The Price Is Right Celebrates 40th Anniversary and Bob Barker’s Invitation Gets Lost in the Mail

Posted by Handflapper on 09/05/2012 in Entertainment, Television · 3 Comments

While the world was distracted by political conventions, there have been some nefarious shenanigans going on at TV’s longest running game show. That’s right–yesterday The Price is Right celebrated its 40th anniversary, and they didn’t even invite Bob Barker to the party.

Bob says he’s “fine” about not being invited, but he looks pissed to me!

Past contestants from the show were invited and several clips were run featuring Bob, but he says the producers not only did not invite him to attend the program or the taping, they haven’t even offered him a DVD! Yes, I know, it is absolutely shocking that Bob Barker would be slighted in this way. I mean, this was the man who exhorted viewers to “Help control the pet population: Have your pets spayed or neutered” at the end of every broadcast for 35 years.

Of course, his lack of an invite couldn’t have had anything to do with all the various sexual harassment lawsuits filed against him and the show’s producers over the years. Apparently those showcase models were expected to drape themselves across more than A! NEW! CAR! Remember Dian Parkinson? She brought suit against Bob in 1994. At first he denied all allegations that he had forced her to have sex with him in order to keep her job. Then he admitted that they had had a “consensual affair.” Then the next year there was Holly Hallstrom, who claimed she was fired from the show because she would not cooperate with Bob by telling the media stories about Parkinson.

Bob thinks his animal rights activism may have been the cause of the snub. During his tenure as the show’s host, producers wouldn’t have dared to offer prizes such as tickets to Sea World and Calgary Stampede. Bob wouldn’t have stood for it. He would in no way have supported anything that had even a whiff of animal abuse.