#the price is right

[dreamsteddie]

I'm sick, I'm languishing, I'm wearing a blanket in 70 degree heat, and I've been watching The Price is Right on loop since 10 AM.

Anyway, related to my previous posts (here and here), Eddie goes on tour for a couple of months and while he's away, Robin and Steve take a cross-country road trip on a whim to try and be on the Price is Right together.

She's glad Eddie was a good partner and took Steve to be on his favorite show, but she's a little offended they didn't bring her with them. She is mostly appeased by Eddie's continuous and vehement denial that Steve was talking about her and not him when Bob asked him about having a special girl back home. No mater how many times she brings it up, he always gets all red in the face and gives some long winded speech about love and being queer in public and coded speech. It's always hilarious.

Anyway, they get bored one day, and Steve has no qualms about using his and Eddie's joint account, even if it's mostly Eddie's money these days, while Steve does charity and volunteer work. So, when Robin asks Steve if he wants to go to California with her and try to get on again, he kind of just shrugs and goes to grab his shoes.

They drive for two days to get there, singing along to their music, eating too much junk food and not drinking enough water. Robin even forces Steve to listen to one of her book cassettes for "enrichment."

When they get to LA they grab a room at a semi-decent hotel (they could afford something luxury but they are so deep in Roadtrip Mode they don't even think about it). Robin lets Steve try on a million outfits that all look the same and makes up critiques and compliments for each of them because she knows her best friend and knows he won't leave until he feels like he's made the 'right' outfit choice. Steve, who still never fully let the outfit thing from last time go, will add this onto his once-yearly rant to Eddie. The man in question will find this equal parts endearing and aggravating.

They wait in line for two hours with the rest of the hopefuls, partake in interviews with PAs out on the street, and get ushered in. With their dynamic and good looks, they were never not going to get in.

It's the mid-90s, but everything is mostly the same as when Steve and Eddie went together in 89'. Some of the curtains are different and some of the small decals have been removed or changed and Steve delights in pointing off each and every minute change to Robin who finds it fascinating. She likes to pose outlandish hypotheticals for why they had to change it. Apparently, the last set of curtains got eaten by a pack of alpacas that broke in after hours. Who knew?

They watch and cheer and give standing ovations and it seems like the show is going to end without either of them being called up. Neither of them are too put out by it, chances are always low that they call your name, but then they go to call up the last contestant and the name is Robin Buckley. It takes a second for them to register what they heard, and the camera pans just in time to see them holding hands and jumping around like children. Robin steps on several pairs of shoes on her way to contestant's row

Bob catches it and ribs her a little about the number of toes she just broke and how she might need to win to pay off some medical bills. She laughs, extremely awkwardly, and they get to bidding. It's a pair of bicycles which she actually loves since her Women's History course last year had a lesson on how the widespread accessibility of the bicycle in Europe and the United States was seen as a "dangerous" gateway into women's liberation and a potential cause for lesbianism due to the shape and placement of the seat.

Steve knows she's been looking for a good bike, and has been given many a second-hand lesson about Women's History from his best friend, cheers extra loud in the audience. They both know she's got this.

Robin guesses the exact right number on the first try and wins that extra hundred. She kind of hates reaching into Bob's pocket to get it, but a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars. She plays Danger Price and wins all four prizes (a secretary, a stereo system, a barbeque, and a fancy-looking clock). She is so extremely smug about the whole thing.

When it's time to spin the wheel, she get's a dollar across two spins and gets the 1,000 dollars, which Steve absolutely loses his head about. The camera pans to him on his feet, clapping and screaming her name. Unfortunately, another contestant does the same and loses in the spin off. Steve is in no way put off by Robin not being in the showcase because he's too busy going on about statistics and average winnings like this is an actual sport.

At the end of the day they pack away all their stuff into the back of Robin's old station wagon, check out of their hotel, and spend a couple of nights in San Francisco before heading back home. It's a miracle no one breaks into their car.

Eddie comes back home about a month later, and Steve just...never mentions it. For how much he loves The Price is Right, he never says a word about their little trip until a week after his return when the episode airs. At first, Eddie doesn't even notice because the camera pans over everyone so quickly. It's not until Steve runs to grab their now cordless phone, an unheard of act for Steve who takes this time of day very seriously, that he even clues in on anything being different.

It's only when he hears Steve talking into the receiver to Robin about "our episode being on" that he cottons on completely to what exactly is happening. The camera snatches a close up of the two of them whispering to each other and clapping when they come back from commercial break.

He nudges Steve with his toe the entire episode just to bother him for not telling him about an entire multi-day trip, but he knows trying to tear his boyfriend away from both The Price is Right and Robin is a lost cause and resigns himself to waiting until the episode ends before they talk about it.

It turns out Steve did call Eddie the night they got back from filming to tell Eddie all about it. Unfortunately, it was one of those nights where Eddie is both in a different time zone and deeply asleep after a performance and he answers the phone half awake and doesn't remember it in the morning, having hummed and agreed in the right places on instinct and only remembers the call as a hazy dream the next morning.

[byruit]

Pac-Man phone - The Price is Right (1982)

[thegroovyarchives]

A selection of early 80's The Price Is Right "contestants not appearing on our show" parting gifts

[kaleidoscope-vol2]

RIP - Bob Barker has died at the age 99.

[fontseeker]

Pinto Flare was created circa 1968 by an unknown designer for Franklin Photolettering.

It's an example of an interlock font, where parts of the letters extend above or below the adjacent letters. The interlock style was popular in the 1960s and 1970s. (The example below on the left is Pinto Flare, while the one on the right is another interlock font, Safari.)

