Everything after the final notes of its familiar theme, from the playing out of a highly suspect "perfect game," to the friendly sign-off reminder to "help control the sex-worker population: Have a hooker spayed or neutered today," suggested a new era has dawned at The Price is Right. Gone is Bob Barker's well-calibrated "atmosphere of terror." In its place is new host Drew Carey's atmosphere of congeniality, where every contestant is referred to as "buddy" or "man," and where new cars are given away with a frequency that would make Oprah blush.

In honor of his first day on the job, Carey sat down with another emcee of a CBS show featuring a wide array of dimwitted Americans doing impossibly stupid things for cash and prizes, Julie Chen, to relay first-hand what it feels like to shepherd a congregation of Plinko-board-worshiping revivalists.