Bob Barker Steps on Down

By James Poniewozik

After a career of giving away appliances, The Price Is Right host and spaying-and-neutering advocate Bob Barker, 82, is hanging up his microphone next June.

Genial and just corny enough on camera, Barker is beloved, other than by pets hoping to leave a genetic legacy. For my money, The Price Is Right is the best game show in history. For 35 years it has made entertainment out of the survival skills of middle-class life--budgeting, saving, deciding what's a fair price for a dinette set. Its winners are not held up as better or smarter than the home audience, just luckier. By me, that's as commendable as controlling the cat population.

So who has the main-street appeal and hosting savvy to succeed Barker? I'm not sure, though there's a larger applicant pool available now that Today/Millionaire host Meredith Vieira has proved the news/game-show-crossover potential. By June, at the rate things are going, Katie Couric just might be looking for her next opportunity at CBS. I'll bet she's great with pets.