Emmy Award-winning gameshow host Bob Barker, who spent 5 a long time related to “The Worth Is Proper” and “Fact or Penalties,” has died. He was 99. 

“It’s with profound disappointment that we announce that the World’s Biggest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” Barker’s publicist Roger Neal stated in an announcement on Saturday.

Barker was cited within the Guinness Ebook of World Information for his consecutive appearances internet hosting gameshows and doling out a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in money and prizes over time earlier than Alex Trebek surpassed him. Barker hosted “The Worth Is Proper,” the longest-running gameshow in TV historical past, for 35 years, retiring in June 2007.

In “The Worth Is Proper,” enthusiastic contestants are invited by the deep-voiced announcer to “Come on down” and play mini-games primarily based on guessing the price of merchandise.

Barker was a robust advocate for animal rights, and donated thousands and thousands of {dollars} to animal neutering packages. He was identified for ending his reveals by saying, “And bear in mind of us, at all times spay or neuter your pets!”

“The Worth Is Proper” was the final man standing within the daytime gameshow style on the time, having survived 12 years after its final competitor had been canceled. (CBS would later revive daytime players in 2009). “The Worth Is Proper” continued on the community below host Drew Carey.

Barker held a weekday TV job repeatedly for 51 years, which included his years on “Fact or Penalties.”

He gained 19 Emmy Awards in complete, together with 14 for gameshow host, greater than another performer. He additionally gained 4 for govt producer of “The Worth Is Proper” and obtained a lifetime achievement Emmy for Daytime Tv in 1999.

He attributed his recognition to the truth that he by no means carried out as an actor, besides sometimes enjoying himself (as within the Adam Sandler film “Completely satisfied Gilmore” in 1996). His reveals have been a household affair, produced by his first spouse, his highschool sweetheart Dorothy Jo Gideon, till her dying from most cancers in 1981, and he often introduced his pets to the studio.

His face was acquainted to Individuals of a number of generations. The good-looking, amiable, silver-haired host was by no means obsequious or condescending to his contestants, at all times enthusiastic and heat.

Along with his resonant talking voice, he determined to pursue a profession in radio after faculty and tried quite a few completely different positions earlier than selecting audience-participation programming. After working in Florida, he moved to California, the place he hosted “The Bob Barker Present” from 1950 by means of 1956, when he was tapped by Ralph Edwards, who wished a daytime host for his present “Fact or Penalties” (which was already enjoying in primetime and had originated on radio). He shot his first present in late 1956 and continued till 1966 on NBC and for one more eight years in syndication.

Even whereas he was internet hosting “Fact or Penalties,” Barker had launched into one other gameshow, “The Worth Is Proper,” beginning in 1972 on CBS. The present featured feminine fashions, generally known as Barker’s Beauties, who launched the prizes, and announcer Johnny Olson, who continued on the present till his dying in 1985. By 1975 “The Worth Is Proper” had been expanded to an hour, and by 1990 it had turn out to be the longest-running gameshow in tv historical past and a part of American popular culture historical past.

Barker took over as exec producer for the present in 1988, following the dying of the unique govt producer, Frank Wayne. On this capability, Barker created a number of pricing video games and instituted a prohibition on overseas automobiles and animal-based merchandise.

Along with his daytime gameshow internet hosting, Barker was the emcee for twenty years on the sweetness pageants Miss U.S.A. and Miss Universe. Barker left the pageant scene in 1987 when the Miss U.S.A. producers refused to substitute artificial furs for the true factor within the finalists’ prizes. He additionally stated he turned down profitable business offers with firms he believed handled animals inhumanely. He additionally emceed the Rose Parade for a number of years.

“One of many first issues that folks stated to me after they knew I used to be gonna get the present was, ‘Come on down,’ that was the factor I heard again and again, and, ‘Spay and neuter your pets,’” “The Worth Is Proper” host Drew Carey stated in an installment of Selection’s Making a Scene. “So I gotta maintain saying it. And I’d anyhow — it’s part of the present.”

Carey continued, “Once I instructed Bob I used to be going to maintain doing it, we have been at lunch and I discussed it to him that I used to be gonna maintain doing it — however I used to be going to do it whether or not he wished me to or not as a result of it’s such an enormous a part of the present.” 

Born Robert William Barker on Dec. 12, 1923, in Darrington, Wash., Barker grew up in South Dakota, residing on the Rosebud Indian reservation (the place his mom was a instructor) till he was in his early teenagers, after which settled in Springfield, Mo. After highschool he entered Drury School on a basketball scholarship, leaving college to coach as a fighter pilot with the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1943, although he by no means noticed fight throughout WWII.

In 1947 he earned a B.A. in economics and was persevering with his schooling when he turned sidetracked by a radio job, which he had initially taken to pay for his education.

Barker additionally had different, shorter-lived internet hosting stints, reminiscent of 1980’s “That’s My Line,” a variation on the sooner “What’s My Line?” He additionally hosted the Pillsbury Bake-Off from 1969-85, the Match of Roses Parade and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

In 1994 Barker was the topic of a sexual harassment go well with by Dian Parkinson, who had labored on “The Worth Is Proper” for 18 years, claiming she had been pressured to have intercourse with Barker as a way to preserve her job. Barker countered that the intercourse had been consensual, and Parkinson ultimately dropped her go well with.

He was inducted into the Academy of Tv Arts & Sciences Corridor of Fame in 2004 and into the NAB Broadcasting Corridor of Fame in 2008.