San Benito High grad wins a car, banters with host Wayne Brady
on CBS
Leia Wiegand, a 2003 San Benito High School graduate, and her
fiance Jorge Araiza ended up in the studio audience of a November
taping of
”
Let’s Make a Deal
”
almost by chance.
”
What happened was Jorge’s aunt wanted me to find tickets for
‘Dancing with the Stars.’ I entered my contact info and e-mail and
I guess it’s just a pool (for the shows with a live audience.) I
got an e-mail.
”
San Benito High grad wins a car, banters with host Wayne Brady on CBS
Leia Wiegand, a 2003 San Benito High School graduate, and her fiance Jorge Araiza ended up in the studio audience of a November taping of “Let’s Make a Deal” almost by chance.
“What happened was Jorge’s aunt wanted me to find tickets for ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ I entered my contact info and e-mail and I guess it’s just a pool (for the shows with a live audience.) I got an e-mail.”
The e-mail was an invitation to join the studio audience of “Let’s Make a Deal,” hosted by Wayne Brady. The game show is all about chance, as audience members are invited up to choose between prizes in a box, behind a curtain or a sure-thing of a cash offer from Brady. Those who go for the unknown risk a chance of being zonked – finding no prize at all behind the curtain.
The couple, who live in Orange County, decided to take up the offer since it’s just an hour drive to Los Angeles. Wiegand said they’ve been in the studio audience for other shows. The audience members dress up in wacky costumes to draw more attention to themselves, but Wiegand said the couple opted to dress as tennis players instead of something more outlandish.
“We just picked any outfit we could find,” Wiegand said. “I knew we wouldn’t stick out so I didn’t think we would get much camera time at all.”
As it turns out, Wiegand was seated along an aisle up from where the main camera was located so she can be seen in the background throughout the show. She and Araiza also took center stage near the end of the show.
“We were the last contestants,” she said, of being called up to the stage with Araiza. “The only reason we had any hopes was after watching a few episodes leading up to it, we knew they always chose a couple and they hadn’t chosen one. So we thought maybe they were saving the couple for last.”
The two had a month before their show taped last November, which aired March 3, on KION, so they watched to find out more about it. They knew that many of the prizes were patio sets or furniture.
“We had talked ahead of the show,” Wiegand said, of the couple’s strategy. “If he (Brady) got into the thousands, I think we would have taken the money.”
For their game, the couple were offered three curtains, each with a clue – red, white or black. For the game, a co-host put one token of each color into a bag. The couple could choose to add three more tokens to boost their chances of getting the curtain they wanted. Wiegand picked black.
“I thought red was too obvious,” she said. “The middle – I just shied away from the middle because it seemed obvious. Black isn’t really a good color and it was all the way in the corner (the third curtain) so I thought maybe they put something good there. It seemed like a trick.”
When Wiegand pulled a token out of the bag, it was black. When she saw she got the color she wanted, she covered her mouth with her hand. Brady offered the couple some money, but they decided to stick with the curtain.
As they pulled back curtain No. 1, a prize of a red washer and dryer was revealed.
“There are two left. One has a prize and one has a zonk,” Brady said, as he offered the couple one more chance to walk away with $800.
Araiza looked at Wiegand and said, “We want three.”
“Jorge, you’re a smart man, a very intelligent man,” Brady joked.
As curtain No. 2 was pulled away, it revealed a zonk.
“We knew that it had to come down to the final two,” Wiegand said. “If that was the zonk or the prize. We didn’t know what we won, but we knew it was something. That was the moment of truth, really.”
When curtain No. 3 was pulled back, the couple didn’t have a clear view of the black 2011 Nissan Versa.
“We couldn’t see it, but everyone else saw it,” she said. “There were four or five cameras blocking the window so it was kind of a delayed response.”
The couple heard the prize announced over the speaker before they got a better look at it.
Wiegand explained that the couple will get a dealer credit for the car, so they can take it or trade for an older, used car.
“More than likely it will be Jorge’s because he needs a car a little more than I do,” Wiegand said.
