Like always, here’s the list of best & worst moments of this milestone season.
BEST
-Two new pricing games were introduced this season, Back to ’72 (exclusive to this season to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary) and To The Penny, the latter of which is similar to Penny Ante.
-During the premiere week, one game per day was played for $1 MILLION.
-A two-hour primetime 50th anniversary special w/ high-value prizes in play and showing highlights from the Barker era was aired on September 30th.
-Robert Strupczewski on the premiere made a wise move to bail w/ $100K in Pay the Rent
-Stephen Brennan on 9/15 won a mountain house worth $131,765 from Secret X which was the highlight of an otherwise ugly episode.
-Alexis Gaube made her modeling debut in the 9/17 episode.
-Nat Nehdar played perfectly in the debut playing of To The Penny.
-Gisela Nersesian, former showcase winner from 3/7/2005 (won $37,229 to be exact), stayed on the winning side in her return on the 9/23 episode by winning Side-by-Side but did not advance to the Showcase this time
-Longtime TPiR co-producer Stan Blits retired after the 9/24 episode and made a brief appearance before the second showcase showdown.
-Thomas Story nailed it in his playing of Magic # on 10/8 as the show’s only PG winner, and then he went on to win the showcase.
-Ralph Valencia on 10/15 not only became THE FIRST DOUBLE SHOWCASE WINNER OF THE SEASON he came SO CLOSE to make it a TRUE DSW ($100 or less difference).
-During showcase bidding on the 12/15 episode Megan Monroe made this hilarious remark on buying boats after grieving over her low bid: “Have you ever bought a boat? Have you ever bought a boat? Neither have I. (Strangely, my father has, twice.)” LOL 🤣
-The week of 12/20 was unmerry for the most part (incl. our THIRD DOB THIS SEASON on the daytime 12/22 ep.), but that all changed ’twas the night before Christmas — Tristan Caley risked it all for $100K in Pay The Rent… AND WON THE BIG ONE (sadly, that was our only luxury PG win this season)!!!! Not only that, Peter Wetzel was the second contestant this season to win $26K SCSD bonus money and then went on to win the showcase for a final total of $67,559 cash & prizes, and that was THE SECOND OF THE TWO PERFECTOS!! Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas, indeed!
-A three-way bonus spin-off occurred on 12/29 w/ Theresa Howe becoming $26K winner #3 to go to the showcase, Katherine Martin winning $11K and Debra Pivko did not land on $1 again and took $1K.
-Melinda McIntosh became the first contestant to end the year of 2021 AS THE THIRD (& final) DSW WINNER THIS SEASON since Brooke in 2004.
-Eugenia Ingino went on a road to redemption on 1/5 — From being a victim of a skunked first half after losing Most Expensive, to winning a $11K SCSD bonus to winning a high-value showcase for a final total of $50,721 cash & prizes.
-George Williams in the First Responders primetime special that aired 1/12 went against the odds and won the infamous Gridlock and then the showcase to land in the top three (as of the OAD) in season winnings w/ $98,773. Carly Torkel & Selena Laniel (the latter is an American Ninja Warrior alum) also had big wins in their PGs during this special.
-Lucas Carvalho on 1/20 MASTERED One Away w/ a perfect playing.
-It may not have been much in terms of winnings, but “The Talk” primetime special that aired on 1/20 was still pretty entertaining to watch, and we also have that “TπR” joke on the board in Do The Math.
-Lucas Carvalho on 1/20 MASTERED One Away w/ a perfect playing.
-The 2/1 episode saw the first instance of having three perfect IUFB bids in one episode since Season 43.
-A new record in celebrity charities was set on the Valentine’s Day primetime special as a whopping $125,567 collected by newlyweds Justin Hartley (This is Us) & Sofia Pernas went to Operation Therapy!!! Also, Lorraine & Mark Mendiola went against all odds and won a difficult setup of Cliffhangers & went to face the eventual winners, the Yuns, in the showcase w/ $55,526 (both couples were car game winners, BTW; the latter couple won for a total of $84,547 cash & prizes).
