Until Bob Barker retired in 2007, he seemed like the Energizer Bunny of game shows.
Bob Barker was just always on, never stopping.
But he wasn't perfect.
Here's the deal with Bob Barker.
Most of the film Happy Gilmore is goofily unrealistic, but Adam Sandler losing to Bob
Barker in a golf course brawl actually captured reality to a tee.
"I think you've had enough.
No, now you've had enough."
It might sound absurd that a game show host who looks like your grandfather's grandfather
could force-feed a year's supply of knuckle sandwiches to a guy less than half his age,
especially when that guy's supposed to be an ex-hockey player.
But in real life Barker wouldn't have broken his hip trying to throw a rickety jab.
He probably could have snapped most young whippersnappers in half.
As the Sun-Sentinel explained, Barker, who was in his 70s when he filmed Happy Gilmore,
received karate lessons from Chuck Norris for eight years.
And according to the Washington Post, he attained a red belt in tang soo do karate training.
So unless Sandler was trained by Bruce Lee as a child, he probably would have been clubbed
like a golf ball in an actual fight with a disciple of Walker, Texas Ranger.
It's easy to just pretend that Bob Barker was born wearing a snazzy two-piece suit and
never changed.
Unfortunately for your imagination, Barker used to spend a lot of time in a zero-piece
birthday suit.
Granted, this happened when he was young, but it's still hard to shake.
Either way, when Barker was a boy in South Dakota, he did lots of skinny dipping.
In 2007 he told Esquire he would go swimming "five or six times a day."
Barker has speculated that his youthful nudism came at a high price, explaining:
"I get skin cancers from my misspent life.
I go in every three months to get pre-cancerous things removed.
But it was all worth it."
In 2005 Barker underwent treatment for skin cancer, but as of the making of this video,
it appears that he's beaten the disease.
Firmly in his mid-90s, Bob Barker has gotten to see things that many of us only view vicariously
through facts-optional History programs.
Barker was in his 50s when the Vietnam War ended, and Pearl Harbor happened five days
before his 18th birthday.
When the U.S. got sucked into the havoc of World War II, he enlisted in the Navy and
trained as a pilot.
According to the Deland Naval Air Station Museum, Barker trained with eight different
planes at eight separate facilities and became versed in formation flying, night flying,
and aerial combat.
However, the war ended before he got the chance to spay or neuter the enemy in a dogfight.
Barker considered putting his skills to use as a flight instructor, per the New York Times,
but a radio station job caught his eye.
The manager was into planes, so Barker used his pilot training to land the job.
Barker recalled:
"I put on my naval officer's uniform and my wings of gold and went in and talked about
airplanes for about 30 or 45 minutes… and I had my first job in radio."
Though initially employed as a news writer, Barker also did sportscasts.
This led to him filling in for a DJ and then for the host of an audience-participation
show, and he soon developed a taste for entertainment.
Barker has loved animals since childhood, but his passion for animal rights started
with his late wife, Dorothy Jo.
He explained to ABC:
"She stopped wearing fur coats before anyone was stopping.
She became a vegetarian before people were becoming vegetarian.
And I gradually did the same thing with her."
Because of her, Barker also put an end to giving out fur coats as prizes on The Price
Is Right.
He grew so opposed to wearing animals, per the LA Times, that he threatened to quit hosting
the Miss USA Pageant in 1987 because swimsuit contestants were draped in fur coats.
Fake furs were eventually used, although they make for terrible swimwear.
Around the same time that Barker argued objectifying women should be cruelty-free, he severed ties
with the American Humane Association, a group tasked with preventing animal cruelty in the
entertainment industry.
As People detailed, he was barking mad about rumors that chimps used in the film Project
X had been beaten with blackjacks and clubs.
He accused the AHA of turning a blind eye to animal abuse.
In 1989 he alleged that the organization let the makers of a John Travolta movie force
muzzled canines to viciously attack each other.
The AHA, meanwhile, accused Barker and other critics of defamation, sued them for $10 million,
and eventually settled for $315,000.
Barker openly bashed the group again in 2015, but the AHA didn't take him on.
When it comes to animal rights, Bob Barker puts his money where his mouth is.
He also put his money where Paul Watson's mouth is.
Watson founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which you may recognize from the
Animal Planet show Whale Wars.
The group basically hunts Japanese whaling ships like an ironic Captain Ahab and physically
blocks them from killing whales.
Watson asked Barker for $5 million to "put the Japanese whaling fleet out of business,"
to which Barker replied, literally, "Let's get it on," but not in the Marvin Gaye way.
Barker's hefty donation was used to purchase a 1,200-ton anti-whaling vessel capable of
cutting through ice.
To show their appreciation, Sea Shepherd christened the ship the Bob Barker, which was a huge
missed opportunity to name an anti-whaling ship Moby Dick.
Peter Hammarstedt, the Ahab of the Bob Barker, has prevented whaling vessels from refueling,
allegedly rammed them, and performed a citizen's arrest.
Paul Watson, meanwhile, has attacked ships with butyric acid, which Hammarstedt described
as foul-smelling "rotten butter" that's less caustic than Coca-Cola.
