 1972 - September 5, 1975, with occasional shows between then and February 22, 1994

Not many seem to know this nowadays, but following its 1972 return The Price Is Right was a half-hour show for the first three years. Given how many episodes GSN aired from this period, combined with the plethora of master copies that escaped from the vaults some years ago, this...well, it's a massive undertaking, let's be honest here.

Big thanks to Golden-Road.net and The Price Is Right Summaries for much of the info below. Note that the airdates shown are per the episode numbers; any reschedulings done by CBS are noted.

Season 1 (1972-73)
September 4, 1972 - September 21, 1973

The beginning, called The New Price Is Right through June 12 (25, counting repeats and reschedulings), with the shortened name debuting on the 28th.

The New Price Is Right 1972
 * September 4, 1972 (#0101-1/0011D {PREMIERE!}: Any Number, Bonus Game, Double Prices {taped 8/19/72, with slate}, with the infamous first Item Up For Bids that doomed this to never seeing the light of repeats; has commercials and perfect quality! {alternate copy, first ten seconds or so missing, average quality)

1973
 * May 8, 1973 (#0362D: Hi-Lo, DOUBLE DIGITS {4th playing}, Range Game {taped 4/1/73}; taped from GSN)

The Price Is Right
 * July 13, 1973 (#0455D: Five Price Tags, Hi-Lo, Clock Game {taped 6/17/73, with slate})
 * September 19, 1973 (#0553D: Money Game, Give or Keep, Range Game {taped 8/19/73}; taped from GSN)

Season 2 (1973-74)
September 24, 1973 - August 29, 1974

The show continued on its way, introducing a few more games – some would stick around for the long haul (Race Game, Shell Game), while others didn't (Mystery Price).

1973
 * September 26, 1973 (#0563D: Mystery Price {debut!}, Any Number, Clock Game {taped 8/20/73, aired 11/29}; taped from GSN, Mystery Price playing only)

1974
 * August 15, 1974 (#1024D: Hi-Lo, Money Game, Double Prices {taped 8/5/74, with slate}, with a rather negative contestant)

Season 3 (1974-75)
September 2, 1974 - August 29, 1975

The season where things began to truly fall into place, with some color changes to the set and games that were relatively minor...until August 19, at which point the show debuted not only the look that would keep them going for the long haul, but one of its most popular games.

1974
 * October 21, 1974 (#1121D: Any Number, Hi-Lo, Race Game {taped 9/74}; taped from GSN)

1975
 * August 28, 1975 (#1564D: Five Price Tags, Range Game, Race Game {taped 8/75}; long third One-Bid round!; taped from GSN)

Post-Season 3
It was after Season 3 that the show began to see its one big change: for the second week of Season 4, Price experimented with an hour-long version with a Showcase Showdown added after the third and sixth games; the staff didn't think this would work (indeed, the slate for the first episode has someone holding up a sign reading "Welcome aboard the Titanic. Enjoy the trip!")...but it did, and after another seven weeks of half-hour shows Price permanently expanded to an hour on November 3.

The exception was now the rule, with the former rule being an exception used only 16 times between Seasons 4-7, and then only to accommodate CBS' monthly Magazine series; after that, the half-hour format essentially became a special, done every other year between 1984-94 in an hour block with the Pillsbury Bake-Off.

Note that this doesn't count the 25th-Anniversary Special (1996) and "A Celebration of Bob Barker’s 50 Years in Television" (2007), as each were an hour long with a whole bunch of clips.


 * February 21, 1984 (#5212D: Money Game, Cliff Hangers, Clock Game)
 * February 16, 1988 (#6762D: Give or Keep, Lucky $even, Danger Price; reception issues, "ghosts" in picture)
 * February 20, 1990 (#7552D: Lucky $even, Punch-A-Bunch, 1 Right Price)
 * February 25, 1992 (#8322D: Lucky $even, Cliff Hangers, Pick-A-Number {for a car!})
 * February 22, 1994 (#9092D: Lucky $even, Plinko, 2 For the Price of 1; Rod messes up the open!)