-Patricia won $25,414 in prizes in the early ’90s after winning a showcase that included a boat, and she did it again over 30 yrs. later on 2/16 this time w/ $48,197 cash & prizes!!!
-Angela Heslop on 2/18 NAILED IT at her playing of Race Game and took the win in ten seconds.
-After a very strong start in Dream Car Week during the wk. of 2/21 (sans TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of Triple Play), this week quickly started to tank (Days 3 & 4 were the low point), until we got to Ten Chances during Day 5 where Melissa Parrigo WENT AND WON ALL PRIZES INCLUDING THE FEATURE DREAM CAR, THE AUDI E-TRON, AND AT THAT MOMENT SHE’S THE NEW S50 LEADER W/ 125,616!!!!!!! But she wasn’t done here, because she picked up a $1K SCSD bonus and WON HER SHOWCASE to bring that total up to $159,040 to put her as this season’s biggest showcase winner and the 5th biggest winner in the show’s history!!!!!!!!
-The week of 3/21 had three 4-for-6 PG shows.
-Ester Campbell on 3/25 put together a perfect playing of Bonus Game.
-Robert Devaughn on 4/8 stole the spotlight by helping w/ calling down contestants from the audience to Contestants’ Row and presenting showcases, even though he lost his car PG of One Away.
-Despite its rough start w/ the IUFB all-overbids the wk. of 4/11 was solid for the most part w/ two $54K+ winners and 19-of-30 PGs won for the week.
-Quincy Hughes on 4/21 displayed good sportsmanship for his Shell Game loss and then went on to win his showcase.
-This show was inducted into the National Assoc. of Broadcasters Broadcasting HoF on 4/24.
-Although he made a bid that we weren’t so sure about in the showcase of the 4/25 primetime special (but thankfully he came here to explain it) 7-time game show veteran Hans von Walter won the bigger showcase for a total of $65,270 cash & prizes (and w/ a whopping $33K+ difference off the ARP) redeeming from his Money Game loss.
-Eleda Matorin on 4/26 came THREE DOLLARS SHY of a DSW.
-Katherine Americano who has a cool last name won two cars on the episode airing 5/13, one from Pathfinder and another from the showcase for a final accumulated total of $59,330 in cars & smaller prizes.
-Christopher Munoz on 5/16 killed it w/ his playing of Any Number and then winning his showcase for a total of $61,597 cash & prizes.
-Garland Williams on 5/17 managed to win Bonkers in eight seconds.
-Scott, Drew, Devin & Rachel’s high-stepping improv and Emily Seagondollar’s showcase win for a final total of $50,972 were the highlights of a 5/31 episode otherwise not worth talking about.
-Despite a somewhat slow start, the week of 6/6 gradually got better and went on to become the BEST WEEK of the season w/ seven cars won and four winners going over the $50K+ mark, and all w/out the help of luxury prizes! Wednesday & Friday were the highlights as the former had a $26K SCSD bonus win as well as a Gas Money win, and the latter went 5-for-6 in PGs, all of the first six were called up to play games, and we had a car winners’ showcase for the lucky seventh and final time this season.
-Marcus Ramsey came $4 shy of a perfect playing of Cliff Hangers during the Summer Beach Party special airing 6/20.
-Even though he wasn’t the showcase winner in this year’s TPiR 4th of July military special, Nathaniel Novak, a pediatric nurse in the Navy, tee’d off from Hole in One and was the top winner w/ $42,630 in prizes including the car.
-We had a Car Winners’ Showcase in the following episodes: 9/21, 10/19, 11/17, 12/27, 2/14 (primetime), 2/21 & 6/10.
-Six $26K SCSD bonus wins in these following episodes: 9/29, 11/1, 12/24, 12/29, 1/4 & 6/8
-Two perfect PG shows (10/19 & 12/24).
-Double overs (8) were down half from last season, and it’s a good thing we didn’t experience a repeat of the barrage of double overs from late last season.