It's worth noting that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends
avoiding all contact with butyric acid because it can cause pain, blisters, skin burns, and
respiratory problems that include "labored breathing" and a "burning sensation."
Perhaps that's why Watson has been branded an eco-terrorist and banned from getting within
500 yards of Japanese whaling ships.
Since Bob Barker hosted The Price Is Right for 35 years, he loves that show plenty.
Right?
Not so, according to Barker.
In 2009 Barker revealed to Good Morning America that he seldom tunes into his old TV stomping
ground.
He explained:
"I sometimes turn it on for a game or two.
But I don't watch it.
I'm not a loyal viewer."
Of course, that might have something to do with the new host, Drew Carey.
Speaking with TMZ, Barker seemed to throw shade on Carey, saying his replacement, quote,
"... does the show differently than I did…
I tried to make the show really exciting, and he doesn't do that.
He just plays the games."
The media seized on those comments, obviously hoping Barker and Carey would have a violent
showcase showdown.
However, Barker quickly dismissed the suggestion that he bad-mouthed his successor, explaining,
"I have a sizable royalty that I am paid every year this show is on, and it's going on for
years.
I would be an absolute fool."
Even if he sort of called Carrey unexciting, he meant it in the nicest, least expensive
way possible.
Before 1994 Bob Barker seemed like a harmless silver-haired charmer.
That affable persona came into question when a former employee sued him for $8 million,
alleging sexual assault and harassment.
As detailed by the Associated Press, Dian Parkinson, who worked as a Price Is Right
model for 18 years, claimed Barker used various forms of coercion, including force, to make
her perform sexual acts on him on every week for three and a half years.
She further alleged that she slept with him for fear of losing her job and that since
quitting the show in 1993 she's received $1,000 monthly to keep quiet.
A producer for the show, meanwhile, insisted the money was severance pay.
Barker claimed he and Parkinson had a consensual arrangement, telling People that he had a,
quote, "sexual revolution," courtesy of his accuser.
Supposedly, Parkinson, quote, "volunteered" to add "some hanky-panky" to his life.
Additionally, several female Price Is Right employees painted Parkinson as overly flirtatious
and practically incapable of keeping her hands off her 70-year old boss.
However, not everyone on the show's payroll corroborated his story.
Model Holly Hallstrom would later claim that Barker unsuccessfully urged her to smear Parkinson
as a liar in pre-arranged interviews and then fired her for refusing.
In the end Parkinson dropped her lawsuit, citing health problems.
Afterward, Parkinson and two of her attorneys were fined $2,100 for refusing to comply with
court information requests they considered invasive.
Longtime fans of The Price Is Right probably know that Barker's Beauties were the exclusively
female models who silently presented items of the show during the Bob Barker Era.
In fact, The Price Is Right didn't have its first male model until 2012.
At first blush, being a Barker's Beauty seems like an easy gig, but appearances can be deceiving.
As we've discussed already, in 1994 former model Dian Parkinson accused Barker of abusing
his power and abusing her sexually for years.
And the following year, Holly Hallstrom, a Barker's Beauty for 19 years, sued for age
and gender discrimination.
According to Hallstrom, Barker used her weight as a pretext to fire her because she refused
to discredit Dian Parkinson to the press and lie about the firing of a director.
After a lot of legal wrangling, the court ruled in Hallstrom's favor in 2005.
She was living out of her car and had gone bankrupt in the meantime, but in the end she
was awarded millions of dollars.
Janice Pennington had several ugly experiences in her 29 years as a Barker's Beauty.
After an out-of-control camera knocked her off the stage, she needed multiple surgeries
which shortened one of her shoulders.
In 2000 she and model Kathleen Bradley were abruptly fired.
Pennington told the LA Times that Barker didn't even say goodbye.
Bradley speculated that the firings were payback for contradicting Barker's testimony during
the Hallstrom lawsuit.
Barker said the various charges leveled against him were all in the models' heads.
The wonderful and terrible thing about television is that it creates a sense of control and
reliability in an uncertain world.
You can reside in whatever bubble you want, and no matter how artificial it is, it starts
to feel like home after a while.
As a game show host, it was Barker's job to seem warm and authentic, but he's left numerous
employees with a bitter taste in their mouths.
One of those people was Deborah Curling, who used to screen contestants for The Price Is
Right.
According to the lawsuit Curling filed in 2007, once Barker assumed the role of executive
producer in 1990, he,
"... made it his life mission to destroy the livelihood of every person who contradicted
him or did not do what Barker ordered him/her to do, whether it was legal or not."
Curling claimed she was added to that enemies list once she testified on behalf of Holly
Hallstrom.
After corroborating claims that Barker fired Hallstrom over her weight, Curling was allegedly
subjected to hostile working conditions and racial slurs.
Such allegations are incredibly hard to prove, however, so a judge tossed the case in 2009.
We'll likely never know the whole truth, but multiple women who've crossed Bob Barker lost
their jobs.
Some even lost their homes.
That's a high price, and it doesn't seem right.
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