There’s this streaming app called “Pluto TV.” It has like a jillion channels of streaming content. There’s a “Happy Days” channel, there’s an all-Johnny Carson channel, and now there’s a “Price is Right” channel. I have been watching the latter a heck of a lot lately. They’re showing episodes from 1982 and 1983, and I imagine they will keep going in that vein for some time. (They have started with ’82 I believe because that’s the year the show stopped giving away furs, and the year ol’ Bob started signing off with his spay-and-neuter message.)
Like all American young people, I watched “Price is Right” whenever I was home from school. So I am very familiar with how the show looked back then. Bob Barker had brown hair (dyed), the models were Dian, Janice and Holly (and boy does Bob seem to be extra flirty with Dian in these episodes…I’m sure nothing came of that…*coff*).
And the announcer was the magnificent Johnny Olson. It is hard to put into words why Johnny was so good at what he did. Nobody would hire Johnny Olson to voice movie trailers. He had an unusual-but-pleasant voice and some kind of east coast dialect (it was “the fab-uh-lus showcases”, not fab-you-lous, and from his lips “Price Is Right” was a two-syllable word).
With Johnny, it was all personality and enthusiasm. He took three simple words, “Come on down”, and turned them into a euphoric exultation. He was simply perfect for that show, and all the other Goodson-Todman games he announced over the years. “Match Game 7x” enjoyed putting the spotlight on him from time to time:
There have always been dulcet-toned announcers: Your Charlie O’Donnells, your John Harlans, your network guys like Danny Dark and Joe Cipriano. But announcers like Johnny, who got into television through radio, are pretty hard to spot these days.
I should point out that Johnny Olson’s gifts were not limited to on-air time. He was a “warm-up” man for every show he announced…for several years Jackie Gleason flew him to Florida once a week, The Great One insisting he would not do a show without Johnny there to thaw out the crowd.
And here’s Johnny doing a hilarious “Price is Right” warmup. When my friend Pat and I saw the show in person in 2000 Rod Roddy was the announcer and the warmup touched on a lot of the same points…