One Bid

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Bidders in Contestants' Row awaiting the announcement of the winning bid.

One Bid is a four-contestant qualifying game played on the television game show The Price Is Right. The official title^[1] is only occasionally used on the show, but it is more often referred to as Contestants' Row, after the location in which it takes place, or after its introduction by the host as, "the next item up for bids". In an hour-long show, six games of One Bid are played. Under the original half-hour format, only three games of One Bid were played.

This game format originated on the 1956 version of The Price Is Right hosted by Bill Cullen. Bidding as in One Bid was the primary gameplay on that version of the show. One Bid, however, is best known as a qualifying round established on the current version of the show. Along with The Showcase, One Bid is an element of game play featured in virtually all versions of The Price Is Right since the original, including international versions.

Gameplay

Contestants' Row

Contestants' Row is a row of four seats in the front row of the audience. The four contestants playing One Bid stand in front of these seats where a microphone is placed for each of them atop a liquid crystal display that shows the contestants' bids in the game.

At the beginning of each episode, the show's announcer calls the names of four audience members who become the first four contestants in Contestants' Row for the first One Bid. The first four contestants may stand in any order they work out amongst themselves, but once set, they remain in their positions for the rest of the show unless they win a One Bid round, in which case they advance out of Contestants' Row.

For each subsequent round, the announcer calls one name from the audience to fill the vacant spot left by the winner of the previous round, with the other contestants retaining their same positions.

Bidding

Once settled, the four contestants are shown a prize or prize package. Beginning with the contestant in red position (from the point of view of the stage), and going in order to the right, each player announces a bid for the prize. The only rule governing the bids is they must be in whole dollars, and must be different than the bids of any preceding bidders. Once the four bids are given, the host reads the actual retail price of the prize and whoever has bid closest, without going over, wins the prize and goes onstage to play a pricing game. Generally the prizes are valued between $500 and $4,000. Regardless of whether they win or lose their pricing game, the prize they won in the One Bid is theirs to keep.

If all four contestants overbid, a buzzer sounds before the price is revealed. The host announces the lowest bid, the bids are erased, and the bidding process is repeated in the same manner, with the contestants instructed to bid lower than the lowest of the original bids. This process can be repeated until at least one contestant has bid below or equal to the actual price of the prize. Because of time constraints (the show is currently 38 minutes without commercials for daytime broadcasts and 43 minutes in prime time), multiple overbids may be edited out of the final broadcast.

If one of the contestants bids exactly the price of the item, including during a re-bid, a bell rings before the price is revealed. This is referred to as a "perfect bid," and the winner receives a $500 bonus.

The gameplay for the five subsequent rounds is identical to the first, except that bidding begins with the contestant called down, and proceeds in order to the right circling around to the left-most contestant after the right-most has bid. Any re-bids are done in the same order as the first bid.

The three contestants who have not won at the end of the final One Bid round receive two consolation prizes, which are announced before the second Showcase Showdown. All contestants who are called down to Contestants' Row, including those who do not win a One Bid round, become ineligible to be a contestant on any future episode of The Price Is Right for ten years.

If a contestant who wins a One Bid is later found ineligible during post-production, the other contestants who participated in that One Bid who had not won their way onstage may reappear upon the discovery of the violation. Standards & Practices rules state that players' appearances were compromised, henceforth they may appear on a subsequent episode.

History and behind the scenes

The name "One Bid" is a relic from the original version of the show. In that show, there were two types of bidding: auction-style bids, where each contestant had to bid a set amount higher than the one before, and "one bid," where they had one bid to get as close to the actual retail price as possible without going over, with only one bid. The "one bid" format was carried over, virtually intact, when The New Price is Right made its debut in 1972.

Johnny Olson, the original announcer on the 1972 version of the show, popularized the call of the contestant's name followed by, "Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Price Is Right!" when calling an audience member to play the One Bid round. The phrase has continued to be used to this day.

A $100 bonus for a perfect bid was introduced in 1977. The bonus was increased to $500 halfway during the run of the 1985 syndicated version, and on the daytime show in November 1998. The bonus is $1,000 on $1,000,000 Spectaculars.

