"The Price Is Right" (1956)
If you don't know who Bob Barker is, if you've never dreamed of possessing your own Plinko stick or reaching deep inside his $100 pocket, then you're simply not an American. How else could you have missed out on the four-decade-encompassing collective daytime remembrances of an entire nation? Ask any stranger if they'd spin again with 85 cents; whether they liked Janice, Dian or Holly best; or where they were on the monumental morning when Bob finally let his hair go gray, and you'll open up a floodgate of memories. Ultimately, Dian reached a little too deeply into Bob's magic pockets, but even that scandal couldn't lessen the desire to "Come on down" and curse at those unavoidable contestant-row weasels adding a dollar to someone else's bid.
"Let's Make a Deal" (1963)
Mixing the camaraderie of a costume party with the con-or-be-conned atmosphere of a used-car lot, "Deal" has resurrected itself numerous times during the last five decades. Much of the credit is due to co-creator and host Monty Hall, quite possibly the only man to ever offer a housewife $500 if she could pull a bag of peanuts out of her purse. Like any classic game show, "Deal" crossed over into pop-culture folklore, whether through the urban legend of the goat winner who actually took his prize home, or the so-called Monty Hall Paradox, a still-relevant mathematical problem that served as a recent plot point for the hit show "Numb3rs."
Best Game Shows of All Time
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