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	HURLEY

The Price is NOT Right!
by Patrick Hurley [scriptwriter] 7/26/07

The announcement hit me like a thunderclap. Drew Carey is the new host of, “The Price is Right?” My mind went numb as I tried to compute this most unlikely pairing. Drew Carey. “The Price is Right.” Huh?

I thought of other duos that were as evenly matched. Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News. Rosie Ruiz and the Boston Marathon. Ted Kennedy and CPR. This just was not fitting in my brain.

Do not get me wrong. I like Drew Carey as an entertainer. I enjoyed his sitcom and his hilarious improv program, “Whose Line is it Anyway?” was truly a work of genius. But, this; this is beyond my mind’s comprehension. Like two Legos that had no chance of connecting, I was at a loss to make this work in my universe. I believe this way for a number of good reasons…

First of all, “Price” is a show for women. From time to time you will see a man on camera but let’s face it, the guys down at the corner bar are not exactly screaming for a channel change if there is a game on. The whole point of the telecast is to see how close to the exact dollar amount you can get without going over, right? Can you see most of us guys screaming, “124.00!!!” Is this a game Michael Vick would be playing? Well, maybe he would watch it if he found out the last name of the host who just retired…

Speaking of the (suave and debonair) devil who hosted this one trick pony for a gazillion years…Bob Barker. Bob BARKER!
He looks great in mink. If you put Drew Carey in mink, he would probably pull out his gun and shoot it! Barker is a tuxedo and champagne man while Carey loves an orange sport coat and a Bud. When you heard Barker yell, “Come on DOWN!” You knew some serious money was going to made in a classy way. When you hear Drew shout it out, you almost expect a moose to come thundering onto the stage knocking over all the Barker beauties. By the way, what are they going to be called now? Carey’s Chowderheads? Drew’s Dorks?

I loved Drew Carey as the blue collar guy. He fits in as the host of, “The Price is Right” like Jesse Jackson giving an Inaugural Address. I can see Ann Coulter at a sensitivity session before I can relate to him as the new Bob Barker.

And therein lies the rub. Network programmers are not infallible. They wake up in the middle of the night and exclaim things like, “We can make ‘Three’s Company’ a hit WITHOUT Suzanne Somers!” Finding the right host or actor to fill a spot is not an art form, it is a crapshoot! You want memorble miscasting? Remember Louie Anderson on, “Family Feud?” How about, “The Tim Conway Show?” Still doubting? Didn’t you just love, “Joey,” the spinoff from “Friends.” How long did that last? A month? Joan Rivers, Arsenio Hall and Alan Thicke all tried to pull off a late night show. Nope. How about, “The Twilight Zone” WITHOUT Rod Serling? Who was the genius behind that move? Mary Tyler Moore had a variety show after her sitcom. KABOOM! The road to Tinseltown is aptly littered with tinsel when you count the hundreds of, “Let’s put A with B and come up with…ECCH!”

I actually hope Drew Carey succeeds in his new role. He is good guy. But, putting him on that stage with all the glitz, glamor and Frigidaires is like appointing Don Imus to head up the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Unless…

…they turn it into a bowling show. ExileStreet

copyright 2007 Patrick Hurley

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