Before the scandals involving Barker and Dian Parkinson, female contestants who won the $100 bonus (as it was back then) were instructed to take it out of Barker's suit jacket pocket, which was referred to as the "hundred-dollar pocket." The contestant returns the money to the host after the One-Bid or pricing game, because the show has only one set of $100 bills.^{[citation needed]} The contestant actually receives the money in the form of a check.

Contestants who remained in Contestants' Row at the end of the show were originally given only one consolation prize. The number was increased to three at one point, and reduced to two in 2000.

Various changes have been made to the aesthetics of the displays as well as the technology that operates them. Originally, eggcrate displays with a brown background and orange filter were used. In August 1975, they were replaced by larger numerical displays similar to those on a sports scorecard, and backgrounds of red, green, orange, and blue on the different contestant podiums. Other minor changes to the color scheme, and borders have been made since then. For Season 38, the monitors were replaced with liquid crystal displays, using software emulating the previous displays' appearance. Five-digit bids are now able to be displayed.

Yolanda Bowersley incident

"The most talked about incident in the history of the show," according to Bob Barker, involved a contestant named Yolanda Bowersley. On a 1977 episode of the show (the same episode during which the pricing game Secret "X" made its debut) while running down to Contestants' Row, Bowersley failed to notice that her tube top had slipped off, exposing her breasts (which were censored for broadcast). When Bob walked out on the stage, he was unaware that this had happened and mistook the audience's reaction as an over-enthusiastic response to his arrival. This led announcer Johnny Olson to quip, "Bob, they have given their all for you!"^[2] Upon recalling the incident, Barker explained, "She came on down, and they came on out!" TV Guide ranked it as the 19th most unexpected moment in television history.^[3]

Strategy

An aware contestant has a greater advantage the later their turn is in One Bid. Thus, the latest contestant to arrive is given the weakest position of bidding first.

Two competitive bidding strategies have emerged amongst contestants. The first is to bid $1. This strategy is used when a bidder believes the price is lower than the lowest previous bid, as it allows them the greatest possible range of winning prices. Occasionally other very low values are bid with the same goal, as the price for a modern One Bid prize is rarely below $500. This strategy is typically used by the final bidder, but is sometimes used by previous bidders; however, this opens up the possibility of the second strategy being used against them.

The second strategy is bidding $1 higher than a previous bid. This allows the maximum possible range of prices that will lead to a win for the player, and effectively eliminates the previous bidder from the competition, unless they have made a perfect bid. This strategy is also most commonly used by the final contestant, but is more often used by previous contestants than the first strategy. This too leaves them open to the possibility of having subsequent bidders bid another $1 higher than them. On several occasions, the four bidders have each bid $1 higher than the last, a situation that results in an assured winner, assuming they have not all overbid.

Theoretically, these are the only two things the last contestant should do to maximize their chance of getting up on stage. However, unlike Wheel of Fortune's "Used Letter Board", there is no display other than the ones in front of the contestants that keeps record of the previous bids. Therefore, if the contestant could not hear the other bids, they can ask the host for the bids (often employing "strategy" afterward), but many do not and throw away obvious opportunities, or even use the last bid very badly by bidding $1 under a previous bidder, bidding just a bit under a previous bidder, or bidding $1 with an extremely low bid having been placed earlier. One contestant has been recorded to have accidentally bid $1 under instead of $1 over a contestant (as intended), and instead of getting up on stage for the first game, never made it out of Contestants' Row.

Variations

One Bid was radically altered for 1994 syndicated edition, and was no longer used to select the players who would play pricing games as they were called directly to the stage. Instead, a similar game called "The Price Was Right" was played on some episodes to pick which one of the three players would advance to the Showcase. Instead of bidding on a prize, the players bid on the price of a vintage product as shown in a commercial for it. During the show's short run, not enough vintage commercials were researched to allow the game to be played during every episode, so some episodes still used the standard Showcase Showdown from the daytime version.

