the price is hot

Television series
Original title	the price is hot
Country of production	Germany
Year (s)	1989–1997, 2017
Production ; company	Talbot Television, Fremantle (1994–1997) ; UFA Show & Factual (2017)
length	30 minutes
Broadcasting ; cycle	Monday - Friday
genre	Continuous advertising
Theme music	Alan Gruner, Sheila Cole
idea	Bob Stewart
Moderation	Harry Wijnvoord , Walter Freiwald (1989–1997); Wolfram Kons , Thorsten Schorn (2017);
First broadcast	May 2, 1989 on RTLplus

The price is hot is a German game show that was shown on the RTL afternoon program on weekdays at 5 p.m. from 1989 to the end of 1992 , then until mid-1997 at 10:30 a.m. or shortly afterwards at 11 a.m. It was the first of its kind on German television. It was an adaptation of the US original The Price is Right , which had been produced there since 1956.

In the eight years of broadcasting the German version, a total of 1873 episodes were produced, which RTL broadcast Monday through Friday, and in some places there were also weekend editions. The moderator was Harry Wijnvoord from the Netherlands , the "price announcer" in the background (with a few exceptions responsible for the product description) was Walter Freiwald . The opening credits began with Walter Freiwald's introductory words, “And here it is again, the show of fantastic prizes. Be there when it says: The price is hot! ”At the beginning of the credits, the haunting saying“ You saw a Talbot video game! ”Could be heard.

The show was ultimately discontinued due to high production costs and an increasingly aging audience.

concept

The broadcast consisted of three game rounds.

In the first round, the candidates had the task of estimating the retail price of the household products shown to them as precisely as possible, without, however, exceeding the correct price.

Whoever won in this preliminary round received the respective product and was allowed to play in one of the prize games for a higher profit in the next round. There were over 40 of these prize games. The best known are "Crash" (with the figure of the "Kraxelhubers"), "Up or down", "Direct hit", "The darn seven", "Run and swap", "Panzerknacker", "More or less", " Punch ”,“ Wrong or Right ”,“ Rätselpfennig ”,“ Tic Tac Toe ”, the“ Shell Game ”,“ Who does not honor the penny ”,“ Shopping ”,“ Plinko ”or“ 3 rivets ”.

After the prize games, “Das Rad” heralded the last round, which Freiwald always announced in a serious tone with the words “Ladies and gentlemen ... the bike!”. The winners of the prize games had to spin a wheel of fortune; the two candidates who achieved the highest point value reached the final and played for the “super prize”. This consisted of numerous individual products, the total price of which the candidates had to estimate as precisely as possible, as in the preliminary round. Again, an overbid led to the elimination. The total value of the “super price” items was usually around 100,000 DM , but in rare cases it could also exceed 200,000 DM.

Prize games (selection)

3 rivets (3 strikes)
5 correct numbers (Switcheroo)
Crash (cliff hangers)
Lucky Seven
Give or Take (Bonus Game)
Glueckstrasse (Golden Road)
Hot Wire (Phone Home Game)
Magic Number
More Or Less (Clock Game)
Shell Game
Take Two
Safe Crackers
Pathfinder
Plinko
Prize boxes (punch a bunch)
Price Expert (Check Out)
Price Manager (Trader Bob)
Prize Lotto (Any Number)
Prize Puzzle (Money Game)
Price Swap (Race Game)
Price Tip (Double Prices)
Travel game (Spelling Bee)
Right price (Danger Price)
Store window
Shrink price (squeeze play)
Switch
Tic Tac Toe (Secret X)
Dream Castle (Master Key)
Direct Hit (On The Nose)
Option Price (One Right Price)
Who does not honor the penny (Hi-Lo)
Who dares Wins
Dice Game

Legal dispute about the parodic use of program clips

In copyright proceedings against the broadcast of a parody of the program - mixed with original video excerpts - the Federal Court of Justice ruled on April 13, 2000 that the plaintiff was not entitled to any claims under copyright law for injunctive relief or damages due to the use of excerpts from the television show . The episode of this show, aired April 26, 1994, advertised a bubble tonic in a game scene. According to the court, this scene was reproduced in Kalkofe's television screen "in a grossly satirical, subjectively one-sided and deliberately disparaging manner". This procedure of using original excerpts in order to "cover the whole show 'The price is hot' with biting ridicule" is, according to the BGH, covered by the freedom of broadcasting .

Trivia

The concept, including the studio design and cult slogans, was adopted for one episode in the ProSieben game show Gameshow Marathon . Harry Wijnvoord made a short guest appearance at the beginning of the show.

In 1983 the ZDF broadcast a price quiz under the title Money is on the street with host Christian Simon . Only one episode was produced, which ran in a series of test programs initiated by Hans Rosenthal for various television council games.

New edition

In the summer of 2009, there were speculations about a resumption of production of the show, which was supposed to take place in 2010. The production company Grundy Light Entertainment made it clear, however, that no pilot episode was planned for the format and that there was still no station that would buy a new edition. It is customary to work on various formats in the background, but there are no more specific plans. On May 31, 2010 Harry Wijnvoord started the petition “Get the price back!”. He called on all fans to support a comeback of his "cult show" by signing the petition to the German TV broadcasters and, if necessary, promoting other signatories. The campaign was unsuccessful and the associated website has since been closed.

From October 9, 2017, the TV channel RTLplus broadcast the 50-minute program from Monday to Friday at 5.45 p.m. Wolfram Kons took over the moderation, Thorsten Schorn was co-moderator . The show was discontinued in 2018.