The Showcase (The Price Is Right)

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Host Drew Carey and two contestants competing in the Showcase.

The Showcase is the major prize round featured at the end of every episode of the game show The Price Is Right.

The two prize packages each typically involve three prizes or prize packages usually connected by a common theme or a story. The values are normally worth between $12,000 and $40,000, although they occasionally exceed this range (particularly on "special episodes"), with the biggest daytime showcase worth over $90,000. Prime time specials in recent years have offered showcases worth $100,000 or more.

Qualification

On half-hour episodes, the two on-stage contestants with the greatest total winnings after the third pricing game advanced directly to the Showcase.

Since Season 4 in daytime, when the show expanded to one hour, the winners of the two Showcase Showdowns compete against each other in the Showcase.

Game Play

A "Showcase" of prizes is presented, and the contestant with the greater total winnings coming into the Showcase round (the "Top Winner") has the option to either place a bid on the Showcase or pass it to their opponent who won the lesser amount of the two (the "Runner-Up"), forcing them to bid on it. After the bid is placed, the second Showcase is presented and bid upon by the remaining contestant. The contestant who has bid nearer to the price of their own showcase without going over wins their Showcase. A contestant who overbids automatically loses, and if both contestants overbid, neither player wins (a "Double Overbid").

During the first five taped daytime and nighttime shows, in the case of a Double Overbid the losing horn would sound and the contestants would bid again until at least one of them was not over. According to former producer Roger Dobkowitz, it was discarded after the calculators used to determine the players' differences malfunctioned while computing a second set of bids on the third nighttime episode (based on notes in his own stats), which led to the episode being thrown out and replaced when nobody on the staff could figure out how to fix them.

This rule lasted until the September 12, 1972 episode (the sixth taped daytime episode)–coincidentally, the first Double Overbid occurred that day.

The Double Showcase Rule

On the daytime show, beginning on or around April 15, 1974, if the winner bid less than $100 below the actual price of their own showcase, the contestant won both Showcases. To reflect inflation, the margin was raised to $250 or less beginning with Season 27 in 1998. The rule has been adopted on all CBS prime time versions since 1986.

If there is a tie where the differences are within the Double Showcase range, both contestants would win both Showcases. This has never happened, although on March 24, 1975 the contestants' differences were $30 and $29.

Beginning on the Season 36 prime time specials, to accommodate the higher value of Showcases presented in prime time (usually over $80,000), a $500 (originally $1,000 in the first six taped specials) range has been implemented. A $1,000,000 bonus is also awarded with a Double Showcase Win on these special episodes only.

Bidding $1

As some contestants often do in the One Bid round, contestants have also bid $1 (or another obviously low amount) on their Showcase hoping that the other contestant has overbid. This is rare and is generally only used if the other contestant's overbid is very obvious.

The first instance of an intentionally-low bid was on the September 7, 1972 episode (the third one taped), in which a contestant bid $500 on her Showcase (her opponent did indeed overbid). Due to this low bid, her Showcase price remained unrevealed, although the actual price of $2,364 can be obtained by subtracting the values of the prizes she won before the Showcase from her total winnings displayed on her podium at the end of the show.

Ties

If the two contestants are exactly the same distance from the actual prices without going over (a tie), each wins their own Showcase. This has happened at least once in the show's history, on an episode of the first nighttime season with Dennis James.

There was also a technical tie declared in a 1989 taping that aired January 3, 1990. In post production, a error was discovered when calculating the price of one of the Showcases and was deemed to have compromised the bidding of one of the two contestants. After the show was taped, CBS Standards and Practices declared the Showcase a tie and awarded each contestant their own Showcase.

Perfect Bids

Until December 2008, it was believed that there was only one perfect bid in the Showcase since 1972, although there is a discrepancy on which version it happened. The perfect bid occurred on either the 1970s nighttime version hosted by Dennis James or on the daytime show at some point between January 16, 1973 and the introduction of the Double Showcase Rule. Regardless of which version, at the time there was no Double Showcase Rule so the contestant only won their own Showcase.

However, on the episode aired December 16, 2008 (taped September 22), a perfect bid occurred for either the first or second time on the daytime show. On that December 2008 episode, Carey mentioned the perfect bid was the first since 1973.

Other almost-perfect bids include a bid within $1 (March 5, 1980), which aired exactly one week after a bid that was only $2 less than the showcase price (February 27).

While it is legal to hear bid ideas from audience members, on that September 22, 2008 taping, CBS Standards and Practices, the show's producers and host Drew Carey were both suspicious of some audience members during the bidding. As a result, there was a 45-minute stop down between the Showcase presentation and reveal on that taping. Some in the audience noted Carey's cold, subdued reveal of one of the show's most historic moments was related to the suspicion that he and the production staff had on the win. According to an interview with Terry Kniess, the contestant who made the perfect bid, he did not cheat–he studied the game by being a regular, attentive viewer.

