by May-chan » Thu Nov 02, 2006 12:02 am
yes, as the name implies. It is all about guessing or rounding or adding up prices and whatnot. Each show has a certain order to it. Certain members of the crowd are called down to contestants' row at random. There are 4 positions on the row. And then on stage they introduce an item... it can be anything from silverware to encyclopedias to televisions to pets. Generally stuff under a few thousand dollars in value. Each contestant then guesses the price and the nearest person without going over wins the first game and goes up on stage (there can be no repeated bids, so usually if two people want to guess $700 the second person will bid $701 instead).
Once on stage they introduce another item, or multiple items. Ranging from cars to vacations to cash to appliances. And they play a game to win them... it is unpredictable which game is going to be played, but there have to be at least 30 different games in their repitoire... and certain games apply to certain prizes. Like there are car specific games and such. There are also painfully easy games and painfully difficult games, there even is a minigolf game. Then the person either wins or loses that prize and they go to commercials.
When they return they go back to contestants row and call another person down to fill the empty spot and they go through the same routine again, and then again another time. After three people have gone through they go to a giant wheel with numbers 5 to 100 printed on it. the numbers signify cents. The person nearest to a dollar gets to go on to the final round. Also on the wheel if anyone rolls a 100 on their first try they win $1000, and then get to roll again, on the second time if they land on 5 or 15 they win $5000, and if on 100 again they win $10,000! And if there are continued ties they have a roll-off. I've seen all three people win the $1000 and then 5 or 10,000 after that.
Then they return to the contestant row again, and go through the same motions again and return with 3 more people to the wheel. The winner of the wheel goes on to the final round with the winner of the first wheel spin.
The last round is called the "Showcase showdown" where the first winner is shown a whole ton of prizes and has the chance to bid on them or make the other person bid on it. And then they show a second showcase to the second person (or two the first person again if he passed). Once both contestants have a showcase and a bid they see which bid is the closest to the actual price of their showcase without going over... they win it. Sometimes neither person wins it.
The fun of the show is just the astounding amount of stuff the people can get. Also Bob's personality just makes it great.