By far the most famous use of Pinto Flare was in the The Price is Right. The show adopted Pinto Flare in 1972, back when interlock fonts were popular, and kept it long after they had fallen out of fashion. Younger generations, who didn't remember the 70s, started to see Pinto Flare simply as "the Price is Right font".

In 2000, Ray Larabie was working as an artist for Rockstar Games, and worked on projects like Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, but in his spare time he made fonts. He made a font based on the Price is Right logo called Pricedown, since no digital version of Pinto Flare existed.

Rockstar ended up using Pricedown as the font for Grand Theft Auto III, apparently unaware that it was created by one of their employees -- they just picked it because it was available for free on the internet.

Pricedown was kept for all subsequent games in the GTA series, and thus has transitioned from being "the Price is Right font" to "the GTA font" for a lot of people.

Fonts In Use has more about Pinto Flare and Pricedown.

[oldshowbiz]

"Must. Destroy. Barker. Must. Destroy. Barker."

[eightiesgalaxy]

RIP Bob Barker

1923-2023

Thanks for being a part of my childhood.

[arconinternet]

The Price is Right (Videos, 1956 onward)

You can watch various episodes from through the history of the long-running game show here. (Keep scrolling to find unsorted videos after the 2025 ones.)

The second-last image is from the 2015 April Fool's Day episode - here's a YouTube playlist with some of the others.

[yeahiwasintheshit]

[dreamsteddie]

I'm obsessed with The Price is Right and therefore I think that Steve is obsessed with the Price is Right also.

He watches the reruns on weekends and loves the days when he's sick (or pretending to be sick) and he can watch it on the living room couch when he's in high school. When he graduates he tries to get all his shifts to start after 12:00 even if it means he has to close.

He loves watching and judging people's fashion and hair choices. He does all his own shopping so he's pretty good at guessing prices and scoffs when people make stupid guesses. He's convinced himself that there's a technique to spinning the wheel to guarantee the best results.

When he gets together with Eddie the other man is incredibly indeared by Steve's love for the show. He loves the days when he gets to stay home with Steve in the mornings and watch him watch The Price is Right. He thinks it's funny how heated he can get about it like it's a sports game. He delights in bugging Steve when it's on, asking him questions really loudly right in the middle just so Steve will give him that annoyed leave me alone look that scrunched up his eyebrows.

It's also what gives Eddie the confidence to start bringing Steve back to the trailer instead of holing up in the otherwise empty Harrington house. Wayne is similarly in love with the Price is Right and since he usually works 4 10s over the weekends he has three mornings a week completely available to watch every week. The two days a week he does have work he just waits up after his shift lets out at 8 eating "dinner" and trying to keep himself awake enough to catch it at 11. Half the time he passes out in the armchair.

Eddie takes Steve back to the trailer one night and invites him to stay the night and passes out with a grin on his face thinking about his two favorite people in the world meeting tomorrow. Eddie wakes up to an empty bed and scrambles out into the living room to the happy sight of Wayne and Steve talking about unfair Take Two is like they've known each other for years instead of a couple of hours at most.

Eddie makes them all box mix pancakes and takes the last of the mostly empty coffee in the pot for himself. He bangs the big pan down loudly on the counter just to get a rise from the two on the couch and turns his back to hide his smile when they grumble at him to keep it down.

Eddie takes Steve with him on a seemingly impromptu road trip to California. Supposedly it's to scope out what kind of metal scene can be found there but the real reason is to take Steve to wait in line to audition to be in the audience of his favorite show and get a chance to play. Steve is so excited and also incredibly annoyed with the surprise. He complains about not being able to pick out his best outfit and only lets up when Eddie assures him several times that he looks fantastic.

Steve, of course, handsome as he is gets pushed through with no fuss and Eddie gets to come with him as a companion. He goes on and on about how much smaller the set is than it even looks on TV and how excited Wayne is going to be. He whispers in Eddie's ear about people's silly handmade shirts and all the people wearing suits when it's gotta be almost 80 degrees in there. Eddie just knows that the camera is going to be panning over his boyfriend as much as it can. He's going to be great for ratings.

Steve ends up getting called down and makes the closest bids on a pair of his and her watches that he's going to split with Robin. Eddie can see his eyes light up as he banters with Bob, cool as a cucumber, the bastard. He gets a nice recliner that will definitely be replacing the old, sagging one that Wayne uses now in the Clock Game and barely misses out on the second prize of a fancy game table that the kids are definitely going to bully him about. When it's time to spin the wheel he holds out on a 75 and goes to the showcase. He is very smug about it all.

In the end, he wins an okay showcase with a strange little toy car he's going to give to Erica to terrorize the other kids with and some ugly living room furniture he's probably going to reject. The real prize is the 55-inch color TV that's going to take pride of place in the Munson house.

At the end Eddie bitches and moans about all the space this crap is going to take up in the van and how their gas bill headed back is going to be at least twice what it was coming down, but he can't really feel too put out with how happy Steve looks.

Back at their hotel room, Steve tackles Eddie into the bed and thanks him profusely for doing all this for him. No one has ever gone out of their way to make him happy quite like Eddie has, and they both can't wait to get back to Hawkins and wait for their episode to air. Eddie is already planning to coordinate with the kids to get them to record a couple of VHS for them to keep.

------

Now with some Extras!

[bretzkysbs]

[helena-bottom-farter]

[valkyriellis]

The Duality of Man

[nostalgic-retrosexual]

Diane Parkinson