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Carey And Barker Are Very Different, But Not Much Else Changes On 'Price'

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 15, 2007

A new man spins the Showcase Showdown wheel today on 'The Price is Right,' and a new era begins.

At 11 a.m. on CBS, comic Drew Carey takes over for the retired Bob Barker on television's longest running game show.

It could be the beginning of the end for 'Price' or the beginning of a new era for a daytime holdover that hasn't changed much since the 1970s.

At first glance, Carey seems like an unlikely choice.

The 49-year-old former Marine from Cleveland is a blue-collar guy who can tell jokes that would make a sailor blush.

He's replacing an 83-year-old institution that seemed to have been born to host a game show.

How do they compare?

Barker is tall (6-foot-1) and thin. He has a thick crop of white hair and an industrial-strength Pepsodent smile that's just a little scary - sort of like a Stepford husband.

Carey is shorter (5-foot-10) and stocky. His crew cut and horn-rimmed glasses are trademarks.

Barker is a vegetarian and animal lover.

Carey is a steak lover.

On camera, Barker came off as a pleasant gentleman with a quick wit. He would put contestants at ease while getting laughs off their often-exuberant behavior.

Carey, whose background is stand-up comedy, seems genuinely supportive of the contestants on his CBS prime time game show 'The Power of 10,' which will return at midseason.

Carey is not as smooth and slick as Barker, and he tends to ramble at times. But his Everyman quality makes him seem more real and less plastic than Barker.

In a recent interview, Carey said he took the job only because he thought it would be fun.

'I made an obscene amount of money from 'The Drew Cary Show,' and I really don't have to work ever again,' he says.

Carey's ABC sitcom ran nine years before it ended in 2004. He also was host and co-producer of the improvisational skit show 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' which ran on ABC from 1998 to 200.

'You know, I got sick of television,' he says. 'I bought a house in Cleveland. I traveled through Europe. I was having such a good time not being on TV. I had all this free time, I had all kinds of money and people loved me, and I could do stand-up, and people would be really nice to me. I could go to restaurants, and they still recognized me. And I had all these benefits of TV, but none of the work or anything.'

He says 'The Power of 10' and 'The Price is Right' appeal because they are easy.

'I just go on and be myself,' he says. 'I know you can't replace Bob Barker so I'm not trying to do that.'

Carey started taping 'Price' episodes in August. There are 30 in the can. He says that once he got into it, it was 'like meeting the right girl.'

Off stage, he apparently has met the right girl. This past week, he announced his engagement to Nicole Jaracz, a recent culinary school graduate.

Carey is about the only change in the 35-year-old game show. Other than some slight alterations in the color scheme, the games and format look the same.

Contestants still 'come on down' wearing T-shirts that praise the show and the host. The models - 'Carey's beauties' - still point to the prizes. Carey even ends the show with Barker's trademark call to 'Have your pets spayed or neutered.'

SAM SHE IS: Christina Applegate, who first rose to fame as a sex symbol on 'Married With Children,' stars in a new comedy, 'Samantha Who?' It debuts at 9:30 tonight on ABC.

Applegate plays Samantha Newly, who gets a new life after suffering a prolonged case of amnesia. An accident erases the bad-tempered, shallow, mean-spirited Sam and a new, sweeter character emerges.

Jean Smart plays her mother. Jennifer Esposito is her sister. Applegate is good, but the one-joke concept wears thin.

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