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We’ve all seen it. I’ve been seeing it all my life. I haven’t seen it lately, but I still remember how it looked as a little kid. The flashing bulbs bordering the title image on the
TV screen, the silly music, the frantic excitement. I remember it well. So after all these years, the impact of all that exposure has led me to one single profound question: Just how
do they pick the people that get to be on The Price Is Right?
Now I know what you’re thinking. "God, does anyone still watch that show?" Either that or "Huh, what’s that?" Boy, I must be getting old. And as sad as this sounds, the show is actually entertaining, in a bad way, and even though I gave up
TV forever a while back, I think I still remember enough about the show to write something mean about it.
The idea really was genius. Think about it. Have a game show about guessing the prices on everything from household products to... "A BRAND NEW CAR!" The genius part comes in when you consider the level of audience participation this encourages, not from the dimwits in the stands, but from the people watching at home. Really, because this is about guessing prices of such common things, we all can call ourselves "experts". It’s the kind of thing that simpletons can feel smart about without knowing much of anything at all. Kudos to the think tank that came up with this one. Is it any wonder it’s still on after 30 + years? It is still on, isn’t it? Someone’s going to have to fill me in on this because I’m a proud survivor of the
"TV phenomenon" and as such, could be WAY out of the pop-culture loop.
But my question remains. How do they choose their contestants? Don’t we always see the most happy, bubbly, slobbering fools who are so excited that they do the pee-pee dance for the entire time that they’re on the show? Of course. Do you think that’s a coincidence? People who have been on the show will invariably chalk it up to pure luck that they were told to "come on down!", but the truth is, everyone in the audience is briefly interviewed before the show, and a guy with a clip-board, (we’ll call him, oh, I don’t know, Lucifer) marks them down as a prospect based on some pretty insulting factors.
Big deal, right? Like everyone didn’t already know this. So what’s my point? My point is, the "chosen ones" are morons. Great observation, huh? Like we couldn't tell this just by watching the show. But what I’m really trying to say is, the ones who are
chosen are morons. It’s the morons who get chosen. That means that they are considered "preferable" to the rest of us, and I would argue that there is a big demand for morons these days, and not just for game show contestants. Sitcoms, thanks to their writers, (if that
is their real job title) constantly get worse, sporting dumber and dumber characters, obviously because viewing audiences want to see stupid people to help themselves feel more intellectually secure. Another example is recruitment for the armed services. The military is losing ranks faster than a war-torn high school evacuation, meaning that people who want to die for a vague ideal are in desperately short supply. And as if all this wasn’t bad enough, every place of business is looking to stack their workplaces, (the air-conditioned version of a sweatshop) with a healthy number of complete freakin’ idiots. They love ‘em They mold ‘em, and pet ‘em. They can’t get enough of ‘em. And inevitably, they give them promotions over more cynical, critical-thinking bastards like us. It’s really disgusting.
If
only Bob was always this honest.
So just remember, before you get all happy about being on the show and get yourself all winded by flailing all around and needlessly spending all that energy for the promotional benefits of some L.A. based production studio, stop and think about what you really are: a MORON. And you wouldn’t be up there if you weren’t a MORON. Kind of takes all the fun out of being on the show, doesn’t it? Good. My work here is complete.
note: R-800 will soon be a
contestant on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", a show
for much smarter people... right? RIGHT!? (sigh)
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