Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much

This very engaging documentary centers on the story of Ted Slauson, a mathematics teacher who become rather obsessed with the classic game show The Price is Right. Slauson, after becoming a fan of the show, realized that many of the items displayed for bids were often repeated. Thus, he began to record and memorize every item he could, leading to the knowledge that if he were on the show as a contestant he could be very successful.

Slauson, as the movie depicts, would begin to wait on the contestant lines very early in the morning, in the hopes of being interviewed and selected to be "called down" to bid on items, and, if successful, be in the final showcase. The film gives what I found to be a most interesting behind-the-scenes look at the game show, with Slauson narrating throughout and letting the viewer know his own personal experience, which was backed up by fascinating film footage of him in the audience and what was happening.

I won't give away too much how this all worked out but over the years Slauson appeared in the audience 37 times. There are also interviews with former host and executive producer Bob Barker and Roger Dobkowitz respectively, and another key figure in the doc is one of the gorgeous models on the show, Holly Hollstrom.

Postscript: As I usually do, after watching a doc I look up the histories of some of the people mentioned in it, and I was astounded to see on Wikipedia the bitter lawsuits, court cases, and settlements that took place over the years between Hollstrom, other models, and employees vs.Bob Barker and the show. This was not mentioned in "Perfect Bid", as I imagine the director C.J. Wallis just wanted to focus on the story at hand involving Slauson.

Other streaming services would have dragged this out for 2-3 episodes, which is unnecessary. Thankfully, we're presented with a 1 shot production that is more fascinating in showing the reality of a "live" game show (with an audience of less than 200) that airs to tens of thousands and comes across as a nationally known & important institution. Bottom line: there is no scandal, there is no fraud. It's actually kind of interesting to see the small audience regulars wrest control of a major network show that only intended to use them as background props and window dressing.

Interesting story, with compelling characters, works hard to stretch out its content to feature length, but falls a little short; made me hungry for a more all-encompassing BTS of 'TPIR'.

#nitrosMovieChallenge.

I didn't see a review for this film so I thought I'd leave one. It's an interesting story with a likable subject. The editing is very crisp, which is one of the most important things for a documentary. Some of the interviews have some slight audio issues and the music can be a little generic, but the illustrations and art style are well done. Overall, a fun watch.

Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much (2017)

**** (out of 4)

If you're a fan of The Price Is Right then you probably know about them an who won the showcase with the perfect bid. What you might not know is that the man who "won" the show wasn't really the one who gave the bid. This documentary covers super-fan Theodore Slauson who had a long connection with the show and did some pretty amazing things on it.

I had never heard of this documentary before stumbling upon in on Amazon and I'm so glad that I watched it because it truly is wonderful. If you're a fan of The Price Is Right then this here is a must see but I'd say that even if you hate that show this is still very much worth watching because it tells the story of a pretty incredible event and the various years of things that had to happen for everything to fall into place.

Game show scandals are always a hot topic and I'm sure most people know about the one on Press Your Luck. What was so shocking about this is that even casual viewers could often times know that the show repeated the prices on items so it's really no wonder that someone like Slauson took it to the next level and really programmed the prices. The documentary does a terrific job at getting his side of the story, his train of thought and letting him explain how he accomplished what he did.

Even better is that we get interviews with producer Roger Dobkowitz and Bob Barker who talk about some of the earlier episodes that featured Slauson doing his magic. There's also an archival interview with Drew Carey where you can see his reaction to this perfect bid and it makes sense as to why he was so worried and upset over it.

This documentary seems to slowly be picking up some traction as far as people talking and hopefully it gets out there into more homes. Slauson's story and what happened from that perfect bid were great entertainment and this is certainly worth watching.