Carey: Born To Host "Price Is Right"

"The Price Is Right" is the longest-running game show in television history, giving away furniture, expensive cars and exotic vacations for almost 37 years. The man at the center of the excitement is comedian and host Drew Carey.

Carey has been a hit hosting "The Price is Right" for a year and a half.

"I'm real excited about that. 'The Price is Right' has been great. This has been such a blessing to me, doing the show. And honestly, I've been telling other people this. I tell my friends this. It seems like everything I've done in my life including the way I was raised, the neighborhood I grew up in, being a comic, it's all prepared me for being host of 'The Price is Right,'" Carey told The Early Show Saturday Edition co-anchor Chris Wragge and Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez.

Carey's humble beginnings have led him to great success, including "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and "The Drew Carey Show."

"I didn't grow up rich or anything, so I can relate to why people want these prizes and why it's a great thing to win a car and win a free vacation. I totally relate. Like these are all my people in the audience. They could be from my neighborhood in Cleveland. So, that was a good thing for me. I can empathize with everybody and being a comic and doing improv, you've got to be kind of fast on your feet doing the show. It all works out," Carey said.

Carey has received a warm welcome with hugs and kisses from fan-contestants
as host of "The Price Is Right."

"I think they're more excited about being on the show," Carey joked.

Carey has experienced some crazy moments with contestants, including a lady who had an urge to go to the bathroom.

"Yeah, that was my second week. I was still brand new. There she is right there. And she came up, and all she could talk about was how bad she had to pee. I was laughing so hard, I didn't know what to do. I said, you have to wait until you play Plinko. She was already having trouble before she got on stage. And as you can see from the clip, I just can't stop laughing. Yeah, she had a real emergency," Carey laughed.

That funny scene can be viewed on YouTube.

"I had friends of mine in the audience. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, and they were like this (he made a funny, shocking face). They couldn't believe it," Carey said.

Carey is also a huge soccer fan, a photographer as well as a long-time libertarian.

He is part owner of the Major League Soccer team - the Seattle Sounders.

"What made you decide to buy into a franchise? I mean, that's no cheap or easy endeavor," Wragge said.

"I was doing a thing for the travel channel, a special on these two soccer teams in Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona, they are big teams, worth $1.5 billion apiece, bigger than the Yankees or Cowboys, if you can believe it. I was talking to one of the tour guides at the museum. They have a museum at the stadium that's the most visited in Spain, believe it or not. It's all old soccer stuff.

"The guy said we're having elections for the president of the team. I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said every four years, the members of Barcelona, they pay, like, 200 euros a year, and they get to vote on the president of the team, it's like being able to vote off the Steinbrenners ... I thought, 'What a great idea. I would love to bring that to the United States.' So I started looking into buying an MLS team," Carey said.

A couple years later Carey teamed up with Joe Roth, a film producer/director.

"He's getting ready to buy this team in Seattle and he had lunch with me. I told him about my idea to have a membership group and have the members vote the general manager out if they don't like the job he is doing. And he bought it and offered me a piece of the team," Carey said.

"The Price Is Right" airs weekdays on CBS. Check local listings.