TVSquad

The Price is Right set has gone through a lot of changes over the years, but today's season premiere showed that they were really busy over the summer (as was the Jeopardy crew).

The show used to have a very '70s vibe (even in the '80s and '90s), and then they replaced the more '70s-ish designs with more of a '50s look (while still keeping a lot of the '70s stuff). Today we found out that the retro '50s graphics are still evident on the walls, but they've also changed the two main areas of the stage. The screens on Contestants Row are now more clean and boxy than they used to be, and it looks like they're using a different lighting system for the numbers that pop up on the screens. Looks better.

How do you top the competitions in a show that forces two TV schlubs to wear a dead octopus on their heads or consume more beer than an Oakland Raiders tailgater?

You let their crazed fans throw down the gauntlet for them.

The Canadian Jackass-off that is Kenny vs. Spenny wants competition ideas from their viewers for their sixth season.

The other day we told you about the amazing exact price showcase bid on The Price is Right. A lot of fans thought it was really bizarre that someone would bid $23,743 on the showcase and get it exactly right. Was it luck? Was he getting help from a fan in the audience? Was a mistake by the show? Well, now we know what happened.

In a radio interview, contestant Terry Kniess says that it wasn't someone in the audience (he doesn't hear well and says it's really loud in the studio) it was just that he is a huge fan of the show and knew the prices of the prizes really well, plus a little luck.

I've been watching The Price is Right since the 70's and I thought I had seen everything: prizes break, people falling down, April Fool's Day jokes being played on contestants, boobs popping out of shirts. But today I saw something that I'm sure is going to be talked about a lot.

During the showcase, the first contestant came very, very close to the actual retail price. I think she was something like $480.00 off (I didn't record the show so I'm going on memory here). It looked like she was going to win, until they got to the other contestant. He bid $23,743, and then host Drew Carey announced the actual retail price as...$23,743. That's right, the contestant got the price exactly right.

Sure, your TiVo HD can record 2 HDTV programs at the same time. But slap the upcoming Seagate Showcase external hard drive on your PVR or home theater PC and you can record up 12 at once. You know, if you've got 12 CableCARD or ATSC TV tuners.

The Seagate Showcase is basically a fancy new hard drive enclosure with a snazzy new Seagate Pipeline HD Series hard drive which can handle up to 12 simultaneous HD streams without cracking a sweat or making loud whirring noises. The Showcase comes in capacities of up to 1TB, which should be enough to store 200 hours of HD video or 1000 hour of standard definition video.

The box is designed to be compatible with Motorola set top boxes sporting eSATA ports. It also has a USB 2.0 port which means it should work with other devices including computers running Windows Vista with Windows Media Center.

The Seagate Showcase should be available this fall. No word on how much they'll cost.

[via Gizmodo]

Comedy Central's intermittently funny stand-up showcase Comedy Central Presents is returning January 12 for its eleventh season. The first episode, airing at 10pm, will feature comedian Marc Maron, a personally favorite of mine. This will be followed by Last Comic Standing winner John Heffron at 10:30pm, to whom I'm indifferent. Other comedians to be featured this season include Maria Bamford, Tom Papa, Nick DiPaolo, Chelsea Handler , Finesse Mitchell, Mitch Fatel and Howard Kremer. Yes, some of them have performed for the series before.

I like this show, though it's not on my Tivo's Season Pass since I have to carefully pick which episodes I want to record. Marc Maron and Maria Bamford will get Tivoed for sure, but Tom Papa and Finesse Mitchell I can do without. It's called choice, and that's what makes this country so awesome.

As I've been reading the news stories surrounding Bob Barker's retirement, I've been noticing that people have been confusing two elements of the The Price is Right that have similar names. In fact, that confusion has been in place for about thirty years, perpetrated by bloggers, columnists and news anchors: the misidentification of TPiR's final round as "the Showcase Showdown."

The confusion flummoxes the best of them, including our friends at BestWeekEver.tv, who put together a list of ten reasons why they'll miss Bob (must be an homage to our The Five list of reasons why we'll miss Bob). In item number 3, about Bob losing his patience, writer Michelle Collins states, "Often seen when people have difficulty coming up with a bid during the Showcase Showdown." Um, Michelle... that's not quite right.