Season 37 (2008-09) featured alterations to the traditional One Bid concept for special episodes. For a September 10, 2008 taping that aired as a prime time special on November 14, 2008, contestants were from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. When a contestant won the One Bid, he was replaced by a member of the same branch. For themed Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and engaged couples episodes, players were called down as pairs playing together.

Many, if not all, versions of The Price Is Right outside the US feature One Bid, with the same rules, except for different awards for a perfect bid (or no bonus at all). Many versions starting in the 1990s used video screens (as used on the UK's Bruce's Price is Right and the recent Australian version in 2003) to display bids instead of tote boards, a move which made it to the American version in September 2009, although the aesthetics of the monitors used emulate the previous displays. Most other versions still have bonuses worth 100 units of the local currency (i.e. £100 on the UK versions or $100 on the Australian versions), or whatever is equal to US$100. International versions of The Price is Right rarely have One Bid prizes worth more than 1,000 units of the local currency, or whatever equals US$1,000.

References

v • d • e The Price Is Right U.S. Versions Current series • 1956–65 original series • 1994–95 syndicated series The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular • The Price Is Right Live! International versions Australia • United Kingdom • Other international versions Major elements One Bid • Pricing Games • Showcase Showdown • The Showcase Hosts (U.S.) Bob Barker • Drew Carey • Bill Cullen • Doug Davidson • Dennis James • Tom Kennedy Others on-air (U.S.) Rich Fields • Johnny Olson • Rod Roddy • Burton Richardson • Models Production Staff (U.S.) Frank Wayne • Mark Goodson • Bill Todman • Jay Wolpert • Roger Dobkowitz • Kathy Greco • Syd Vinnedge • Mike Richards • Sherell Paris (production assistant) • Marc Breslow (director) Notable Int'l Hosts Leslie Crowther • Larry Emdur • Bruce Forsyth • Marco Antonio Regil • Gigi Sabani • Ian Turpie • Carlo Boszhard • Iva Zanicchi • Joaquin Prat • Vincent Lagaf Pricing Games v • d • e Active pricing games Any Number • Balance Game • Barker's Bargain Bar • Bonkers • Bonus Game • Bullseye • Card Game • Check Game • Check-Out • Clearance Sale • Cliff Hangers • Clock Game • Coming or Going • Cover Up • Credit Card • Danger Price • Dice Game • Double Prices • Eazy az 1 2 3 • Five Price Tags • Flip Flop • Freeze Frame • Gas Money • Golden Road • Grand Game • Grocery Game • ½ Off • Hi Lo • Hole in One • It's in the Bag • Let 'em Roll • Line em Up • Lucky $even • Magic # • Make Your Move • Master Key • Money Game • More or Less • Most Expensive • Now....or Then • One Away • 1 Right Price • 1 Wrong Price • Pass the Buck • Pathfinder • Pick-a-Number • Pick-a-Pair • Plinko • Pocket ¢hange • Punch a Bunch • Push Over • Race Game • Range Game • Safe Crackers • Secret "X" • Shell Game • Shopping Spree • Side by Side • Spelling Bee • Squeeze Play • Stack the Deck • Step Up • Swap Meet • Switch? • Switcheroo • Take Two • Temptation • Ten Chances • That's Too Much! • 3 Strikes • Triple Play • 2 for the Price of 1 v • d • e Retired pricing games Add 'em Up • Balance Game (1980s) • Bullseye (1972) • Bump • Buy or Sell • Double Bullseye • Double Digits • Finish Line • Fortune Hunter • Gallery Game • Give or Keep • Hit Me • Hurdles • It's Optional • Joker • Make Your Mark • Mystery Price • On the Nose • On the Spot • Penny Ante • The Phone Home Game • Poker Game • Professor Price • Shower Game • Split Decision • Super Ball!! • $uper $aver • Telephone Game • Time Is Money • Trader Bob • Walk of Fame v • d • e Pricing games played on international versions 3 in a Row • Matchmaker • Permutation • Side by Side (UK) • Time-Play (British Clock Game) • Walk The Line • Nine Pins •Australia and Philippine format: Showcase Playoff / The Showcase • Penalty!