As anyone who’s been reading the entertainment pages knows, Darrington-born Bob Barker hosts his last Price Is Right episode this Friday.

And you may compare-n’-contrast this piece of video history with the first episode from 1972, excerpts of which have been posted to YouTube by fans. (The person who posted the clip edited out the very first prize plug, for that future Barker bugbear, a fur coat.)

I don’t remember having watched that premiere at the time, but I have seen the series since its first year (I was 15). It’s remained one seldom-changing constant in an ever-changing world.

Back then, America was under the thumb of a paranoid, dictatorial President and his brutal, power-mad minions; mired in a meaningless and futile war; torn by dissentions over race, gender, human rights, and the planet’s survival; and battered by its dependence on foreign oil. Gawd, I’m glad those days are past us.

TPIR was a product of the old three-network system; the first “new channel” since TV’s dawning years, PBS, had just gotten underway. CBS hadn’t aired any game shows for the previous four years, when the network convinced the Goodson-Todman team to bring back a Bill Cullen 1956-65 oldie with a new host and a revamped concept (at least partly “inspired” by Let’s Make a Deal).

How has this ultimate piece of junk-food TV, this craven homage to the gods of merchandise, this orgy of noise and flashing lights, outlasted all the other network daytime game shows to become the stuff of Internet discussion boards and manic fandom?

Part of its appeal has to do with its very status as a national institution. Part of it has to do with its odd combination of mindlessness and nerdiness. Part of it has to do with the fact that it has more variety and visual punch than most game shows have had. But I’d say a huge part of the show’s survival is due to its evocation of a classic circus-sideshow environment (where the MCs coincidentally were known as “barkers”).

Author James Twitchell, in his 1992 book Carnival Culture, noted that the “vulgar” elements of mass culture, so vehemently denounced by the paragons of good taste, have always been with us. The vulgar is just as much a part of human heritage as the sacred. It enlivens us. It unites us. It invigorates us. It’s among our eternal needs.

CBS promises TPIR will return from reruns once a new host has been found. If and when it does, it won’t be the same.