Priceless Memories - Bob Barker [20]
To me, the real joy of the show was to watch people reveal themselves and to watch the excitement and humor unfold. It was always fresh because it was always about the interaction with everyday people and the hilarious and heartfelt moments that would occur. That humanity, that humor that everyone has somewhere inside, that is what people were bringing to our show and that is what our show was bringing into living rooms around the country. It was fun to give prizes to people, of course, but the real joy, the real reward of the show, was always the contestants themselves and their personalities, dramas, and stories. You never knew what you were going to find. It was always like mining for gold. I searched for that nugget, that person with whom I could enjoy a really good time. Over the course of thirty-five years with The Price Is Right, I was fortunate enough to be in the middle of all that humor, warmth, excitement, and laughter. I found plenty of nuggets, and if you add them all up, I might even go as far as to say, I hit the mother lode.
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Contestants and Celebrities I’ve Met
While I always loved the contestants on The Price Is Right, I have to say that I took my fair share of physical punishment from them over the years. I’ve been stepped on, kicked, pinched, squeezed, bear-hugged, and manhandled by all kinds of excited contestants and prizewinners. There were plenty of kisses to be sure, but I also remember many black-and-blue moments. There is no way to prepare or to defend yourself from contestants gone wild.
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I remember the painful time I broke a couple of toes. I was limping all over the set of Price, and the staff all thought it was funny—everybody thinks broken toes are funny, except people who have broken their toes. When it happened, I was walking barefoot at my house, and I hooked my little toe on a piece of furniture, really banged it hard, and broke the toe. I went to the doctor, but there isn’t much the medical profession can do for a broken toe, so he just taped it up.
A few weeks later, when it was finally healing, I was at home, adjusting the clock in the breakfast room. The clock fell off the wall and broke another toe on the same foot with the first broken toe. I couldn’t believe it. I called the doctor, and I said, “I’ve just broken another toe.”
He kept telling me that I couldn’t have broken another toe. He said, “How sure are you that it is broken?”
I said, “It’s pointing in a direction at a right angle to my foot. It’s broken. There’s no doubt about it.”
He told me to go over to the hospital emergency room, and they just did what he did the last time. They put it back in place, taped it up, and sent me on my way.
I got back to the studio to do The Price Is Right with one just-healed broken toe and one newly broken toe. One of the first contestants was a woman who looked like trouble as she came up the stairs to the stage. I mean, she was excited beyond reason. She was coming up those stairs like a charging animal. I’m thinking to myself, “How much pain can I stand?” The contestants always stood on my right, and I said to each one, especially this lady: “Please be careful. I have not one, but two broken toes on my right foot.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hurt you, Bob,” she said. “I would never hurt you.”
She won a car, and then she went crazy, jumping all over the stage, and, of course, she stomped on my toe. Pain. Instant agony. But Indians