Fed up? Come on Down!

A classic game show is a comfort during Covid

In January, back when there was school you had to leave the house to attend, my 10-year-old daughter was home sick. I work from home, so that morning the two of us were side-by-side in my bed. While I typed away on my laptop, my girl was next to me, alternating between dozing off and watching TV. After a couple of hours, she started getting restless. She didn’t want to eat. She had no appetite. She didn’t want to play a game. She had no energy. I was running out of ideas.

“What time is it?” I asked her.

She glanced at the clock on the DVR, “Almost 11.”

Out of nowhere, an idea: “Have you ever seen The Price Is Right?”

The Price is Right premiered on NBC in November 1956. In 1963, the show switched networks and moved to ABC, where it aired its final episode two years later. In 1972, a reformatted version premiered on CBS, making The Price is Right one of only a few game shows that has aired on all of what were then known as the big-three networks.

With more than 9,000 episodes and counting, The Price is Right is television’s longest-running game show. It is also the highest-rated show on daytime TV. I write for daytime TV. Every week I see the ratings, and every week The Price is Right is number one. I never understood why — until the day I watched it with my daughter and remembered how freaking great it is.