Hacker Cinema
The Price Is Right
1972 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 43 seasons
Created by Bill Todman, Bob Stewart, Mark Goodson
"Come on down!" The Price Is Right features a wide variety of games and contests with the same basic challenge: Guess the prices of everyday (or not-quite-everyday) retail items.
6 neutralfrom 6 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
Lots of people will have a show on or something while they're cooking or cleaning or doing other things. Is it worse for it to be interesting technical content with fun other stuff thrown in than if was an episode of Friends or Fraiser or Iron Chef or 9-1-1: Lone Star or The Price is Right?
I guess I'm only allowed to have The Masked Singer on while I make dinner.
It totally would have been normal to have a custom shirt like that back in the day. I had a few.
In the late 70s and early 80s, there were custom "iron on" T-Shirt shops in most malls. They would have a wall of larger iron-on decals, primarily logos of sports teams and rock bands, but they also had custom letters, usually in the Cooper typeface. You'd tell them what you wanted, the size and color of your shirt and lettering, and they'd go in the back room and iron what you wanted on your new shirt for a few dollars. This was especially popular with youth sports teams in lieu of professional uniforms, families who wanted to match for a big trip (often with custom names like this), and, as you can see here, jokey custom workplace team shirts.
If you watch a late-70s or early-80s episode of The Price is Right, you'll almost certainly see contestants or audience members in these custom iron-on shirts - same font, same slightly disjointed look.
The left-hand text on Dave Compton's shirt is slightly blurry and unreadable given the resolution, not garbled. But it's not some AI nonsense.
DAVE
COMPTON
(King?) OF PACKERS
(He'll?) PUT IT IN ANY BOX
This isn't just a rah-rah team spirit shirt or something obscure, it's a peculiarly '70s innuendo combining thoughts about his job... and his sexual prowess. Sure, that kind of shirt would cause a modern workplace to, uh, send him packing. As they say, it was a different time.
Here's a thread on Reddit about one of those mall custom iron-on t-shirt shops: https://www.reddit.com/r/70sdesign/comments/hf6f0q/tshirt_iron_on_shop_in_a_shopping_mall_1970s/#lightbox
All those episodes of Price is Right finally paid off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barker
His main job was "game show host". He just started using his immensely popular show "The Price Is Right" as a platform for a small "hey get your pets spayed/neutered" announcement at the end of every episode.
> if you've ever seen the TV show Card Sharks...
I developed and taught an entire undergraduate math class on the mathematics of game shows.
https://people.math.sc.edu/thornef/schc212/gameshows-428.pdf
Much of the class I worked out probabilities like these, and compared what contestants "should" do to what they actually do.
Watching reruns of Card Sharks, The Price Is Right, and others, I've found that most people have a surprisingly good intuitive sense of probability. Not always, but more often than not.
Yeah. I thought I seen something before that Hollywood had some exemption, so movies could have paid placement without disclosing it. Like I think the Emoji movie could be an example, never watched it but remember seeing posts saying it was nothing but a big advertising. The first Jurassic World had a bunch of product placement too, people didn't like. Maybe it's mentioned in the credits somewhere though? I liked the movie and kinda felt the brands added realism. Like real brands sponsor stuff at Disney, so makes sense for a fictional theme park around dinosaurs but I know some feel it takes away from the movie.
Then there's another show about entertainment and news, and the woman on their sometimes gets dresses provided to wear. I noticed that's mentioned in a text overlay at the very end... However guides for YouTubers say you should mention say it on audio too, don't just put in the text description or on the screen as text.
Then Apple gives TV shows and movies free iPhone's and Macbooks for promotion... I seen it mentioned in the end screen but don't remember ever hearing a voice over saying products provided by Apple, but if you are a YouTuber you are supposed to mention you got a free Macbook every time you mention it according to one guide. So seems unequal and some confusion out there too. I know some tech channels, rving, camping, etc will accept free products to review, but if you use or mention them in any future videos or blog posts, people might of not seen your first post where you reviewed and disclosed you got it for free to review... So I guess you have to repeat a bunch of legal jargon in every video then.
I doubt many people get free Apple products as vloggers, but one of the examples was if you got a free knife as a hunting channel, you should disclose it in future mentions. So that's a more realistic example probably, but wouldn't surprise me if someone even forgets who sent them a knife if they collect them after the initial review. Then recently the FTC set more rules for videos targeted at kids on YouTube, and some lawyer mentioned he spoke with the FTC and some of these people don't even own phones or really understand what YouTube even is. Also not sure if I remember if the Price is Right mentioning products they are giving away, I think they just show the car yet as far as I know GM or KIA is giving it to them for free for the product placement, I bet if a YouTuber gave away cars they'd have to disclose it much more. I guess the old media probably can afford more people in DC than the independent vloggers can.
Then if you got paid to go to a conference, and wanted to live tweet about it, you have to mention it in every single Tweet some how from my understanding. Not sure how you'd do it with the space limit. Maybe when I read these things, I'm taking it more literally than most do. I bet a lot of businesses are out of compliance with many things if you look for it. I was reading up on PCI recently for credit card processing, and I helped a lady once years ago with her shopping site and if I remember right she just gave people a generic admin login shared between people, but I guess that's a major no no as everyone should have their own separate account. Then some web hosts market their servers as being PCI compliance too, but wonder if it's really true. Just seems like a lot out there, but I do remember hearing once that the average citizen commits 3 felonies a day.
I think it'd be fun to be a travel vlogger some day, so I think my personal policy would be not to accept free stuff to review, but I know some companies just send people stuff in general if they post a PO Box without asking, so wonder if they feel pressured to review items... but I think the whole idea of fans sending you random stuff is creepy, there's some vloggers who do mail vlogs and people send them candy and stuff... Mommy and daddy says not to take candy from strangers, yet you let random people from around the world mail you candy... I rather just use things I paid for myself, and if I liked it enough mention it on my own. Don't want to feel obligated to some brand.
I do think the general idea of the FTC is good though, don't want companies lying and scamming people. There's probably selective enforcement too, for like the most outrages cases.