The centerpiece of Bump was a London-themed game board featuring four wooden double-decker buses in a row, each marked with a price. Below the middle buses were the names of two prizes offered. To win the prizes, the contestant had to wind up with the proper prices for each prize showing on the bus above the name of each prize.
Gameplay
- To do this, the contestant had to decide whether to bump the buses to the right, leaving the first and second buses over the prize names, or to the left, leaving the third and fourth buses over the prize names. The first and fourth buses were marked with the same price, which was definitely the price of one of the two prizes. One of the second and third prices, which began over the prize names, was the other correct price, but for the prize opposite the one it began over.
- Once the contestant decided which way to bump, a model used the appropriate end bus to bump the next bus, which in turn pushed the third bus in line into a hole in the game board, and out of view (the final bus in line was removed by another model before the bump). This left only the two end buses over the two prizes, and the correct prices were then revealed.
Trivia
- It was the last pricing game to premiere before Johnny Olson's death.
- The most number of times this game was played in any season was 34.
- On the game's very first playing, Bob asked a contestant named Fergie to read the name of the game off the board, and she mispronounced it as "BLUMP".
Retirement
- One of the game's featured aspects was the provocative "wind-up" of the torso and "bumping" by models Dian Parkinson and Janice Pennington. The provocative aspect of the game, plus the end of an off-screen relationship between Parkinson and host Bob Barker, contributed to Bump's demise. Current co-producer Stan Blits has also stated that the staff desired at the time to make the show more "family-friendly".
- Surprisingly, though, the Australian version had this game in existence from 1993 to 1998 and 2003 to 2005.