The Price Is Right: Drew Carey’s big debut!

Today marked a new era in television history, with the airing of the first show ever of new Price is Right host, Drew Carey.

I have to say that while I thought he was a little bit stiff at times and could have explained the rules better, he still managed to do an acceptable job. Drew did seem like he was having fun and was really nice with the contestants. I loved it when he said "The idea is not to hurt the yodel man" to the contestant playing Cliffhangers. I have to commend him though for his banter with the staff, and while I did respect most of Bob Barker's hosting abilities, one thing of his I could not stand was in the past several years that he constantly hurried the contestants every five minutes and really not in a pleasant way, even though sometimes a few of them deserved it. I think that hearing that often got grating though and I'm glad that is no longer happening. And the one time Drew did need to hurry someone, he was rather polite.

I'm not going to criticize Drew completely and with such full vigor this early though. I mean, come on, let's be fair. The viewing audience has been accustomed to Bob's hosting style on Price for 35 years. This is an extremely early show of Drew's that was taped and his first show that aired on television. I won't mind at all giving him a bit more time, a month at least. At least he's being himself and he's not being overly loud and acting as if he were the stereotypical Mr. Game Show.

As far as minor things go… I must say that I am loving the new set. I absolutely hated the cyan/pink scheme from the last several years of the Barker era. I thought it was pretty ugly especially with the glitter, and while I thought the colorful doors that were added in season 35 looked really nice and bright, at the same time, they did not match the turntable and game podiums.

I knew after watching a preview clip on YouTube that the “Come on Down” music arrangement was re-orchestrated, so I wasn’t surprised about that. But I was a little shocked at hearing the new main theme on the air. I have to admit that this is one thing that I would not have altered, but at the same time I have to give the person who made the decision to change it credit for just re-orchestrating it to make it more sound more modern, and not just taking the easy way out by just choosing to change it completely and replace it with some modern-esque techno garbage that repeats itself every few notes.

This is a rather minor thing to nitpick about, but I have to say I’m disappointed that the “Mark Goodson television production” spiel is now replaced with “A Fremantle Media production.” The MGP mention is one of the things that help kept the retro feeling of the show, and I must say that the Fremantle version just makes this practice redundant now since we’ll see their logo again in a few seconds.

As far as Drew goes, he is really in a no-win situation. First of all, you’re going to have a group of Price fans who are not even going to give this man a chance regardless whether or not he’s doing a decent job and won‘t even watch (and I admit, years ago I would have easily been a big part of this group). And secondly, Drew is also trying to be himself, and some other folks will be saying “Well, he’s not handling One Away the same way Bob did” and are expecting the man to be a Bob Barker clone. Now I agree that finally seeing a new host on the air is a pretty big shock and it’s going to take a little getting used to some of the new surroundings. But I advise people who are still uneasy to give the guy more than one chance. It really could have been much worse. Fremantle could have done what they’ve done to other game shows in the recent past (Match Game and Card Sharks immediately come to mind), and could have turned the show into a complete disaster and trash the previous eras' legacies by trying to modernize them. This is a real early show of Drew’s and the first one the viewing audience saw. I’m pretty confident he’ll get better as time goes by. I urge people to please try and be patient.