Priceless Memories - Bob Barker [22]
The college student interest started years ago, when a group or two showed up, and I thought, “This is good,” so I introduced them. I asked them what school they were from and what fraternity or dorm. I told them thanks for making the trip and that we were glad to have them in our audience, and it caught on. Kids said that they scheduled their classes around The Price Is Right, and they watched the show on their dorm television or in recreation rooms with big crowds.
The college students were wonderful audience members and excellent contestants. They brought so much energy to the show. Many of them had been watching the show since they were very young. They knew the games, they asked great questions, and they loved the show. The University of California at Santa Barbara undoubtedly had more kids at our show over the years than any other group. They came down to see us so often I joked with them that there were kids at UCSB who were majoring in The Price Is Right. All of the college students knew the show well, and they knew me. They truly warmed my heart.
Sometimes I asked the college students what they were studying, and they might say something like communications.
I’d ask, “What do you want to do?”
And some of them said, “I want to do what you do. I’d like to be an emcee.”
“Oh, really,” I’d say. “Well, here’s a microphone.” I asked them to describe for everyone what we’re doing, and then I’d let them take the mike. Some of them were remarkably good. Others should change their major.
• • •
On The Price Is Right, you had to be eighteen years old to be in the audience, but on Truth or Consequences, we had children on the show. Little kids can be marvelous contestants. Art Linkletter had a lot of success working with children. He even wrote a book called Kids Say the Darndest Things, and they do. If he will talk, a child is going to get laughs. If a little girl or little boy will talk in a natural way with you and you can’t get laughs with him or her, you’re in the wrong business.
I frequently had three or four children on Truth. If you say to the first kid, “What do you like best of all to eat?” and he says, “I don’t know,” get away from him. He is going to answer “I don’t know” to almost anything you ask, and he can ruin all the other kids. If they find out they can cop out by saying “I don’t know,” they will do it. If you ask him, “Who controls the money in your family, your mother or your father?” and he says, “My mother does,” then you go on with him, you have a place to go. If he says, “I don’t know,” go on to the next kid until you find one who talks.
Kids can surprise you. One time I selected a young mother and her five-year-old son from the audience. Backstage, they were separated long enough for the mother to come onstage, where I explained that I was going to give her a chance to win some money. How much would depend upon her son. I told her that I was going to ask her son how much she had paid for various items of his clothing, and we would give her whatever he said. I gleefully told our audience that our writers, who had sons, had predicted that she would be lucky to win a dollar and thirty-five cents. Then I asked to have our five-year-old guest join us. Out he bounded. I had chosen him from the audience because of his confident, cheerful, outgoing personality—and he didn’t disappoint me. He was all smiles, waving to the audience and admiring himself on the monitor.
I knelt down beside him and managed to get his attention. I told him I had some questions to ask him.
“OK,” he answered.
“How much did your mother pay for that jacket you’re wearing?” I asked.
“One thousand dollars,” he shouted.
The audience exploded into laughter. And they didn’t stop. It was one of our biggest laughs ever.
His mother