Bullseye (1972)
The first Price is Right game to be retired. Also known as “Bullseye I”.
A car was shown. The contestant had seven bids to hit the exact price, to the dollar. After every bid Bob told the contestant “Higher” or “Lower”, but it was up to the contestant to remember their previous bids.
The game was far too difficult. Bullseye ’72 has the distinction of the only pricing game that was never won. In fact, nobody ever really came close to winning it, and the game was scrapped after five playings with three rulesets. It is credited as being the inspiration for Clock Game, which endures today.
S1, September 5 1972 – S1, September 15 1972
Creator Unknown
S1, Sep 5 1972
Douy doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to become Bullseye’s first ever victim… er, contestant!
This 1972 Chevy Nova could be yours, if the price is right… and in this game, they’re going to hold you to those EXACT WORDS.
“How close do I have to be?” asks Douy. “You have to be ON THE NOSE,” responds Bob.
To make the game more “fun”, as Bob put it, the audience was shown the price in advance. While the studio audience was forbidden from yelling out numbers, they were encouraged to “ooh” and “aah”.
Her first bid of $2600? “Ooooh!” Her second bid of $3000? “Aaaah!”
Even Bob was forbidden from recapping a contestant’s previous bids once they were no longer on the board! He could only give play-by-play saying that the contestant had narrowed it down from “what you bid” to “what you bid”.
The audience makes their loudest groan so far when she’s just three dollars off! The intention seems have been for the contestant to use the aural cues to deduce how close they were.
Last guess! Douy’s played well and used binary search efficiently, and she must know it’s between $2635 and $2650… but that leaves fourteen possible prices. Her only hope is to pick the right number out of the air…
“Twenty-six…. FIFTY!” Oh no! Under the pressure of the lights, she’s forgotten that she’s already bid that!
“You missed it by just three dollars!” Bob tries to put on a happy face throwing to break, but even he can’t hide that was an anticlimactic ending to all that buildup.
Well, it’s not the hottest start in the world. It took three guesses to determine the Camaro was between $3500 and $4000.
“How can you do this to me?” asks Jeannie. The staff must have been in agreement, because this was the last time the game kept this rule set.
With her next three bids, she narrows it from $3585 to $3645. But odds of her final bid winning it are one in fifty-nine!
Can you believe it? Jeannie missed it by just one dollar! Talk about a painful way to lose!
S1, Sep 6 1972
Before the game’s third taped playing, Bob gives Irene a hint–the boat will be between $3000 and $3500.
“What’s your first bid?” “Three twenty”. The staff interpreted this to mean $3020. Oh, boy, I can already tell how this is going to end…
The blue lights are faaaar easier to read on camera, not that it helps. Only two bids left, and all Irene’s been able to determine is it’s between “three thirty” and $3250.
Irene’s last guess? “Take off about thirty dollars!” Needless to say, she lost!
S1, Sep 12 1972
A glimmer of hope? Brenda’s figured out the Chevelle is between $4250 and $4300, and she has four bids left. If she plays them right, she might have a real shot!
Ooh! Aah! Two bids left to cover 19 potential prices!
Her last bid? “Forty two….. fifty nine.” Bob shows Brenda how close she was, but even the $500 range wasn’t enough to give most contestants a fighting shot.
Another rule change happened on the game’s final playing: The price of the car was rounded to the nearest $10, and the $500 range was eliminated. Video of Bullseye’s final episode doesn’t circulate, but spoiler alert: The contestant came nowhere near winning.
The “higher/lower” idea was recycled into Clock Game, which is well-loved to this day.
The game was briefly retooled as “Double Bullseye“, a two-player game that forced a winner. It was just as short-lived here in the US, but has found love on some international formats, most notably the Australian version who uses it as their showcase qualifier.
- Zero in on Bullseye’s successors, Double Bullseye and Clock Game
- Target other early retired pricing games like Mystery Price and Double Digits
- Revisit the first five pricing games, including Any Number, Double Prices, Bonus Game, and Grocery Game
- Get the year 1972 exactly right in the Tiny Timeline
- Return to “Golden Game Gallery“
Golden-Gallery.net 