Well-oiled android or first game show host to be cloned? You decide.
For my entire lifespan of almost 20 years, Bob Barker has been old. The host of The Price Is Right has been suspended in a gelatinous chasm between old age and dying for as long as I've seen him on the tube, leading me to believe he must have been born with white hair, a well-pressed suit, and that skinny little microphone. Gelatinous chasm? ...anyway. I mean to say he's been an old fart forever and somehow he's not getting any older.My hypothesis - he's a clone.
The producers of TPiR must have genetically created two or three Bob Barkers in the late 70's to ensure that the show would last for generations to come. So my grandchildren's grandchildren could watch an old man surrounded by a fresh stock of blonde beauties. When the actual Bob Barker died, he was replaced with the clone which had matured by then, and TPiR lived on.
Good plan. I mean, think about it. Do you know how hard it would be to replace him with someone lacking his exact genetic blueprint? Case in point: The Family Feud. Remember the first time you saw the new Family Feud and saw Louie Anderson? You longed for that other guy, the one that looked like a preacher. Or if you're older still maybe you longed for that cool old man with the bad pastel 70's suits. They were familiar to you. They felt right. And when you take them away, the game show feels wrong. It's like going to bed every night with your spouse who you love very dearly and one day you wake up and turn to give your spouse a kiss as you do every morning and next to you in bed is a neon pink emu.
Anyway. So TPiR would not be the same with someone else walking around on Bob's green stage, spinning Bob's big wheel, and handing out Bob's Plinko chips. So to secure ratings, they made sure "Bob" would always host. Mortality be damned! Thank god the art of playing god has become so advanced in the recent years.
Or maybe he's been an animatronic Bob Barker since the show's debut. The same folks who brought you the Bear Jamboree in Disneyland also made Bob. This would explain his not growing older. I challenge anyone to find his birth certificate. He wasn't born, he was made, I tell you, made!
Bob Barker was born December 12, 1923, making him 80 this year, now that's old! Pop On Home