Bob Barker Was a WWII Naval Aviator, but His Most Infamous Battle Was with Adam Sandler

Longtime television host and World War II naval aviator Bob Barker died on Aug. 26, 2023, at age 99. He would often joke about his age, but even well into his 70s, his 80s and even his 90s, he refused to let it limit him.

Barker hosted "The Price Is Right" for 35 years and "Truth or Consequences" for nearly 20 years before that. His fight scene with Adam Sandler in 1996's "Happy Gilmore" introduced him to an entirely new generation of fans. Barker was 71 years old when he filmed "Happy Gilmore," but the pair would go at it again in 2015, when Barker was 91 years old.

During that year's "Night Of Too Many Stars" autism programs fundraiser, Sandler visited Barker, pretending to be suffering from a broken hip, in the hospital. It led to a fight that would "kill" both of them.

The road to fighting with Adam Sandler was a long one, however. He left college to fight the Japanese first during World War II as a naval aviator, but just never got the chance.

Robert Barker was born Dec. 12, 1923, in Washington state and was raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota as a member of the Sioux tribe. He moved to Springfield, Missouri, with his family and graduated from high school there, attending nearby Drury College on a basketball scholarship. When the United States entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he left college to do his part. He was just 18 years old.

"I was a fighter pilot in the Navy during the War of 1812," Barker joked in a 2013 CNN interview at age 81. "Actually it was World War II. Every man in the country wanted to be in the service."

The young Barker had never been in an airplane before, and he'd never thought about landing a plane on a carrier -- hell, he'd never even seen the ocean. It was the Navy's dress white uniform that convinced him to join the sea service.

"I was looking at a magazine and here was a full color page and it was a young naval aviator wearing his whites, " Barker said. "I thought, 'If I'm going to war, I wanna go to war looking like that guy.' And I went off to the post office, and I joined the Navy as a naval aviation cadet."

Barker quickly became a skilled aviator and saw the ocean plenty of times. He learned night flying, dogfighting and carrier landings in the FM-2 Wildcat, conducted gunnery runs in the F4U Corsair and even played on the Navy basketball team. Then the war ended. Barker never saw combat.

"I completed all facets of my training, including my qualifying landings on a carrier," Barker said. "I was all ready to go, and when the enemy heard that I was headed for the Pacific, they surrendered. That was the end of World War II."

Barker returned to Drury College to finish his education after the war. While he finished his bachelor's degree, he worked at a local radio station. When he graduated, he and his wife moved to Florida, where he began doing announcements in Lake Worth Beach.

They then moved to California, where he hosted his own radio show, "The Bob Barker Show," for the next six years. When the daytime TV game show "Truth or Consequences" started looking for a new host, it found one in Bob Barker.

He hosted "Truth or Consequences" on NBC between 1956 and 1975. Between 1956 and 1963, the show's lead-in was the popular game show "The Price Is Right." "The Price Is Right" moved to ABC for two seasons, then was canceled in 1965. In 1972, CBS was interested in rebooting the show, but only if Bob Barker was its host. He signed on and hosted the show for the next 35 years.

By 1995, Barker was still a household name when he was offered a role in Adam Sandler's "Happy Gilmore," where he would get into a hard-core fistfight with Sandler's character. Barker was 71, but not only insisted he should win the fight, he was also going to be doing the fighting.

"I did beat up Happy Gilmore. I crushed him," Barker told CNN. "The director talked with me about what we were going to do ... He said, 'Don't worry about these fight scenes; we have a double. He'll do that.'"

That didn't sit well with Barker, who had been training with his then-neighbor: Chuck Norris.

"What do you mean you'll have a double?" Barker told "Happy Gilmore" director Dennis Dugan. "I know how to fight! So he said, 'OK, OK, you can fight.'"

The result was a fight scene that echoed through the ages. It won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight. Everyone who appeared on "The Price Is Right" wanted to talk about it. The scene is so legendary that when Barker retired from television in 2007, Sandler appeared on "The Price Is Right" to give its longtime host a proper sendoff.

-- Blake Stilwell is reminding you to help control the pet population -- have your pets spayed or neutered. He can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

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