TIME A NOMINAL 'PRICE' FOR CHANCE TO COME ON DOWN.

Byline: PHIL ROSENTHAL 

Merietta Flynn wore a red T-shirt that said "I'm Addicted to The Price Is Right," as if the fact she was wrapped in a blanket outside CBS Television City at 1:30 a.m. on a cold, rainy night to attend Wednesday's tapings didn't make that clear enough.

This was the third straight night the 43-year-old grandmother from Dubuque, Iowa, had huddled outside CBS to attend "The Price Is Right," and her seventh such pilgrimage to her all-time favorite TV game show in the last six years.

And Flynn has not been alone.

"Our show begins when they're waiting in line," explained host Bob Barker, just before the first of the afternoon's two tapings. "They come with an air of expectation. They keep each other company. They tell jokes. They have fun."

Flynn, who said she has made many good friends while waiting in line over the years, was chatting up Hermie and Domsie Namit, a retired couple from Queens, N.Y. The Namits had made a point of coming to "The Price Is Right" to mark their 45th wedding anniversary. They like to travel, they said. A few years back, they toured the Caribbean. That was good, too.

Ralph and Eloise Rampey of Clemson, S.C., originally planned to come out to see the show with Eloise's mother seven years ago. But the older woman was found to have terminal cancer just before they were to go, and they never made the trip - until now.

"This was her dream," Eloise, a 60-year-old former postal worker, said of her late mother. "That's one of the reasons we're here. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing."

Well, it was "a once-in-a-lifetime thing" at the beginning of the week. The program tapes twice a day, three times a week, and the Rampeys, the Namits and Flynn had been to every taping this week so far. All said they hoped to squeeze in a little sightseeing, too, by week's end.

"We're like an old family friend to these people," said Roger Dobkowitz, a producer who has been with the program its entire 25-year daytime run on CBS.

"Even more incredible than our longevity is our popularity," Barker said.

The second half hour of the hourlong "The Price Is Right," the lone game show on network TV, ranks No. 3 in the daytime ratings after "The Young and the Restless" and "Days of Our Lives," according to CBS. The first half hour is No. 8.

It is and always will be No. 1 to Flynn, who tapes the show daily.

"I study the prizes and the costs, in case I ever get called up on stage," said Flynn, who attended her 40th taping Wednesday and held out hope of someday winning a new van for her husband, Phil, a carpenter back home in Iowa. "But it's funny. You freeze up when you get in there. ... It's hard."

The graveyard-shift security chief at Television City, a fellow named Vega, came out of his office around 1 a.m. to point out the restrooms, the drinking fountain and vending machines, as well as the place where those in line could watch a TV that's permanently tuned to the local CBS station.

Old hands at this point, though not one of them had been called out of the audience to actually play the game yet, the people in line nodded their heads and remained planted on the aluminum benches with their blankets under the eaves.

Dobkowitz said that while out-of-towners might come to the show dozens of times, there are some locals who have attended hundreds of tapings. There usually are enough people to fill all 300 seats in the studio by dawn, long before even the CBS pages arrive for work. They tend to reach capacity even earlier this time of year, when many schools are on spring break.

"College kids come to the show and tell us they've been watching the show since they were 3," he said. "They grew up with us."

Everyone is there to possibly win big money or a prize. But, according to Dobkowitz, "Even when they lose, they're just excited about getting up on stage, getting seen by everyone back home, getting to stand next to Bob Barker."

Ralph Rampey wound up winning a weight machine worth more than $700 but lost in the showcase showdown on Wednesday. His victory means he cannot compete on the show again.

"We didn't do all that well, but at least we made it on the show," Eloise said.

Flynn, undaunted by failing again to make it on stage, already plans to return to Los Angeles for another week of tapings in May. Her family doesn't know this yet. She plans to spring it on them at the last minute.

"My husband thinks I'm nuts," she said.

Nothing a new van wouldn't change.

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Photo (1) Dawn Giddings, visiting from Wisconsin, jokingly practices running down the aisle while waiting in line to see "The Price Is Right. (2) Dennis Dugan, right, jokes with Hermie, left, and Domsie Namit while waiting to see the show. The Namits came to "The Price Is Right" to mark their 45th wedding anniversary. Michael Owen Baker/Daily News