Beulah the Buzzer has Sounded for Bob Barker

 

by Pa Rock

Television Junkie

One of America's most famous television game show hosts, Bob Barker, passed away this past Saturday at the age of ninety-nine, less than four months shy of his one-hundredth birthday.  Barker was best known by people younger than me for the thirty-five years that he hosted the daytime show "The Price is Right," but he was also the host for the "Miss USA Pageant," for twenty years (a one-time-a-year job), as well as the host of the daytime television version of "Truth or Consequences" for nineteen years.  All-in-all Bob Barker was a regular fixture on American television from 1956 until 2007, a span of just over half-a-century.

If ever there was an instance where a person's name may have directed their life choices, Bob Barker could be that person.  He essentially spent his entire working life - from his early days as a radio broadcaster up through those decades on television - in much the same role as a carnival barker, stirring enthusiasm and selling excitement and merchandise to a gullible public.  Also in later life he became a loud an insistent proponent for the rights and humane treatment of animals - barking for the cause, so to speak.

Bob Barker is best known for his many years with "The Price is Right," (1972-2007), but those were the years in which I spent my daylight hours at a J-O-B, so I didn't see too many episodes of his masterwork.   (I remember the older, original version with Bill Cullen better.). My best memories of Bob Barker were his early days in which he and "Beulah the Buzzer" ran "Truth or Consequences."  The show had plenty of ridiculous situations and loads of laughter, a lot of which seemed to carry over into the newer Bob Barker version of "'The Price is Right."

Bob Barker was born in the state of Washington and grew up on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota where his mother taught school,   It was Springfield, Missouri, however, that he always seemed to regard as his "home."  Barker went to high school in Springfield, and attended Drury College in the same midwestern community.    He was a member of the college basketball team.   Barker left college to join the Naval Reserves during World War II where he trained as a naval fighter pilot.  He returned to Springfield after the war ended and resumed his studies at Drury earning a bachelor's degree in economics.  His first broadcasting job was at radio station KTTS in Springfield.

Beulah the Buzzer from the old "Truth or Consequences" television show is described on various internet sites as simply being a sound effect that signaled the end of a person's time in coming up with the answer to a nonsense question (the truth) portion of the show - and then the person was faced with performing some ridiculous task (the consequence).  But I remember a couple of episodes where Beulah was given a physical form.  The camera would pan around to a different location and show a chimpanzee in a dress with some sort of party-favor horn making the noise.  I really liked that Beulah!

But regardless of whether Beulah actually existed or was just a noise, she has sounded for Bob Barker and he has moved on to a different state of being - one where, if the past truly is prologue, he is doing wacky things and having a wonderful time!

May Bob Barker's heaven be an exceptionally wild and happy animal kingdom - and may Betty White have been the guide who greeted him at the gate!