Penny Ante

Penny Ante was a pricing game on the American television game show "The Price Is Right". Played from January 25, 1979 through June 14, 2002, it was played for a prize worth more than $3,000, and it used grocery items.

The game was played on the 1980s UK version of the show as "The Penny Drops."

Gameplay

The contestant was given three oversized pennies at the start of the game. They were then shown a grocery item with four possible prices displayed, only one of which was correct. The contestant had to select the correct price. If they were incorrect, they had to give up one of their pennies. If they were correct, they moved on to a second grocery item played the same way. If the contestant guessed the second price correctly, they won the large prize. If, however, the contestant made three mistakes between the two items, they were out of pennies and the game ended in a loss.

The gameplay took place on a game board which was split in half vertically to represent the two grocery items. An item sat on each half, with the four possible prices displayed in a row of buttons in front of the contestant, as well as along the back wall of the game board. When a selection was made, the corresponding button was pressed, and a row of illuminated pennies ran up the board to the price on the back wall, which revealed either the word "yes" or "no" behind it. The game was arguably best known for the unusual sound effect (similar to the sound effect made by the bonus game wheel on "The Joker's Wild", as well as the doors to the booths on "Double Dare") that played as the pennies lit up.

Rule Changes

The first five playings of Penny Ante used different rules in which the possible prices were not divided into two groups for the two grocery items and the goal was to find both prices before the total of the contestant's incorrect guesses reached $1. The total of the incorrect guesses was measured by penny catchers, into which pennies fell in the amount of the wrong guess. The same board was used, but it was not split into green and blue halves as it was under its final form.

On its sixth playing, on March 30, 1979, the regular rules debuted.

Retirement

Penny Ante suffered recurring mechanical problems, in which instances occurred where another price tag accidentally opened when host Bob Barker pressed another button on the machine. This started happening in the 1990s, growing more frequent during Season 30. The game was scheduled to be played on October 9, 2002, but it malfunctioned and could not be repaired in a timely manner; Pick-a-Number was eventually played to replace it, and Penny Ante was retired. The staff later decided to reverse its decision and attempt to have the board repaired, but in the intervening days, it had been left outside in the rain and was damaged to the point of being unusable. They then decided to have a new board built for the game, but the plans never got past the design stages, and after a five-year hiatus, it was finally shelved permanently in April 2007. It is the third longest lived pricing game ever to be retired, behind Hit Me and Poker Game.

Penny Ante was the last game to be officially retired during Bob Barker's tenure as host; however, Hit Me, which was retired several months earlier, was played a number of times in the four and a half years between Penny Ante's final playing and ultimate retirement.