Bill Cullen
Read two Variety reviews
of The Price Is Right. The top icon links to a 1956 review
of the original daytime series. The bottom icon links to a review
from September 23, 1963 of the first ABC nighttime show.
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In 1964, Bill gave away an island
in the Thousand Islands chain in the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is still
called Price Is Right Island today.
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The most unusual contestant
ever? Probably Barney Rubble. On an episode of The Flintstones
entitled Divided We Sail (originally seen April 6, 1962), Barney
wins a houseboat (while pretending to be Fred) as a contestant on The
Prize Is Priced. The couples decide to share the boat, and stone-age
animated hilarity ensues.
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In perhaps the ultimate indication
of the show's place in popular culture, The Price Is Right was the
subject of a December, 1959 spoof in Mad Magazine.
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When the nighttime version began
offering Showcases, prize packages that home viewers could compete to win,
audience response created an avalanche of more than three and a half million
cards and letters a week. An independent firm had to be hired just
to take care of the incoming mail.
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Players bid on merchandise,
trying to come closest to the actual retail price without going over.
The Price Is Right was the
most popular and successful show that Bill hosted. He was as identified
with The Price Is Right at the time as Bob Barker is today. (This
as he continued to sit on the panel of the popular I've
Got A Secret.) For two seasons (1959-60 and 1960-61) it was
ranked eighth in the Nielsen ratings, and in those years it was, by far,
the most watched game show on television. 
Much sport was made in the popular
press about the unusual prizes offered to The Price Is Right contestants,
and what the contestants eventually did with them. A Texas farmer
once got an elephant as a bonus prize when he was the winning bidder on
a grand piano. Producer Bob Stewart intended it as a joke (the elephant
was to supply extra ivory) and planned on giving the contestant a hefty
$4,000 cash equivalent instead. Turned out the guy wanted the pachyderm
anyway, and Stewart was forced to fly one in from Kenya.
 Among
the other off-beat prizes offered on the show over the years: A 16-foot
Ferris wheel, a chauffeur driven 1928 Rolls-Royce, a Pacific island, and
a live peacock to go along with a color TV (while the show was on NBC,
of course). The program gave away stock in companies, bit parts on
TV shows, absurd amounts of food (100 pounds of Swiss cheese, a mile of
hot dogs), anything the fertile imagination of Mr. Stewart could envision.
In late 1971, after finding success
with What's My Line? and To Tell The Truth in syndication,
Goodson and Todman were reportedly talking to Bill about hosting a new
version of The Price Is Right. It's possible that the physical
demands of the more elaborate show were too much for Bill, or it's also
possible that a decision to tape the show in Los Angeles took him out of
the running. Whatever the reason, the syndicated version ended up
being hosted that fall by Dennis James instead. A CBS daytime
version arrived at the same time hosted by Bob Barker. It's been
on the air ever since.
VIDEO
Dozens of prime-time episodes exist,
as well as a handful of daytime episodes. Most of the surviving episodes
have been seen on GSN: The Network for Games.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
There are many pages dedicated to
the modern version of TPIR hosted by Bob Barker. Many of the
significant ones can be found in The
Game Show Compendium. The sites below have at least a little
more than a passing mention of Bill's original version.
Don Smith's The
(Original) Price Is Right
Ranger Ian's The
Price Is Right Page
The Price Is Right page at
Tim's
TV Showcase
The Price Is Right page at
Adam C. Nedeff's Bill
Cullen's World
Steve Beverly wrote a tribute to
Bills' original series for his TVGameshows.net
Home game information at The
Game Show Home Game Home Page
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