The Biggest And Oddest Prize Ever Awarded On The Price Is Right

The boom of streaming platforms has seemingly made daytime television less relevant. However, some have fond memories of raunchy talk shows, cheesy reality television, and maybe the best of all, game shows. Is it possible the game shows weren't real? Maybe. Did those watching the contestants battle it out for a chance to win money or household appliances care? Never. One such show, "The Price is Right," currently holds the world record of the longest-running game show in the world, having been on the air from 1956 to 1965 and later from 1972 onward. The show seems easy enough; guess the price of everyday items and win a prize. Contestants share their best guesses with the host and the audience with the hopes of being correct and winning anything from a blender to an all-expenses-paid vacation. 

"The Price is Right" has had three lovely hosts over its many years on the air. The most recent is Drew Carey, who replaced long-time host Bob Barker in 2007 (via Deadline), but before Barker and Carey, the show's host was beloved radio and TV personality Bill Cullen. Cullen was the show's host from 1956 to 1965 and was given the task of bringing "The Price is Right" to life and creating its legacy, a task he achieved with flying colors. However, even in the early days, ideas were running low at times and its producers had to get creative. So creative that the oddest prize given out on "The Price is Right" also turned out to be its largest in terms of size.

Not one — but two — early episodes of "The Price is Right" included an elephant for a prize. Yes, a living, adorable, gigantic elephant. The elephant, however, did not seem to know or care that it was appearing on national television as a prize on a popular game show, and it promptly did its business on the stage. This led the camera operators to get creative with the parts of the set they filmed. In an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, "The Price is Right" producer Bob Stewart recalled the elephant's time in the spotlight. "The elephant got frightened. He did what elephants do when they get frightened ... We had the stuff to bring on stage. We're shooting everything from the waist up. The models are tiptoeing around, trying not to step in the wrong place."

"The Price is Right" has yet to feature any more elephants, but aside from that, the show has pretty much kept to the same theme of games and prizes. And it's hard not to love "The Price is Right" even without such unusual rewards. "I wasn't looking for any kind of career thing anymore," Drew Carey told CBS. "I was going to live off the money I made, and I was in a pretty good spot. The Price Is Right came along and stole my heart, and now I can't imagine doing anything else." There's something charming about the show that helps it entertain generations worth of audiences even without outlandish prizes like large mammals.