-Notable showcase winners throughout the season: Anthony Parthner (50th Premiere Week; Sept. 17, ’21; $87,986); Lanora Driscoll (Regular Play Week; Dec. 6; $86,730); The Ramos Estrada Family (Holiday Family Night; Dec. 22; $51,773); George Williams (First Responders; Jan. 12; $98,773); Whitney Stevens (The Talk; Jan. 19; $42,499); The Yuns (Valentine’s Day Special; Feb. 14; $84,547); Hoa Mary Tran (Baby Shower Special; Apr. 4; $48,795); Kayden & Ashlyn Roxas (Siblings Day Special; Apr. 18 (should’ve been the 8th); $39,164); Hans von Walter (Rachel Brosnahan charity; Apr. 25; $65,270); Renee Werner (Teachers Appreciation Day Special; May 3; $29,327); Laura, Lisa & Tiffany Weldon (Mother’s Day Special; May 6; $50,455); Anna Dorfman (Beach Party Special; Jun. 20; $43,069); Berlyn Hernandez (Fourth of July Military Special; Jul. 4; $40,526); Nathan Graeser (50th Anniversary Daytime Special; Sept. 5, ’22; $42,192); Melissa Parrigo (Dream Car Week; Feb. 25; $159,040; Biggest showcase winner of the season).
WORST
-Only one luxury pricing game win this season as mentioned before.
-Too many SCSD dud spins compared to previous seasons, and there were two instances of having seven of those in a single week (wks. of 9/20 and 2/7). Spins are getting weaker, so I really think they should loosen up the big wheel for next season, so instead of contestants (especially those physically disadvantaged) trying to spin as hard as they can just for the wheel to go around once they could control the strength of their spin in hopes of trying for the $1.00 spin, thus creating strategy as Adam Alam said on his “How to Improve Wheel” post on Andynwof’s site about loosening up the Wheel in Wheel of Fortune in order to reduce predictable penalty spins and increase the chances of $5K FS landings.
-There were only three double showcase wins compared to the eight of last season, and none so far in the year of 2022.
-Seven WSDs (over by $250 or less) on these following episodes: 10/18, 12/9, 1/26, 3/3, 3/16, 4/7 & 5/4.
-We still have contestants make the dreaded mistake of saying “FALSE” four times in a row on Five Price Tags (Contestants guilty of making that move: Arehly Arroyo Alvarez (10/22), Lisa Ivey (1/21),).
-Daisy Nwosu suffered a heartbreaker coming up just short of winning the car in Pocket Change on 9/29.
-Kiana Moreland made on the daytime 9/30 episode made the fatal mistake of switching out the car price in Switcheroo.
-Hampton Clarke may have denied the perfect PG show on 10/7, but it turned out that he was actually off the hook (sort of.. maybe not…) for that…BECAUSE WE HAD OUR FIRST DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON despite that Hampton himself was part of it.
-Kelly Mayer on 10/27 TOTALLY BOMBED HER PLAYING of the same game right above, but she redeemed herself winning the showcase.
-A skunked show ended up being avoided on 11/3 by a playing of the beloved Plinko.
-Minus Dice Game, things began to crumble in the second half of the Veteran’s Day episode, and the downfall was complete when WE HAD OUR SECOND DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON — That’s not honorable AT ALL. -___-
-Servio Ivan’s range in Range Game PAINFULLY FELL SHORT OF THE ARP BY A LOUSY SEVEN DOLLARS on 11/12.
-The week of 11/22 shortened for Thanksgiving was, quite frankly, not very thankful at all. Monday, two painful car losses but we did go partial on Golden Road,. Then on Tuesday we have Gabrielle Williams who won $17,478 cash & prizes on 8/31/1977 incl. a Chinook RV, who has discovered that time has caught up to her 44 yrs. later and she failed miserably at her playing of Ten Chances. And then finally on Wednesday, we not only had a skunked first half, speaking of skunked, we had our first & only weekly car game SKUNKING this season. Furthermore, the outcome of the showcase was SPOILED in the promo (but Drew did a good job covering up the total & prizes). And to make matters worse, only 7 of this week’s 18 PGs were won. And that is all we had this week. Total thanklessness.