There have been at least two people who overbid by $1 (and thus lost)–on July 12, 1974 and October 19, 2004.

Unlike Contestants' Row, there is no cash bonus awarded for a perfect bid in the Showcase (at least on the daytime show–in the occurrence it would happen on the prime time show, the normal $1,000,000 bonus would still apply).

Showcase Presentation

The Showcases are presented in several ways. In some cases, the announcer simply lists off the prizes, particularly for lower-priced showcases. However, the vast majority of showcases have a theme of some sort. Many of these themes are recurring, such as trips Around the World, prizes for Every Room in the House, prizes delivered to the Train Depot/Port O'Price, and The Price Is Right Department Store, where prizes are presented in an elevator setting.

Prime time series will often feature closely related showcase themes, such as Urban vs. Rural or High-Tech vs. Low-Tech, and this concept has carried over to the daytime show.

Until the late 1990's, the announcer would often participate in the Showcases along with the models, and production assistants appeared in a handful of showcase skits in the 1970s, most notably Roger Dobkowitz. Staff participation in Showcase skits returned in 2009.

Showcase Skits

The show's models will often present showcase prizes as part of a skit, usually (but not always) in nonspeaking roles with the announcer narrating. Models (more often prior to the 1990s, and sporadically since then) have had speaking roles, and the announcer himself occasionally participates in skits.

In the time that Carey has taken over as host, both the announcer and models have actively participated outside of their normal duties on the show. Speaking roles for the models have also become more prevalent and the announcer has appeared in showcase skits in character rather than just reading the prize copy.

On the October 31, 2007 episode, the three contestants who did not advance out of Contestants' Row appeared as contestants defeated by a vampire in the Halloween Showcase skit. On the December 16, 2008 episode (the Showcase which the contestant made a perfect bid), the theme "Models on Break" featured contestants "substituting" for the traditional models. On the January 16, 2009 episode, a showcase featured the three contestants modeling football jerseys for a tailgating-themed Showcase that was designed as a sendoff for model Tamiko Nash on her final episode.

Pop culture themes in Showcases are also prevalent over the years. Star Wars, Match Game, James Bond, and other popular shows and movies of the time are often themes of Showcases. In 2008, the Barenaked Ladies song "One Week" was used as a Showcase theme.

Do-It-Yourself

During the daytime show's third season (late 1974 and early 1975), a contestant occasionally played a game which determined the prizes they would bid on. Three categories of prizes were presented (e.g., Furniture, Vacation, Transportation), each of which contained three numbered envelopes. The contestant chose an envelope by number from each category, after which the envelopes were opened and the prizes listed therein presented as the contestant's Showcase.

The necessity of needing nine prizes ready to be displayed any moment and with 27 different price combinations based on the prizes the contestant picked, the Do-It-Yourself Showcase was not featured very many times.

Non-Price is Right Affiliated Showcase Participants

In 1992, a showcase was designed around The Young and the Restless to commemorate its 5,000th episode, complete with Melody Thomas Scott and Peter Bergman making appearances. That Showcase included an appearance as an extra on the show as a prize. A November 2008 showcase featured Ashley Jones from The Bold and the Beautiful to offer a walk-on appearance on that show. The contestant would tape their segment immediately after the taping of Price had ended, appearing on that afternoon's episode of The Bold and the Beautiful. Two other stars from The Young and the Restless made a Showcase appearance in November 2008 for a Showcase parodying soap opera storylines, a subliminal tribute to the late announcer Rod Roddy, who narrated a sitcom that parodied such, Soap.

On June 13, 2008 the United States Women's National Soccer Team made an appearance in a soccer-themed showcase. (Drew Carey is an official United States National Team photographer, and co-owner of the expansion Seattle Sounders FC in MLS.) Abby Wambach announced a prize in the showcase, a trip to Greece.

The Los Angeles Kings NHL team was featured in a hockey-themed Showcase, complete with a kayfabe hockey fight involving two players presenting the prizes. The prizes included a trip to Switzerland and tickets to the 2009 IIHF World Championship.

As Season 37 increased the use of product placement models, often a showcase will be themed around a specific product. Representatives from companies offering prizes have appeared in showcase skits. These representatives will be asked to greet the Showcase winner after the show, along with the host, models, and announcer.

The Host

Prior to Season 37, the host almost never participated in the Showcase skits. Of the 7,517 daytime and nighttime episodes produced through Season 36, a host appeared in the showcase only a handful of times; at least twice for Bob Barker (April 1, 1976 and an unspoken pose on June 11, 2007), at least twice for Dennis James (December 25, 1974 and a Fall 1974 syndicated episode), and at least once for Tom Kennedy (Fall 1985); "at least" is used here because not all the Showcases ever used on the show are known to the general public.

