"Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Price Is Right!"

If you haven't watched The Price Is Right in a few years -- because you have, say, a full-time job, a part-time job, or a strong desire to be out and amongst society at large at 11 AM on a weekday -- the above quote would generate a specific mental picture. It could be a middle-aged housewife running down the aisle to her seat. It could be an elderly woman, wearing a t-shirt stating "Bob Barker is Sexy!" shuffling to Contestants' Row. Or it could be one of those large Samoan women who always tend to squeeze the life out of Barker whenever they win a car. It really doesn't matter. What you do know is that, heck, the show's been on for a million years; it's probably the same as it's always been.

But you'd be wrong. Look up from your oatmeal the next time you turn TPiR on for background noise and you'll see something different. When you hear "Come on down!" you might see high-fiving dude with a Greek letters on his shirt screaming his way down the aisle as if he was at a kegger. The person at the top of the Plinko board might be wearing low-cut jeans and be sporting a "Bob Barker is Sexy!" shirt that barely reaches her belly-button. Yes, the housewives and senior citizens are still there (Samoans? Not so much), but you're just as likely to see a college student bidding for that jet-ski than anyone else.

What gives? Any show I've seen with that many college kids usually involves some combination of ugly tattoos, hot tub make-out sessions, and Jay-Z. How does a show that's been on the air for over thirty years, that has an eighty year old host with polar-white hair and liver spots, and gives away prizes more suitable for a Levitz ad than a dorm room, hold such sway with the scholastic set?

The reasons are fairly simple to grasp. First of all, because the show's been on since the days of Archie Bunker, a built-in devoted audience has developed. The people who grew up watching the show now have contest-eligible kids who have also grown up watching. "Considering the plethora of colleges in the LA area, it's no surprise that groups of college students often frequent the show," says Tony Harrison, TPiR superfan. "The tickets are free, and if you have a large group, you can get guaranteed seating. Not a bad deal."

Tony runs the website, which salutes the landmark CBS show by presenting video stills, audio, and video clips that stretch back to the show's first days in 1972 (when it was called The New Price is Right, since it was an update of a Fifties-era version of the show). To him, the audience is there because they simply want to have fun. "People are there to have a good time, forget about their cares and worries for an hour, and have roughly a 1 in 35 chance of winning a prize."

I can certainly relate, since I've been a fan of the show since the days when Bob had dark hair, Johnny Olson was the announcer, and not one sexual harassment suit had been filed. During those days, the prizes were chintzier (imagine how thrilled you'd be if you won a Chevy Chevette... complete with 8-track), and the prices of the products were much cheaper ($1.99 for Ex-Lax suppositories!), but the gameplay was extremely engrossing. No matter what the game was -- from the game where you guess prices to keep a yodeling mountain climber from falling off the mountain, to the game where the combination of a prize safe was the price of a smaller prize, to everyone's favorite, Plinko -- it was always fun to guess the numbers along with the contestant and studio audience, yelling and screaming when the person guesses wrong. "Yeah, that's it!" or "No, ya stupid dick!" were phrases I yelled at the screen often during summer and vacation mornings (well... I started saying the second thing when I was in high school), often getting excited when someone won a big prize like a car or wad of cash, and being disappointed when someone blew an easy shot at a big prize.

Things haven't changed. To alleviate boredom, I sometimes tape a week's worth of shows to watch when I get back from work. While the models have changed (which is too bad, since I had a little schoolboy crush on Dian Parkinson -- damn you and your libido, Barker!) and the Chevettes have turned into Cavaliers, the games are still exciting to watch. They change from day to day, so you never know when it's a Plinko day or a Grand Game day or an Any Number day. I still find myself yelling dollar amounts to the TV as I did when I was a kid, although my grocery-pricing ability has atrophied from the time I was a teenaged Grand Union cashier.

Of course, the other draw to students is the lure of big prizes. Let's face it: when you're in college, subsisting on a diet of Ramen and crumbs you dig out of the couch, the idea that you may parlay a free ticket into a bundle of loot is quite enticing. Even if the student wins a fairly useless prize like a bedroom set or hutch, they can still sell it and make some easy cash; hey, it may not be Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but a few thousand always helps when those pesky little dorm parties come around. Sometimes people even keep the prizes. "I have several friends who have random Price merchandise around their house. Everything from a gay 90s style popcorn machine, to lawn equipment, to table lamps," says Harrison.

But, most of all, the show's appeal lies in the fact that, after a few hours of sleep and some unwanted early-morning classes, The Price is Right is the perfect show to watch without having to tax your brain. What else is usually on during that time? The View? The next fraternity that watches that show will be the first. Springer? After 11 years of teenage mothers trying to find their baby's fathers, that show has gotten old. Judge Judy? No college student wants to be shown what it's like to be pulled in front of a judge that screams at you like your cranky grandmother. No, it's the perfect show at the perfect time of the day.

Fremantle Media, who produces TPiR, knows where their audience is; they recently produced a prime-time "Million Dollar Spectacular" with an audience full of students who will vote for President for the first time this year. This was done in an effort to get young people to register to vote in this crucial election year. However, CBS, who still ruled by the almighty Nielsens, hasn't caught on to the show's youth appeal: they scheduled the special for a Saturday, a night where most of the target audience is busy drinking grain-alcohol punch at a party somewhere. "Unfortunately there are no Nielsen boxes in college dorms," says Tony Harrison of TPiR.tv. "Nielsen says the show draws old adult viewers, but has an audience full of college students. Yet Nielsen research claims young people aren't watching the show -- you know something's not right with their measurement systems."

The success of TPiR should be an object lesson to network programmers everywhere. To get that young 18-to-34 audience demographic that they lust after, they really don't need to fill the show with hard-bodied teens on the beach, a soundtrack that consists of the latest from Good Charlotte, and hours upon hours of Ryan Seacrest. They don't need to jump through so many hoops to keep the kids happy. All they need to do is provide good fun, a charming host, and a familiar formula that has worked for decades.

Oh, and give away stuff. Giving away stuff always helps.