#138 - Brad Sherwood: TPIR Announcer
Announcing with all the grace of a Stephen Fry Hoedown and the skill of Ian Gomez on Whose Line.

 

CBS (2010)
Text by: Robert Seidelman


In 2009, The Price Is Right lost its voice for the third time.

Rich Fields was fired from The Price Is Right. The main reason everyone thought was that they wanted to take the show into a more "show"-y feel. Rich had the pipes for being a game show announcer, just not a show announcer. Don't feel too bad for Rich though, he bounced back immediately as the announcer for Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza. He also went back to his old job as a weatherman for various local LA stations. So, Rich is just fine being away from the mic.

What this meant was another round of announcer tryouts. The first time we did this, experience counted a lot and Rod Roddy, the man who announced Soap and Press Your Luck would get the gig. Heck, some weeks he was doing double duty on CBS announcing for both shows and triple duty with the Nighttime version of the show. The second time around, someone who just enjoyed being there but didn't have any game show ties won out with Rich Fields being offered the job. Bare in mind, that was the same tryouts that gave us last weeks job in Daniel Rosen.

The third tryouts was a weird one. This one combined friends of both Mike Richards and Drew Carey, with a lone outsider. Oddly enough, the outsider won and George Gray got the announcing gig and has been making the booth sing the best its sung since Rod Roddy was there. I did quite a few things about the announcers when the tryouts were going on. The one that seemed to get the most hate from me was one that seemed to get the most hate from anybody. Not because he was a Friend Of Drew, but because he sucked at every single possible turn. To make matters worse, this person has game show experience before as a host.

If you're thinking JD Roberto.....Wrong. JD was ok in the booth. However it still grinds my gears when he insulted a contestant after a bad Switcheroo loss. It's the other one. The one who faked his way through everything as if he were on Whose Line Is It Anyway and Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza.

Time for Brad Sherwood.



As I said, he had the game show experience prior as host for The Dating Game in 1996-1997 and The Big Moment from 1997-1998. His hosting, looking back at both shows, was all sorts of meh. He wasn't a bad emcee, he just was there. He would do Whose Line in both the UK and the US since 1997 until the shows ultimate cancellation in 2005 in the US. Afterwards, he and Colin Mochrie would go around various theaters and do a two-man show. I've seen clips of it online and it's really good. I just wish that I got to see Wayne Brady at the Pantages a few months ago. It would have been a blast. 

However, there's a world of difference from being an announcer and a host.  Unfortunately for the viewing audience, Brad announced the show like he was back on Whose Line as a parody of an over the top game show announcer on Party Quirks.  For example, whenever Brad would call someone down, he would really put a lot on emphasis on "the Price Is Right" to the point where it sounded like he was faking it.

Another major problem with Brad's announcing was that more often than not, you could tell that some of the prize reads were being done in post production.  He would sound like he'd be excited for the prize coming out, but then when he describes it, it doesn't register the same.  I guess that's what happens with the glory of Protools and people who know how to edit sound to make anyone sound good.  Sadly, nobody's figured out a way to make Katy Perry sound good when she's singing, but that's for Todd In The Shadows to decipher and not me. 

At the end of the day, Brad just sucked.  He sounded like he was there for a paycheck and little else.  If Brad's heart was in it, then he could have done a decent enough job.  I don't think anyone was going to beat out George Gray, but he wouldn't have given viewers a visceral reaction to change the channel.  Brad's announcing turned a lot of people off,  It got to the point where when Brad would be announcing the day, I'd just turn it off and watch whatever was on GSN or Food Network. 

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