Sunday Salon: Come on Down!

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Currently reading: Stan Bilts, Come on Down!: Behind the Big Doors at The Price is Right

Pages read: 18
Time spent reading: 29 minutes

Comments: I'm coming late to the party today because I was feeling dizzy and a little nauseated earlier and so not up to reading, but it seems to have passed. So, I decided on a light read and grabbed Stan Bilts' book about The Price is Right. Bilts has worked on the show for 28 years. He's the show's music director as well as a writer and contestant coordinator. The Price is Right, meanwhile, is the longest running network game show in history. It debuted in 1972, on the same day, we're told, that Joker's Wild and Gambit debuted. There was an earlier incarnation of the show too, hosted by Bill Cullen, but I don't think I remember at all.

There is a very brief--one paragraph--foreword contributed by Bob Barker, and an introduction in which Bilts discusses his role on the show. Then in chapter one he provides some introductory information: how The Price is Right differed from other game shows, how the week's shows are planned and scored, the nightmarish number of details that have to be seen to when it comes to the display and discussion of prizes. It's not a very detailed account, but it's an okay introduction. It never occurred to me, for example, that all those prizes had to be stored somewhere, and moved around on the set and placed properly so as not to block one another and displayed according to the advertiser's instructions and so on.

Come on Down! is glossy and amply illustrated, so it may qualify as a coffee table book. But as I understand it coffee table books aren't realy read. This one's an okay read so far. Bilts can be corny but he's also sometimes funny. And it's a timely read given the recent transition to the Carey era of hosting on The Price is Right. I haven't watched the show in years myself, since childhood. But I remember enough to be curious about the detailed workings behind it. Still, regular fans of the show will probably get more from it.

Tags: The Sunday Salon