TPIR

For reasons too random to list here I've started watching The Price is Right again. What a pleasant show!

And, my, things have changed since I last tuned in. No, I'm not just talking about the new host. (Drew Carey seems to have grown into his role as host.) The games remain a mix of new and old. The audience is clustered in pods, though that might just be a legacy of the Covid era. But there's no commercial break between the first and second pricing games! And the troupe that used to be known as Barker's Beauties are now the Price is Right Models. And there's a man in that group!

I guess, though, those changes are more cosmetic. The bones of the show remain the same. They encourage the audience to participate by giving contestants help with answers. The format is largely the same: six pricing games, two big wheel spins, two showcases. The host is on the contestants' side. Those elements are all in place. 

So, can I repurpose elements of the show for my classroom? Probably. Mom claims that my favorite TV show when I was little was The Price is Right and I should probably consider that foreshadowing of my career as an economics teacher. I need to give thought to using some clips from the show when I'm working through inflation in Macroeconomics. And some of the Blackjack-like elements fit nicely with marginal analysis in microeconomics. 

There were two moments with the show that gave me cause to reflect as a teacher recently. First, an episode I watched recently happened to feature a young man from the area, Benjamin Hartranft. Benjamin is somewhat well known in the North Penn area: he's an outspoken advocate for including individuals with a diagnosis of Autism. He does public speaking engagements on inclusion for those with special needs. He's done a fantastic job leveraging relationships and goodwill with area schools and sports teams. And he was a contestant on an episode that aired recently. The show and its host seemed to do very well working with Benjamin, allowing him to authentically compete. 

And then, also, I watched the documentary The Perfect Bid which made a dive into the history of the show. From it I learned that in the Bob Barker years there was typically no editing. In other words, they filmed it stem to stern, then allowed the video of what they filmed to simply go to broadcast. They didn't reshoot segments. They didn't cut material that wasn't worthy of making it to screen. They ran the cameras, kept it with the time parameters, and allow the production crew to put it in the can and get home early. In other words, Bob Barker and the crew were essentially executing an hour-long lesson on prices, probability, and personality, every day, for more the two decades. I think I can relate to that.