During his most recent Saturday Night Special, Chris Jericho spoke highly of being able to work with Bob Barker during Monday Night Raw. Jericho revealed that he originally didn’t want to do it and thought that Barker would get eaten alive by the Chicago crowd. Here’s what he had to say:
Bob Barker is one of those guys that I — when he showed up in Chicago, because we were doing the guest host thing at the time. I thought he was going to get eaten alive by the Chicago crowd. I thought they were gonna bury him, I thought they were just gonna tear him apart. And then he got out there and instantly had the crowd in the palm of his hand. It was just the best. And obviously he’d been doing it for 50 years, he knows what to do.
So at the time, I was the very angry, slow-talking, quiet Jericho. And Bob and I had to do a thing, and they wanted me to play The Price is Right. And Brian Gewirtz was the head writer at the time, I said, ‘Why? I don’t want to do this. I’m not comedy Jericho, this is serious Jericho.’ He was like, ‘That’s why it’ll work. Just do comedy this one week, a couple things, just to remind people that you have that side to you. And then you can switch right back into asshole Jericho.’
And so that’s what we did. And I’ll tell you what. When I went out there, and like, [Barker said] ‘You be a good boy, Jericho,’ or however it ended up. You guys can go watch it on YouTube, it’s hilarious. When I went toe-to-toe with him, I said something to him like. ‘Barker, I’ll take you on any time, any place, anywhere.’ And he was like, ‘Don’t make me put you over my knee, Chris!’ with that big long, thin microphone that he used to talk into. And dude … I’m thinking, ‘Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh! You’re on live TV, don’t laugh!’ And I was just like [mimics trying to keep a straight face]. I didn’t laugh, but it was the closest I’ve ever come to completely breaking character with Bob Barker.
You can listen below:
Credit: Saturday Night Special. H/T 411Mania.