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Cliff Hangers is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on April 12, 1976, it is played for a four-digit prize, usually valued between $2,000 and $9,999. It uses three small prizes (worth between $10 and $50).

Gameplay

The centerpiece of Cliff Hangers is a gameboard with a stylized mountain slope which has a scale which runs from 0 at its base to 25 at the peak, which ends at a cliff. At the start of the game, there is a mountain climber on the 0 mark at the base of the mountain.

The contestant is shown a two-digit prize and asked to bid on it. If they bid the actual price, the mountain climber stays where he is. However, if the bid is wrong, the climber begins moving up the mountain, advancing along the scale the number of dollars away the contestant's bid is from the actual price. To give an element of suspense to the game, the actual price is not revealed until after the climber has moved, so that the contestant and audience will not know how far he will travel. The process is repeated for two more two-digit prizes. The contestant can miss the prices of the three prizes by a combined $25 to win the grand prize and all three small prizes. If the difference is greater than $25, the climber will go over the cliff, and the contestant wins only any small prizes played, not including the one which sent the climber over the cliff.

History and behind the scenes

A yodeling song, which has become a cornerstone of the game, is played as the mountain climber moves up the mountain. The current music is part of a song called On the Franches Mountains from the record album Swiss Mountain Music. The show has occasionally used the full song as prize music when trips to Switzerland are offered. Originally, the yodeling music used was a portion of "The Silly Song" from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

When the game originally debuted, model Janice Pennington became so distraught about the "mountain climber falls off mountain" aspect of the game, she remained backstage crying until the game was over. Her first husband, Fritz Stammberger, disappeared in what Pennington believed was a mountain climbing expedition in 1975.

The mountain climber was named "Hans Gudegast" by Doug Davidson on 1994's syndicated The New Price Is Right. Hans Gudegast is the birth name of his The Young and the Restless co-star Eric Braeden. When Cliff Hangers was lost on this version, Doug would often joke that "Hans was being rushed to the emergency room." Drew Carey also calls the mountain climber Hans, as well as "yodel man" and "yodel guy".

The earliest playings of Cliff Hangers (up to June 1, 1976) used four small prizes.

Appearances outside of The Price Is Right

The mountain climber and his mountain made an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien the day before Bob Barker's final episode of The Price Is Right aired, where the mountain climber was apparently depressed because he would be out of a job. The scene then cut to the roof of the GE Building, where alcohol bottles could be seen as the mountain climber climbed his mountain to the edge of the building. He then committed suicide by jumping off of the roof.

An animated representation of Cliff Hangers also appeared in an absurdist spoof in the Family Guy episode "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One", where Peter Griffin recalls a previous vacation his family had taken with "The Price Is Right yodeler". The scene cuts to a shot of the mountain climber moving up his usual mountain scale with the Griffin family ascending behind him. Peter implores him to stop, noting that "There's no way that microwave costs more than 300 bucks". The yodeler and family then fall over the edge of the cliff and the "losing horns" play. Peter then laments that the family "should have gone to Plinko". The scene is drawn in profile and is fairly accurate to the real Cliff Hangers board, although the scale only goes to $16.

While not actually appearing, the game was referenced in the episode "We're Not Going to Take It" from That '70s Show where Donna Pinciotti claims that her dad, Bob, was so depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend, that while watching The Price Is Right, he couldn't "yodel along during Cliff Hangers."

• Articles lacking sources from November 2007
• The Price is Right pricing games