Squeeze Play (pricing game)
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Squeeze Play is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on September 13, 1977, this game is played for a four-digit prize, worth more than $2,000.
[edit] Gameplay
The contestant is shown a string of five digits (e.g., 46802). The first and last digits are correct, but one of the middle digits – either the second, third or fourth number – is an extra number. It is left to the contestant to guess which one is wrong.
The remaining numbers then "squeeze" together on the gameboard to form a possible price (e.g., if the 0 were removed in the above example, the resulting price would be $4,682). If that price matches the actual retail prize, the contestant wins.
[edit] Trivia
- On occasion, the game is played for a car. In this case, a six-digit version of the game is used. As before, the first and last numbers are right; the contestant needs to remove either the second, third, fourth or fifth number to form the five-digit price.
- Squeeze Play had in the past been played for 4-digit cars; however, this practice was phased out around 1990.
- On one occasion, when the time came to reveal the right price, the door concealing the price stuck, and Bob had to resort to giving the door a solid kick. When the door eventually opened, the price tag fell to the stage floor. The contestant, a woman named Christine, did not win the game, as could be seen before the tag fell out of its spot.
- On an earlier occasion, the selected number became stuck when Bob tried to remove it; it eventually came loose, and the other numbers squeezed together. However, another number tilted out of place, and after several tries at pounding it back in, Bob resorted to kicking the number into place. Whatever happened, the contestant eventually won.[1]
- On other occasions, the numbers did not squeeze together without help from Bob, though the sound effect was still heard.
- Squeeze Play has not always been played on the Turntable; until 1982, it was played on the stage and was concealed by the Giant Price Tag.
- The sound effect used for the numbers "squeezing" together is the same one heard as the safe is opened and closed in Safe Crackers.
- The "squeezing" of the numbers used to be controlled by a motor; since the early 1990s the game has been operated manually by a stagehand concealed behind the gameboard.