On the 1994 syndicated The New Price Is Right (produced by Kathy Greco), this was much more common. Doug Davidson participated in multiple Showcase skits on this version usually bantering with announcer Burton Richardson. Beginning in Season 37, however (also produced by Greco), Showcase skits featuring similar bantering between Drew Carey and Rich Fields have become more common.

The New Price is Right

On the syndicated nighttime version hosted by Doug Davidson, the Showcase was played in a different manner, as there was only one contestant at the end of each episode. The contestant was shown the prizes for their Showcase and then played a game similar in format to Range Game.

The contestant randomly selected a range (between $4,000 and $10,000 in increments of $1,000) for the "range finder" that was built for this series. The selected range was placed at the bottom of a board which covered a length of $60,000 ($10,000 to $70,000). The range finder then moved up the scale, and the contestant pulled a lever when they thought the showcase value fell within the covered range. If the contestant was correct they won the Showcase.

Foreign Versions

While many other versions of the Showcase follow the same rules as the US (often without a Double Showcase Rule), some have different changes to their format:

United Kingdom

On the UK Price Is Right, during the Bruce Forsyth and Joe Pasquale versions on ITV, the player hits a plunger to stop a flashing light from going all over the board, locking in a range between £1,000 and £5,000 on the Bruce Forsyth version or £500 and £3,000 which increased to £4,000 on the Pasquale version. The player is given only one Showcase to bid on, and if the bid falls into the range without going over, the player wins the Showcase (i.e., if a player has a range of £3,000 and bids £22,000, and the Showcase's price was £24,873, the player would win). This format has since carried over to other European versions such as Cash en Carlo in the Netherlands, O Preço Certo in Portugal, and Mitä Maksaa in Finland.

The Bob Warman version on Sky One also used this format, but the player chose their range at random from nine cards with values between £250 and £1,000. This was also used on another Dutch version of TPiR called Prijzenslag. The Leslie Crowther version on ITV used the same format as the United States. The first season also had a rule stating that the Showcase winner could not take home the big prize (usually a car) if the guess wasn't within 10% of the total.

Spain/France

El Precio Justo in Spain and Le Juste Prix in France used a cross between the US and UK Showcases. The basic rules of the US version were implemented, but the two contestants bid on the same Showcase, and a player's bid had to be within a certain range under the price in order for him to be able to win; the Top Winner would select this range from a video wall, as was done in the UK. The current Spanish version with Juan y Medio also uses this variation.

Italy

For most of the run of Italy's OK, il Prezzo è Giusto, it used the same Showcase format as the US version; however, for the final two seasons, the show adopted the British version of the Showcase. Since only one person could participate in this version of the Showcase, the winners of the two Showcase Showdowns would each take a single spin on the Big Wheel, with the wheel starting each spin on 100; the player whose spin landed on the higher number advanced to the Showcase.

Australia

Australia's Price is Right changed the format drastically. Here, the top two winners were given one showcase and a $100 range to work with (if the Showcase was worth $32,487, the range was $32,400-$32,500). With game play similar to the retired American pricing game Double Bullseye, the two players alternated back and forth guessing prices until one got the correct price. That player then arranged the items (seven, later eight) in the showcase in correct order, from cheapest to most expensive (usually a car). If all the items were in correct order, the player won the showcase. This format was used in all five versions (Garry Meadows in 1973 on Ten Network, Ian Turpie from 1981-1986 on Seven Network and 1989 on Ten Network plus Larry Emdur from 1993-1998 and 2003-2005 on the Nine Network).

Starting late in the 2003-2005 run, the Showcase was modified to the Mega Showcase, which was always worth over $500,000 and included a condominium on Australia's Sun Coast. In an attempt to counter Deal or No Deal, which aired opposite The Price Is Right on the Seven Network, the Mega Showcase involved cash buyouts at various points that the contestant could take if he believed he was not going to win. Near the end of the run, the Mega Showcase was replaced with the Monster Showcase, which replaced the condominium with a cash jackpot. A version in the Philippines is the only other version of The Price is Right to use this format.

Germany

Germany's Der Preis Ist Heiss was only slightly different from the US (more similar to the UK's format), in which the two Showcase Showdown winners (or two Pricing Game winners, this version ran only 30 minutes per episode) only bid on one Showcase and their bids had to come within DM5,000 to win it. On the Gameshow Marathon special in 2007, the range became €1,000.

French-Canada

The French-Canadian version, Misez Juste, did have its Showcase format similar to the U.S. version, only there was no Double Showcase Rule, and contestants played the round from the Contestant's Row podiums.

Mexico

Originally, Mexico's Atínale al Precio did not have a Double Showcase Rule, but starting with Season 2, they adapted the rule–a contestant had to be within MX$100 to win both.

Links

• Do-It-Yourself Showcase on May 13, 1975