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Well, Season 38 started and there’s nothing you can do about it now. The set’s going to be this way for a long time. And the intro isn’t going back either. Those are the two biggest changes. The set and the intro.

The set is changed because we wanted more room at home base (the area next to the turntable). We didn’t want the showcase contestants to be flat up against a wall with one of them having a giant thick seam coming up out of their head. So there’s that.

The intro to the show was changed because we wanted to get to the “come on downs” quicker. I also asked to not be called “The Star of The Price Is Right!” I’m just the host. The contestants and the prizes are the stars.

For a while, a friend or someone would ask me what’s new at The Price Is Right and I’d start to tell them about the new set and such. Then it would always trail off because really, there’s a war on. And it’s football season. And my kid wants to start swim lessons but I was too late to sign him up so now what do I do? It’s like really telling someone how you’re feeling when they ask how you’re feeling. They don’t care. It’s just small talk. They have problems of their own.

So now, when people ask what’s new at Price I just say “Oh, lots of things. You should check it out. It’s been really good lately.” Then I change the subject as quickly as I can. (To something about themselves, if possible, since I’m all about Winning Friends and Influencing People.)

The changes are nice though. I love the extra room at home base when I’m doing Any Number or one of those turntable games. And I love hearing Rich say “Here’s Your Host!”

So... there you go. Not to make too big deal about it, but it’s a new season. We have a new set and a new intro and well, just lots of cool new things. New leaves on the tree. Same old tree, but new leaves.


But enough about me and my job. How are you?

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Well I thought this day would never come. A live website called priceisright.com. Hallelujah, huzzah, and hooray.

Why am I so happy, when there’s been a priceisright.com since right after I started hosting the show? Because back then, about one or two weeks into it, I mentioned “priceisright.com” on the air and was promptly told to not mention it again because there were some “problems” with our promoting it. Little did I know that it would take over two years and a total redesign of the site to get it back up and running again. And in the meantime it went dormant, because why bother with a website about a show when you can’t even mention it on the very same show?

But here we are at long last, all the blackberry-toting suits satisfied, and we can finally do simple things like every other TV show in the world. Like promote our show on the internet via our own website.

I just hope it’s not too late.

We’re a tad behind schedule, obviously, in getting into the “interact with the fans on the internet” fad. About 20-25 years behind, come to think of it. It’s hard for me to work up a sentence or two bragging about finally getting a website after Amazon.com shook up the retail sales world, AOL bought and nearly ruined Time-Warner, and MySpace, Facebook and Twitter changed the way we communicate with our friends and families forever. I mean, who’s going to care about a TPIR website now? So what?
Hey world! You know that internet that all the kids are doing? Well we have one too! Whoo! Ahem. Cough.

But I think it’s going to be okay. Better late than never, right? And I really was giddy the first time I got to say “Go to priceisright.com” on the show and knew it wasn’t going to be edited out. (I also wanted to yell out a victorious “I drink your milkshake!” directed at every executive and corporate lawyer who cost us who knows how much money all these years with their endless delays and ambivalence, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to ruin my happy moment by gloating.)
And besides, in a little while you’ll forget that we never had a website until now and it won’t matter anyway. Because this is going to be the most kick-ass website in the history of game-show websites. It’s going to be like we’ve been in love our whole lives and those other relationships didn’t even happen. I’m not even saving the old love letters. Burned. Just you and me, baby. Forever and ever. I do.

It really is like that, isn’t it? Something new and beautiful comes along and you forget all about the entirety of your life before it. Oh yeah, I loved riding my bike when I was a kid. But then I got a car.
That’s how I’m hoping this website will be for you. That as you click and scroll your way through all of it’s colorful and entertaining content, you’ll forget that it wasn’t always there. We’ll go back and forth on the message boards. Rich and the models will delight you with charming behind-the-scenes videos. You’ll play the games and enter the contests and be tickled pink that you did. That’s the plan, anyway.

Just like it should’ve been all along.

- Drew

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