Induction #16: Bad TPIR Bids, Part 1

#16: Bad TPIR Bids Part 1
What Were They Thinking?

Compilation Induction

The Price Is Right will never be known for having the smartest contestants in the world. Infact, if you look at the show currently, the amount of dim bulbs who populate the Bob Barker Studios in hopes of winning a brand new car, a fabulous vacation, or even that Big Green Egg they loved to give away for the longest time far outweighs those who actually understand the rules to some of the games, such as Secret X where you have to know the basic rules of Tic Tac Toe, which someone recently didn't know how & not try to cheat at the games by hitting the button that reveals the price.

But then there are those that give us some of the most memorable bad bids in the show's history. This induction is a compilation of some of those horrific bids. I think it's best to get the most well known horrific bid out of the way. The year is 1991 and here's our next Item Up for bids...

A Pair of Surfboards.

Contestant Iila has just come on down and she has the first bid. She looks at her friends in the audience and immediately said that she thought the price of those two surfboards are.....

Nine-Thousand Dollars.

"WHAT, 9000?! THERE'S NO WAY THAT CAN BE RIGHT!"

Yes, Nappa. That is right. She bid $9,000 on a pair of surfboards. Bob Barker was shocked by this, but continued to finish his rounds with the other bids before he got back to Iila. He then proceeded to make light of the situation.

He proceeded to tell Iila, "If you think that a surfboard costs $4,500 then I'm going to give you the bargain of your life. I'm going to sell you a surfboard, and I'm only doing this for you. I'm gonna sell you a surfboard for $3,900." I haven't seen the full episode, so I don't know if Iila got on stage, but she did leave a memorable mark on Price history anyways.

But there's more than just her. I don't know whether the contestants are just dim, or honestly got completely nervous and cracked under the pressure of the hot lights when they make it up on stage and play for something big.

Enter Teresa. She got up on stage and was shocked when she saw a brand new 1994 Mercury Tracer rolling out on stage. That's right, she was playing for a car, and she was playing the Lucky $even game.

Now, the rules for Lucky $even are simple. You start off with 7 one dollar bills. Then you have to try to guess the price of the car, one number at a time. For each number that you're off each way, you lose a dollar. If you fill the board and have one dollar remaining, you win the car. She is given the first number for free and that's a one.

Now, the basic rule for Lucky $even back then was that normally the second number was a low one, so the highest you'd go was 5. At worst, you'd lose 5 but it'd still be feasible to win the game, so a good pick would be 2 or 3. But what does she go with?

Nine. The audience gives out a very audible groan at her mistake. I think she thought the car itself was $9,000 instead of it being over $10,000. Either way, thinking a car was $19,000 back in those days on the Price Is Right and you're not playing either 3 Strikes or Golden Road, was dumb to begin with. We get the reveal and it's.....

an one. She flames out on the first guess. I don't know how you do that, but she did it.

After a while she looked pained that she actually guessed 9 and flamed out on it. Bob later on asked Roger if that's the first time anybody has done that, and sure enough, it was. So, she made some history. But not in the good way.

Speaking of history, one of my favorite games in all TPIR history is Cliffhangers. Whether it's Hans, the Music or the great design & Simplistic gameplay, it's always enjoyable to me. Now, recently some people have forgotten how to play this simple game, but back in 1996, we had the worst player of this game.

We're now introduced to Lane Kiffin, a liar and a scumbag among scumbags. Nah, I'm kidding. His name is Eric, but man, does he look like Lane Kiffin. Anyways, he's playing for a dining room set and a nice set of dinnerware.

And there he is, staring at Hans, hoping he doesn't screw up so he can eat in style, or at least as much style an Ashley Dining Room can give him.

We see his first small item, and it's this toy guitar. Now, since it's the first item, it should be about $25. But he then says the most outrageous thing. It's an answer so wrong, that Bob has to question him on it.

"$2,000." That's right, he thought that a TOY GUITAR was worth $2,000. He then changed his answer immediately, because he thought that was a violin. He then comes up with yet another horrific answer of $450. Bob gives him one last chance and he utters $850.

Bob gets so annoyed at that horrific answer, he just wants the mountain climber to go up the hill in the fastest way possible. Stating that he's got things to do and there's games that need to be played, probably more adeptly than this horrific experience.

And sure enough, Hans falls down to his bloody demise. The Toy Guitar was $23. He missed it by $827. That's just unexcusable, even from someone who looks as dim as he is.

But alas, that's not the stupidest bid in the show's history. In 2007, when Bob announced his retirement from Price Is Right, the TV World was in shock. They thought he'd host the show until he couldn't anymore or until a light fell on him and he died. During the last week of the show, we were treated to the stupidest bid in history. I mean, the clip of this memorable bid has over 3.7 million views on Youtube. We proceed to go to the Showcases and meet our last horrific bidder.

His name is Jose. A man of the armed forces, so we know he's used to pressure situations out in the field of armed combat against terror. We witness his showcase and it contains....

A Living room set, carpeting, & sweet HDTV...

And a pair of Vulcan Motorcycles. His opponent, Gay decides to pass to Jose and he has to remind himself that the showcase involves every single prize. He then makes his first bid.

"$250,000". Hearing that, my jaw dropped to the floor. I mean, not even on a Million Dollar Spectacular did Showcases get over $120,000. He then decides to change his bid, however it's not much better. He changes it from $250,000 to....

$60,000. It then becomes locked in and Gay sees her showcase and properly bids $1. Gay is laughing her way to the bank because she knows she's getting some sweet stuff to take home. In Jose's defense, he froze mentally probably. In combat, that would get you killed. But alas, we'll let Bob do the grilling. Actual Retail Price of his showcase...

$20,685. So he's over and that means that this small compilation is over.

You could tell I have it labeled as Part 1, because as long as The Price Is Right is on the air, we'll always have memorable horrific bids to laugh back on. As long as there's dimwits on TV, they'll find a place here.

Have any questions about the site? Submit them to us via our Facebook page, our Twitter, and through e-mail. We'll be sure to answer them to the very best of our ability.