Bob Barker, the former host of The Price Is Right and a longtime advocate for getting your pets spayed or neutered, passed away at 99 years old on Saturday. The news came by way of his spokesperson, who accurately described Barker in a statement as “the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived.”
It’s hard to sum up a life as magnificent as Barker’s, but there is one thing that can and should be highlighted in the aftermath of the news: No one has ever had a funnier cameo in a sports movie. Back in 1996, the Adam Sandler-led film Happy Gilmore hit theaters, and in a famous scene, Gilmore teams up with Barker during a celebrity pro-am. Gilmore’s rival on the tour, Shooter McGavin, pays for a heckler to mess with him, which leads to him playing a terrible round of golf.
Barker, who was known for his affable presence in the 30-plus years that he hosted The Price Is Right, grew impatient with Gilmore having a terrible day that led to them finishing in last place because some dude kept calling him a jackass. Gilmore throws a right hand, and after Barker gets up, he famously says “I don’t want a piece of you, I want the whole thing.” The two then fight. It is hilarious, and as Sandler recently revealed, this was never supposed to happen.
“We initially wrote it for Ed McMahon,” Sandler said in an interview earlier this year. “Ed McMahon said he was busy and we were like, imagine if Bob Barker did it, he’ll never do it. Next thing you know, Bob Barker, whose neighbor was Chuck Norris at the time, and Chuck and Bob used to spar, and Bob was like, ‘Yeah, if I get to fight, if I get to throw punches, I’m doing it.’”