-Laura Koens upped the ante w/ Hampton and Kelly on that game on 12/9.
-Allaine Benson is this season’s lowest showcase winner of the season coming out of there w/ a measly $23,587 on 1/25. Yeah, this week was just abysmal which also included Nadine McDaniel-Allen’s WSD by $131 and three TOTAL TRAINWRECKS.
Disastrous first half of the wk. of 2/7 — Card Game heartbreak by $85 and low showcase win on Monday; First IFUB all-overbid of the season, more Switcheroo disaster, skunked first half (One Wrong Price ended up saving us from a skunking in the second half) and another low showcase win on Tuesday; Not-so-great show on Wednesday, but a car win in Any Number salvaged it. A $50K+ showcase win on Thursday picked up a little bit of momentum the rest of the way, but even then this week was forgettable at best.
-Susan Kowalski let greed get the better of her in Pay The Rent on 2/17…and watched all of what she had won up to this point explode in her face.
-March came in like a lion for Victor Velez as he WIPED OUT on the Big Wheel during the first showcase showdown of that episode (spinning 5 then 100).
-The 3/3 episode saw no PGs won but a partial averted a skunking. We also ended the episode w/ Stephanie Heipie WSD’ing by $151.
-William Freeman on 3/4 not only denied a perfect PG show he also went over on his showcase.
-The week of 3/7 was plagued by TRAINWRECKS (three of them this week incl. two in a row on 3/9 (first time that happened since 5/8/2017)), and let’s not forget about Michael Jaeger’s $20 Card Game heartbreaker (any other card would have done it).
-Nicholas Garabedian (CSUF) on the Spring Break ’22 special airing on 3/14 aka Pi Day made a dumb bid on his showcase, and he was over by a whopping $17,843 in what has to be one of the STUPIDEST OVERBIDS in the show’s history — Nicholas, if you come here and see this, I hope you have a good explanation on that, man. -__-
-Christy Snider was living in a world of hurt on 3/16 right before the St. Patrick’s Day break as not only was she part of THE FIFTH DOUBLE OVER OF THE SEASON, SHE WSD’d HERSELF BY $34!!! UNBELIEVABLE! JUST UNBELIEVABLY UNLUCKY!
-And to make it worse at the beginning of that same day, Ryan Thompson suffered a similar fate as Nicholas Garabedian on his playing of the luxury pricing game Pay The Rent, foolishly taking the risk for $100K, showing no understanding of the pricing of the items or the odds against him…and paid the ultimate piper for it crashing all the way back down to nothing. Just, why? -___-
-Grant Davis on 3/25 missed out on the $82K Maserati in Golden Road, but he did win both of the minor prizes.
-Ryan Sans on 3/29 blew it BIG TIME in the second round of Cover Up by thinking the $25,348 Hyundai Ioniq Blue hybrid hatchback was worth $20,685 — You clearly haven’t been following the hybrid market, man. -__-
-Arianna Ibarra in the Grammy’s Special that aired on 3/31 foolishly guessed 0 on the last digit on Lucky Seven — Why would you pick that there, girl? -__-
-Hoa Mary Tran in the Baby Shower Special airing 4/4 TOOK A PAINFUL BAILOUT OF $10K WHEN GOING ALL IN WOULD’VE WORKED OUT.
-Holly Gibson on 4/5 was a deserving FFBC victim thank to her overly-conservative IUFB bids.
-Not only did Genevieve Ott on 4/6 put together a TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of Make Your Move, SHE WAS AMONG THE BIDDERS IN THE SIXTH DOUBLE OVER OF THE SEASON.
-We had not one, but TWO IUFB ALL-OVERBIDS in the 4/11 episode.
-The Siblings Day Special aired ten days late (4/18 instead of 4/8).
-Katherine Weiss on 4/22 struck out on 3 Strikes w/out getting a single number up on the board, but it’s not a total trainwreck playing (the first three draws would all have to be strikes which hasn’t happened since the ’80s).
