End of an Era: The Last Season of The Price is Right
It is the end of a television era:
Yesterday, game show legend --- game show psycho, if you believe ol' Triumph -- Bob Barker announced that he will tape his last episode of The Price is Right next June. When this 82-year-old icon, one of the most beloved TV personalities of our time, signs off for the last time next year, this CBS stalwart, network television's last surviving daytime game show, will go with him after some 36 seasons and over 5000 episodes.
In a storied career that has seen him serve as host since Day One in 1972, and most recently, as the series' Executive Producer, Bob Barker has become, like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope before him, an American institution. Sadly, these days, one would not recognize Mark Goodson's flagship production, presently owned and controlled by the Bertelsmann empire, under its Fremantle Media North America banner. I don't even think the late Mark Goodson would himself recognize The Price is Right. But perhaps that's just as well. Many of you probably don't know this, but only your humble Dragonmaster will ever say this to you about Mark Goodson: Throughout his long and storied career, from his partnership with the late Bill Todman to his last years as sole producer, the man never credited himself as Executive Producer on any of his productions. It seems to me, I suppose, that, like Irving Thalberg, Hollywood's boy wunderkind of the early 1930s, Mark Goodson was of the notion that, in Thalberg's own words, "Credit you give yourself is not worth having."
Happily, there are a good many others, your Dragonmaster among them, who disagree with that, which is why we'd like to offer a toast:
Thanks for the memories, Bob. Yeah, sure, you annoy us with that damn pet-spay-or-neuter thing. But it's a good annoyance, one which, ultimately, we're never gonna forget no matter what we do. I know ol' Poopstar won't.
As always, America, ol' Blackwolf wants your opinion on this. Gimme an e-mail at either electric_pirates@hotmail.com or blackbeardian@yahoo.com.
Master Blackwolf
Yesterday, game show legend --- game show psycho, if you believe ol' Triumph -- Bob Barker announced that he will tape his last episode of The Price is Right next June. When this 82-year-old icon, one of the most beloved TV personalities of our time, signs off for the last time next year, this CBS stalwart, network television's last surviving daytime game show, will go with him after some 36 seasons and over 5000 episodes.
In a storied career that has seen him serve as host since Day One in 1972, and most recently, as the series' Executive Producer, Bob Barker has become, like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope before him, an American institution. Sadly, these days, one would not recognize Mark Goodson's flagship production, presently owned and controlled by the Bertelsmann empire, under its Fremantle Media North America banner. I don't even think the late Mark Goodson would himself recognize The Price is Right. But perhaps that's just as well. Many of you probably don't know this, but only your humble Dragonmaster will ever say this to you about Mark Goodson: Throughout his long and storied career, from his partnership with the late Bill Todman to his last years as sole producer, the man never credited himself as Executive Producer on any of his productions. It seems to me, I suppose, that, like Irving Thalberg, Hollywood's boy wunderkind of the early 1930s, Mark Goodson was of the notion that, in Thalberg's own words, "Credit you give yourself is not worth having."
Happily, there are a good many others, your Dragonmaster among them, who disagree with that, which is why we'd like to offer a toast:
Thanks for the memories, Bob. Yeah, sure, you annoy us with that damn pet-spay-or-neuter thing. But it's a good annoyance, one which, ultimately, we're never gonna forget no matter what we do. I know ol' Poopstar won't.
As always, America, ol' Blackwolf wants your opinion on this. Gimme an e-mail at either electric_pirates@hotmail.com or blackbeardian@yahoo.com.
Master Blackwolf
posted by Master Blackwolf | 8:14 AM
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