by Mj Ferruzza

Created on: October 26, 2007   Last Updated: July 29, 2010

The NEW Price is Right Drew Carey
Looks Like a Chimp in a Tuxedo: Uncomfortable!

First of all, I love Drew Carey. I first caught his act on the Johnny Carson version of the Tonight Show. He reminded me of my grandmother's last husband, Harry.
   Harry was an intelligent, horned-rimmed bespectacled tax lawyer from Cincinnati. Drew Carey's looks were a throw back to the "man in the gray suit" times. NBC offered him a TV series (which bombed) where he played some second banana office worker. Years later, ABC got it right. Centering a TV show around a lovable workingman schlub, surrounding him with wacky friends and coworkers, and even setting the show comfortably in the what would be the star's own hometown worked quite well. That is until it jumped the shark, when ideas were just going nowhere. Everyone had dated Kate. Drew's transvestite brother marries Mimi and later abandons her and kid. Drew has an affair with Shirley (The Music Man) Jones probably 20+ years his senior, which led to the funniest remark made by Danny Bonaduce in 30+ years.

As The Drew Carey show started to wane, the popularity of one of its characters was starting to take off. Ryan Stiles was proving to be a great improv comedian in a BBC mock game show called "Whose Line Is It Anyway". ABC decided to bring the concept to the States, plop Drew Carey into the host seat and let the asylum of talented improv artists (Stiles, Colin Mochrie and quick thinker/singer Wayne Brady) take off with all the funny ideas. The only drawback was when Drew Carey would get on stage at the end of an episode and try to do some improvisation, not his strong suit.
After "Whose Line" ended mercifully, Drew Carey tried to revive it as a show called "The Green Screen". It was thankfully short lived.

Drew Carey then took off on a self imposed sabbatical. He got into World soccer. He grew a beard. He even had eye surgery. His glasses are definitely just a prop now.

After 35 years, Bob Barker and CBS decided to part company. Bob was going to leave the Price is Right, a show he could have hosted well into his 90s. The Price is Right is a dinosaur of a game show that has lasted over the decades due to loyal fans, familiar game formats and rising nursing home viewer ship. I remember Bob Barker from his Truth and Consequences days. He was one of the meanest hosts on television. He would brush off a losing contestant and even occasionally berate a winning one on that show. When he took over the Price is Right, I remembering

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