Drew Carey will keep hosting The Price Is Right and its boozed up contestants ’til he dies

Drew Carey is a legend for many reasons, most recently for footing the bill of every striking writer’s meal at Bob’s Big Boy and for losing his damn mind after seeing Phish at the Sphere. Following the retirement of Wheel Of Fortune’s Pat Sajak, Carey has a new feather for his cap: He’s become the longest-tenured game show host currently on television over at The Price Is Right. And—long may the legend continue—he’s going to keep going with this thing until he keels over.

“I do have a goal: I want to keep going until I die. This is my 18th season. I’ve got to get the 35 and 41 so I can catch Bob Barker and Pat Sajak,” Carey tells TV Insider in a new interview. The comedian didn’t set out to become a game show veteran when he took the job, but “Once I hit 10 years here, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s the longest I’ve ever had a job in my life. It’s such just a great part of my day, my year, my life. I can’t imagine giving it up,’” he says. “I don’t like CBS to know that [Laughs], but it’s going to be a few years ‘til my next contract negotiation. So maybe forget I said this. I can quit anytime I want!”

Jokes about the parent network aside (“It’s not my money—it’s CBS’s money, and we’re all trying to take it together”), Carey really, genuinely enjoys hanging out with the normal, “working class” people who serve as The Price Is Right’s audience and contestants, even when they’re boozed up, which “happens all the time,” the host reveals. “They’ll have a gummy or I’ll smell alcohol on their breath. Not unusual. There was a guy here that was tripping on mushrooms. He came with a bunch of friends. He was a sketch [comedy] guy. I found out later when I went to UCB [sketch improv theater, Upright Citizens Brigade] to hang out and they were like, ‘Did you see that guy who claimed to be a skateboarding rabbi?’ I asked him what he did for a living. And he goes, ‘I’m a skateboarding rabbi.’ He didn’t think he was going to get picked, and he totally tripped.”

The Price Is Right audience is there for a good time, not a long time, so why shouldn’t they enjoy the show with a little something extra? It seems like everybody is having a great time over there, including Carey, who says the audience is “a favorite part of the show” and that he “[learns] more from them than I do from anybody.” How beautiful! Here’s to another 18+ years of hanging out, tripping balls, and seeing a good Phish concert on the side once in a while.