Bob Barker and the Price of Everything

So Bob Barker is retiring. Not exactly like one of Japan's "Living National Treasures," but in the degraded popular culture that TV offers Americans, sadly, he comes close. And the show he is best known for, The Price Is Right, captures our fixation on consumerism as the national religion. St. Oscar of Reading Gaol once said that the cynic is the man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I cannot claim to know what Bob Barker's values are, and certainly, as an ad exec, I can't make claims to being exactly free from consumerism myself. But I can't believe that we are better as a nation or as a people for all these years of The Price is Right.

Comments

[Zigmo Parcheesi]

Knowing he is retiring is a bittersweet sensation at best for me. I have many fond memories of watching him as a brunette.
Still, maybe now I can finally let go of my Price is Right Pet Peeve: I don't care if he's one cent over - he's still closer than the person five hundred dollars under!