After 35 seasons, Bob Barker bids game show adieu - Military TV, Television - Military Times

After 35 seasons, Bob Barker bids game show adieu

PASADENA, Calif. — Bob Barker strolls in front of a crowd with effortless efficiency.

He seems easy, breezy and confident. He seems like someone who has been doing this forever.

And he has been doing it most of his life. He’s wrapping up his 35th season of “The Price is Right.” He’s been doing network television for 50 years — and started in radio 60 years ago.

At 83, he’ll be the subject of a prime-time special May 17, then will step down in June. “I want to retire when I’m still young,” he told the Television Critics Association.

Barker knows he’ll get a laugh with that but he also means it. He’ll be young enough to focus on his animal-rights organization, which already takes up his mornings. Animal rights, like game shows, define him to a certain extent.

Physically, Barker credits exercise and good food with his youthful appearance. “I don’t think I would have worked for the past five years were it not for my vegetarian diet.”

And vocationally, Barker credits the most basic step: “One thing at which I excel is listening.”

It’s like the Johnny Carson thing: Sit back and let the guest be the star.

That may be a natural skill for people who come from quiet, contemplative places: Carson came from small-town Nebraska, Barker from Mission, S.D., then a town of 200 people.

He grew up on the Rosebud reservation, where his mom was a teacher.

“We had a one-room schoolhouse,” Barker said. “We got a better education ... I really learned something and all of the rest of the kids did, too.”

He left there after eighth grade, but says Mission was a strong part of his life. “Everybody knew everybody. There was no crime; doors were unlocked. It was a great place to grow up, until the dust storms started.”

Barker later trained as a Navy pilot and married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Jo. World War II ended before he could go overseas; instead, they headed to Drury College (in Springfield, Mo.), where he needed a job.

The local radio station manager was a big airplane buff, he said. So Barker arrived in pilot uniform and talked planes until he got a job, eventually moving to stations in Florida and Los Angeles.

Along the way, he tried an audience-participation show. “When I went home, (Dorothy Jo) said, ‘That’s what you should do.’ ”

He followed that advice. One day, quiz-show boss Ralph Edwards heard Barker on the radio and called him in for auditions. At 12:05 p.m. on Dec. 21, 1956, Barker was hired to host “Truth or Consequences.” Since then, he said, he and Edwards always marked the anniversary of that hiring. “At five minutes past 12 noon, we drank a toast to our long, enduring friendship.”

In 1972, producer Mark Goodson showed him a concept for reviving “The Price is Right.”

“He said, ‘I think we’ll get a long run out of this,’ ” Barker said. “But I don’t think, as brilliant as he was, he was thinking of 35 years or more.”

The original “Price is Right” had a simple concept: People tried to get as close to the correct price as possible, without going over.

The new version only started there. The winner of that game is rushed onstage for other games.

By the end of 2006, a total of 101 games had been devised; 27 had been ditched, but 74 remained.

“I have a very flexible format,” Barker said. “If I have fun with a contestant, I may run the thing over for three minutes, but I’ll make it up.”

And sometimes, guests have fun with him. Barker swears there were three times when strong Samoan women picked him up and swung him around. “I’m never going to Samoa — my feet will never touch the ground.”

The show expanded to an hour in 1975. Along the way, the supporting cast has changed occasionally.

There are the models — “lovely, lovely young ladies” — who are masters of pointing. There are the announcers, Rich Fields now, preceded by Rod Roddy and, originally, Johnny Olsen. “He read beautifully, and he had a great voice,” Barker said of Olsen.

Actually, so does Barker. He talks like a schoolteacher’s son, like a guy who grew up learning grammar and enunciation.

He’ll keep doing that for a while. Following the prime-time special, Barker expects to do his last taping on June 6. New shows will end later that month, reruns will continue until a new person — who is not yet named — takes over in September.

After that, Barker will focus on his animal-rights DJ&T Foundation. “It’s named in memory of my wife, Dorothy Jo, and my mother.”

Projects range from spaying pets to getting zoo elephants to sanctuaries. And Barker can work on them while he’s still young.

On the tube:

— What: “The Price is Right.”

— When: 11 a.m. to noon weekdays.

— Primetime special: “Bob Barker: A Salute to 50 Years on Television,” 8 p.m. May 17.

— Where: CBS.

— Also: Viewers are sending 15-second taped messages to http://www.youtube.com/group/15seconds; some of those will be included in the primetime special.

Did you know?

Bob Baker has been the host of “The Price is Right” since the new version debuted Sept. 4, 1972. The first showcase was $2,307; some winners now pass $100,000.

Mike Hughes, who covers television for Gannett News Service, is reporting from the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena.