The Price Is Right announcer George Gray is a much-loved fixture on the show. His voice is heard throughout every episode as he calls everyone down and introduces the prizes. In an exclusive interview with TV Insider, Gray said how everyone at the game show is like family and shared a heartwarming ritual that he and host Drew Carey do before every episode.
When asked if he would change anything about The Price is Right, Gray joked that he would make Drew Carey the announcer and himself the host.
“No, I really like the way it is, and I do joke around all the time that Drew is my work wife,” he said. “We see each other in the morning before we go on stage, and we’ll walk past each other like the old Wile E. Coyote cartoons from Warner Brothers. ‘Morning, Sam, Martin, Ralph.’ We’ll say that to each other. And then, we really chat for the first time.”
“Pretty much when we’re on stage, during the commercial breaks, Drew and I don’t leave the stage. He stays out there, takes questions, we goof off, have fun, and that’s when we will ask about how our weekends were. That’s when we chat. So to me, I love that. And he says that too, that that’s his favorite part of the show is just kind of goofing off and hanging out with the audience. And to me, that’s my favorite part, too.”
However, Gray shared that he does love it when new games are introduced. “It’s always fun to play a new one and it’s always fun for me because sometimes they’ll have me on stage and modeling — I use that term very loosely with me — an item, or play a game, or if it’s a go-kart, I’ll drive it in. If it’s a treadmill, I’ll fall off, stuff like that,” Gray said.
When they are done filming for the day, the announcer said that most of the time they all go home because they’re exhausted, but sometimes Gray, Carey, and the models go to a vintage bar restaurant on some Fridays that is down the street from the studio.
“And we’ll hop over there just, have a couple and laugh and with the crew too. So, it’s a very tight-knit family. We all get along wonderfully. Everybody hugs. We all say ‘I love you.’ It really is a family. And so even if we’re exhausted, it’s, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ We’ve traveled together, gone to Vegas together, gone to New York together — all through Drew, who throws together the trip because he’s amazing and generous, and that makes the family really tight.”
Gray, who has been the announcer since 2011, also thinks that the reason The Price is Right has lasted for over 10,000 episodes is because the contestants are also sort of like family and all root for each other.
“Well, it’s just my opinion, but I think that one of the reasons Price is so popular is and just think about this. Think about a competitive sport, whatever you want to play, you want to win, and you either don’t get to play or you don’t get to win, and you cheer for the other person. That doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen anywhere, but it happens with Price,” he said.
“You want to get called on down, and if you do, you want to get up on stage, but if you don’t, you’re cheering for the person who effectively beat you. You want them to win badly. And that’s really awesome that everybody pitches and everybody wants everybody to win. You’ll help the person that’s up there instead of you. It’s just one of those things where everybody, all the outside world, just sort of goes away temporarily and it just becomes about that, and everybody getting together and having fun and winning a hang gliding trip to Norway.”