I am now immortal. I spent an hour today with the legend, Bob Barker.

Bob is on a tour for his book, “Priceless Memories. He stopped by the office and spoke a bit about the book, and answered a ton of questions. Bob got me through a lot of sick days in my childhood, and it was surreal to actually see him in person.

I was a bit nervous to see him, actually – toward the end of his run on The Price is Right, he seemed to be getting a little frail and not quite as mentally sharp as he was, but he was completely on top of his game. He was definitely looking like an old guy, but otherwise, his voice and mind and everything else were the Bob Barker that we all know and love. He owned the room, and was really hilarious — friendly, accommodating, and a great storyteller.

While the talk was recorded (and I’ll post the link when it’s all edited and published), a few highlights:

- He recounted the story about how he got his first big break, being discovered by someone who happened to be tuning randomly and offered him a chance to be on TV. The moral of the story was basically, be the best that you can be at all times, because you never know who’s going to be paying attention that day.
- He talked about the famous Samoan women on TPIR always wanting to pick him up and throwing him all over the place
- He admitted that he was computer illiterate, hoped to die that way, and hilariously talked about how we were all “blogging” on our “web sites” and he had no idea what any of that meant
- He said his epitaph would definitely NOT say “Come on down!” — this was the funniest thing I’ve heard all month. We were practically rolling on the floor.

It was great stuff. I forgot my camera, so here are couple of phone pictures.

At the end of the hour, Bob signed off with his signature “Help control the pet population – have your pets spayed or neutered.” And all was right in the world.

Posted in: Randomness