Is the Price Right for Seven?

Is The Price Is Right headed for a comeback?

According to News Limited, it appears that Seven is keen to revive the age-old format to run back-to-back with Deal Or No Deal in the important lead-in hour to the 6.00pm news.

It is tipped that the revamped Price Is Right will be hosted by Larry Emdur (pictured), currently co-host of Seven’s popular The Morning Show and who hosted two previous versions of The Price Is Right for the Nine Network.  Emdur has also hosted game shows Family Double Dare, The Main Event, Cash Bonanza and Wheel Of Fortune.

News of the planned revival comes after a wave of nostalgia for the format following the recent passing of Ian Turpie who hosted the game show during the 1980s for both the Seven and Ten networks.

The Price Is Right is certainly one of the most enduring of game show formats on Australian television – usually enjoying a few years on air before taking a break and then resurfacing to an enthusiastic reception. 

It made its first appearance in the late 1950s with separate versions in each of Sydney and Melbourne.  A ‘national’ version, hosted by Horrie Dargie, launched as a daytime program on the Seven Network in 1963.

Ten years later the 0-10 Network revived the titled, based on the updated format launched in the US, with host Garry Meadows.  The program was so successful in its daytime format that the network expanded it to run in prime-time as well.

The Seven Network then launched The New Price Is Right, hosted by Turpie, in September 1981 on the back of failed early-evening game shows Celebrity Tattletales and Catch Us If You Can.  The show was a hit and ran for around four years.  Turpie reprised his role as host when Ten launched The Price Is Right as a Saturday night program as part of its ill-fated 10 TV Australia line-up of 1989.

Nine then revived The Price Is Right with Emdur as host for several years during the 1990s and then again in 2003.  The show last appeared in 2005.

Last year Emdur made a guest appearance on the US version of The Price Is Right as part of that show’s 40th anniversary celebration.

The recycling of classic TV show formats is hardly new but appears to be a trend among American producers and has seen the revival of some former Australian favourites, including Hey Hey It’s Saturday, It’s A Knockout, Young Talent Time and the recent announcement of a remake of drama series Prisoner, but success in this strategy is proving to be hard to come by.  However, The Price Is Right is one format that seems to always bounce back on a high.

Source: News.com.au

Obituary: Ian Turpie

Australian showbusiness has lost one of its true veterans with reports that Ian Turpie has died from cancer at the age of 68.

Born in Melbourne in 1943, his career started as a child actor back in the 1950s working in radio and theatre productions.  He later moved to television as a performer on variety shows including Bandstand, Sing Sing Sing (formerly The Johnny O’Keefe Show) and the Melbourne-based daytime show Time For Terry.

In 1964, Turpie became the first “victim” in the iconic television drama series Homicide, playing the role of a university student who was shot dead while staging a mock bank hold-up in the opening scenes of the first episode.

He was later a host of the mid-1960s pop music program Go!!

Working as a variety and club performer during the 1970s Turpie made a television hosting comeback in 1981 on The New Price Is Right (pictured), a reprisal of the game show franchise that had last appeared on Australian TV in the mid-1970s.  The show was a hit for the Seven Network and lasted for around four years.  He was to revisit the format in 1989 when the Ten Network launched The Price Is Right as a Saturday night program.

In the early 1980s he hosted a variety program, Turpie Tonight, for Perth channel TVW7.  The program won a TV Week Logie in 1983 for Most Popular Program in Western Australia.

He also hosted game shows Press Your Luck, The Newlyweds Game and Supermarket Sweep.

Later television appearances included drama series Always Greener and comedies Club Buggery, Pizza, Swift And Shift Couriers and Housos.

He was diagnosed with cancer early last year.

Last May he was inducted into the Mo Awards’ Hall of Fame and there is now an online campaign via Facebook to have Turpie inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.

Ian Turpie is survived by wife Jan, three children and three grandchildren.

Source: Yahoo7, Ian Turpie, IMDB, TV Eye – Classic Australian Television, Daily Telegraph.