If you are 30 or 40 years old, or a strange younger person who watches old footage of game shows, you probably remember Bob Barker’s long ass microphone. This thin, telescoping rod a few feet long was a staple of game shows from the 70s. They haven’t made that microphone, or really any like it, for decades, but they should, not just because the parts are cheap, but for an entirely different reason: TikTok.
Holding a tiny lav microphone with your hand became kinda a meme a while back among annoying TikTok interviewers. Though this feels like it’s designed in a lab to aggravate anybody with a film production background, I also see the point: lavalier mics–the tiny, wireless mics frequently pinned to the lapel of a shirt–got tremendously cheap in the last few years. What used to be a substantial investment (I have some Sennheiser eW100s gathering dust in a closet) has now gotten silly cheap with companies like Røde, DJI, and Hollyland all offering solid quality wireless options for online content creators. What’s more, the spectacle of using one incorrectly became a purposefully irritating meme unto itself. It also serves a practical purpose: it’s slightly less alarming or formal to a stranger on the street than a stick mic.
This was also the appeal of the Long Ass 70s mic. Bob Barker is the name most people associate with it, but Gene Rayburn from Match Game used one. As far as I can tell it is the Sony ECM-51, an electret condenser mic set to the end of a telescoping pole. My understanding from a bunch of forum posts is that the capsule is based on the Sony ECM-50 lav mic, a lineage that continues today with the Sony ECM-55B, which is still in production although Sony has long since exited the Long Ass 70s Mic game. If they don’t decide to jump on it, someone else should.
Due to the ECM-51’s legacy and novelty as being the game show mic, a properly functioning unit goes for a lot of money. Sony and a handful of other companies also made similar but less noticeable mics, and other gooseneck style mics exist. But designing a replica using off the shelf lavaliers and parts should not be impossible. If smartly done, you could even potentially update it for wireless functionality.
Here is my most Millennial-coded plea: the long ass game show mic deserves a second chance. It has a form factor that’s iconic and visually striking. It’s weird, it’s sleek, and it’s vaguely disarming in a memey way. It serves a distinct purpose that content creators have accidentally discovered via reverse engineering. I need someone to bring back the long ass 70s mic, because if they don’t, I’ll be forced to make one from scratch myself.
