From USA Today (surprisingly no pie chart):

The 40th anniversary special of The Price Is Right aired Tuesday morning. And if you tuned in, you didn't see Bob Barker. He hosted TV's longest running game show for 35 years, but he wasn't invited to participate in the game show's 40th-anniversary special, reports AP's Sandy Cohen.The 88-year-old TV personality says the show's producers "chose to ignore me, which is fine." The special episode featured returning contestants from the past four decades, and even showed Barker in several clips, but the legendary host of the show was not invited to appear on the program or attend the taping. He insists he's fine with not being included in the anniversary episode, but said, "When you celebrate a 40th anniversary, you would think you'd have the fellow who did the show for 35 years there." In an interview with AP on Tuesday, he added, "They haven't even offered me a DVD."

Read this story this morning and was flat out stunned. Stunned. I mean The Price is Right is one of the instituitions of the game show world. Scratch that. It's one of the institutions of America. As much a building block as the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence! I mean think about it, rags to riches contestants take their chances on winning valuable prizes while a creepy old guy sexually harasses young women. You could almost hear America the Beautiful in the background while I typed that sentence. So by not inviting Bob Barker to the 40th anniversary of a show he essentially 'made' for 35 years is like spitting right in Uncle Sam's face. And that's beside the point that the show should have been canceled the second Barker retired. We all stood idly by when they hired that Cleveland goon Drew Carey. We said nothing while he lost 850 pounds and wore hipster glasses. And a month ago we allowed the producers to take auditions of male showcase models. Well to quote Ed Harris from The Rock; 'Both here and now the lies stop!' I think good old Bob should just walk down that aisle during a show, give Carey the Stone Cold Stunner and grab his 10 foot tall skinny mic and stage a coup. The price is wrong Drew!

PS: Buddy of mine I went to school with in Stevens Point actually got to 'Come on down!' on the Price is Right. Total life game changer. Dude even got a shirt where he's running down the aisle screenprinted for him. Wore it everyday and rightfully so. Like our whole relationship changed when I saw that shirt. Started treating him like a celebrity. Actually his name was Jonathan too. He worked at the campus TV station while I worked at the radio station. Now he does TV in LA and I do semi-competant radio in Sheboygan. Advantage: Bizzaro Jonathan.