-We had a car game wipeout in the 4/25 primetime special featuring The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan.
-Melanie Silvernail on 4/28 really disappointed me by losing at Five Price Tags despite having three picks. Furthermore, we NARROWLY escaped the clutches of Pepé Le Pew w/ a win on the sixth and last PG.
-The 4/29 suffered big from TWO TOTAL TRAINWRECKS IN THE FIRST HALF (& not surprisingly, it was a skunked first half for the second day in a row) w/ the fifth game of this episode also averting a skunked show.
-During the Teachers Appreciation Day special airing 5/3, middle school math teacher Jeneen Stubblefield spelled out P for PAINFUL $3K BAILOUT, and, ironically enough, Amy Hull, being a jack-of-all-trades HS teacher, lost at her playing of Do The Math (I guess Math isn’t her strong suit…).
-Melinda Carney on 5/9 foolishly risked her $8K in It’s In The Bag and then lost it all.
-A good day for both Telesia Glenn and Michael Rich was ruined on 5/12 BY OUR EIGHTH AND FINAL DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON.
-Evelyn Hirshberg’s IUFB bidding on 5/13 was just not good. None of them even came close to being realistically right.
-Kenneth Perkins the troll making false double over announcements whenever Bobbymgsk didn’t post his recap in time.
-Showcase for 5/19 was underwhelming after a 4-for-6 PG performance.
-We were on track for a perfect PG show on 5/23, but then things crashed hard w/ a painful Shell Game loss by Elizabeth Rivera. And, although Joe Smith spared Elizabeth the embarrassment of costing us a perfect show w/ a Line ’em Up loss of his own, he ended up becoming the loser who won the showcase w/ a total of a dismal $28,659 in prizes.
-Mackenzie Price of the 5/25 episode just could not get her last name right w/ her lousy IUFB bidding landing her a deserving send-off to the FFBC.
-Alejandra Gomez-Murillo set the tone for a disastrous 5/26 episode and rest of week w/ A VERY BRUTAL TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYING OF THE LUXURY GAME TRIPLE PLAY, losing out on a potential $140K in cash and prizes, including 4 cars (3 in 3xP and 1 in the High SC), and $25K on the Big Wheel had she won her $1K and nailed the Bonus Spin.
-For the second time this season in the wk. of 5/30, and first & only in a full week, the lower-SCs swept the board.
-Genevieve Ispas on 5/31 put together put together what is possbily THE WORST TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYING of Spelling Bee.
-It took Renee Nettles on 6/14 a whopping 27 guesses to figure out the first item in Clock Game, and then Drew goofed by saying “LOWER” at $440 when he meant to say “HIGHER”, resulting in the timer to be paused and reset at :11.
-And then we had this in the showcase — We’re not even sure if Jason Grant even paid attention to what he was bidding on. His showcase, “Flashy Prizes”, contained the following: 2022 Black Denim Harley-Davidson Iron 883 (883cc engine, 5-speed transmission, helmet), designer Jewelry (Ring Come True: 14kt white gold criss-cross ring with moissanite gemstone and 3 rows of lab diamonds; moissanite tennis bracelet set in 10kt white gold) and a trip to Paris (RT Coach to Paris, FR for a 6n stay in a fully-furnished rental apartment courtesy of Feels Like Home in Paris + 1 dinner at Eiffel Tower, sighstseeing Seine River cruise). The ARP…. $23,957. His bid… $41,200, over by a whopping $17,243.
-For the first time since 2013, the TPiR 4th of July special showcase was won by a loser.
-Nathan Graese PAINFULLY went over the ARP of the camper by just $11 in Range Game in the daytime 50th Anniversary special serving as the season finale.
And that is your BEST/WORST moments for Season 50 of The Price is Right. Report anything I may have missed, whether it’s other highlights not listed here or typos.
Dave Rapp who was the reigning champ at the time on the regular series had been doing the same thing but hadn’t gotten a single word for it. That was and STILL IS 
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