Bump (pricing game)

Bump was a pricing game on the American television game show, The Price Is Right. Played from September 13, 1985 to November 20, 1991, it was played for two four-digit prizes, each worth between $1,000 and $3,000.

Gameplay

The centerpiece of Bump was a London-themed game board featuring four wooden double-decker busses in a row, each marked with a price. Below the middle busses were the names of the two prizes offered. To win the prizes, the Contestant had to wind up with the proper prices for each prize showing on the bus above the name of each prize.

To do this, the contestant had to decide whether to bump the busses to the right, leaving the first and second busses over the prize names, or to the left, leaving the third and fourth busses over the prize names. The first and fourth busses were marked with the same price, which was definitely the price of one of the two prizes. One of the second and third prices, which began over the prize names, was the other correct price, but for the prize opposite the one it began over.

Once the contestant decided which way to bump, a model used the appropriate end bus to bump the next bus, which in turn pushed the third bus in line into a hole in the game board, and out of view (the final bus in line was removed by another model before the bump). This left only the two end busses over the two prizes, and the correct prices were then revealed.

Retirement

One of the game's featured aspects was the provocative "wind-up" of the torso and "bumping" by models Dian Parkinson and Janice Pennington. The provocative aspect of the game, plus the end of an off-screen relationship between Parkinson and host Bob Barker, contributed to Bump's demise. Parkinson continued to work on The Price Is Right through the end of the 1992-'93 season.