The Price [Will Be Just Fine]
This is part two of a two-part perspective post.  Cory played “Price is Right fan” below.  I will be playing “heartless apathetic bastard”.

Let’s get the news part out of the way before we dig into this more.  Long time producer of Price is Right, Roger Dobkowitz, was let go by Fremantle earlier this week.  It’s a shame because he was a long time member of the staff from the show’s start, a person who kept the show in check and made sure it stayed true to its retro roots (whether this be good or bad you decide), and, according to people talked to him, an all around great guy.  We obviously wish him the best.

All of this comes with the news that Fremantle wishes to take the show in a “new direction”.  A “new direction” that people don’t know about and are already freaking the hell out about.  A good deal of this comes from an absolutely terrible job of a popular Price fan site.  Instead of calmly tell everyone the current situation and explaining what may happen, what the staff chose to do, to inform people of the situation, was tell people “Run away!  We’re all going to die!” and suddenly shut things down out of emotion.  It lead to a level of game show hysteria I’ve never seen before.  It’s not exaggeration; read some of the message boards.  You could even read my inbox which was literally flooded with emails of people complaining that I wasn’t investigating this situation well on July 4th.  Instead of remembering all the great work Roger has done for the show and how much he’s meant to the game show community, people completely flipped out over rumors.

 

I don’t see how this was a good day for any party involved.  I better place some blame on Fremantle where it’s deserved.  We just went through a pretty big on the show which went a lot better than I could have expected.  A majority of people who are complaining about new host Drew Carey, it seems, did it because he wasn’t their savior Bob Barker.  Basically telling people that stuff will again be changing again, and this time a more drastic change, directly after something quite a few people are finding it tough to embrace could have come at a better time.

The other half of the blame goes on the enthusiastic online fans of Price.  It was seriously like the world ended to them.  When you read about people literally in tears or close to tears (no joke) about a producer on a game show, it makes you really question the priorities of people.  Questioning of priorities also came from the fact that we got an ungodly amount of emails angry at us for not publishing a story about this on July 4th.  Were people that distraught over a game show that it couldn’t wait a day or two? I mean there are some people who have a close relationship to Roger and were upset, and I can understand that.  The people who were just fans of the show and were in tears over this news shock me a bit.  They are more enthusiastic over a game show than I could ever imagine.

I really don’t know what to think.  I’m cautious about the proposed changes.  Mainly because no one knows what’s going on.  But a vast majority of people decided to lose their shit because the situation was handled poorly.  I think the important thing to realize is that it’s just a game show, no one completely knows what’s going on, and there’s no reason to go crazy over rumors and predictions.  You may end up liking changes that allow the show to breathe more and be a bit more goofy and free unlike the breakneck little time for fun extravaganza that happens now.  Drew’s best skill is the ability to joke around and have fun with the contestants.  If they can allow him to do this more to a certain extent without completely morphing the show, I’m all for it.  I’m not a big fan of the show in general; I’m more of an average fan who watches a few times a month; so if they can do anything to draw me in more, I’m cautiously optimistic to see how it goes.