COURTNEY MIRANDA; Online Editor: mirandcs@plu.edu
If you’ve ever dreamt of being on your favorite game show and winning the big cash prize, we’d like to inform you that it might not be as hard as you thought. Tommy Skaggs, Lute Air Student Radio Advisor and Pacific Lutheran University Manager of Student Employment and Technology, did exactly that.
Skaggs was featured on the classic game show The Price is Right, and walked away with $10,000 and a brand-new iPhone to prove it. Having grown up watching The Price is Right, he certainly crossed off a bucket-list item.
“It was a daytime TV show, so I would watch it on sick days or Spring Break. My mom even said when I was little they would say ‘Come on down!’ and I would start bouncing around in my walker. I’ve been watching the show since before I could even talk,” he said.
Among his prizes, the most exciting was the $10,000 cash prize. He explained that even if you win something like a car, you can’t drive the car home. Every contestant has a non-disclosure agreement from the tape date to the air date, then your check comes or you pick up your car at a local dealership.
“I think I was more excited to have my name called down [than winning].I think I was the most excited when I actually got the right bid and got on stage, it was an out-of-body experience when I was on stage, I was out of the moment, likeI was actually watching myself,” said Skaggs “When we were actually playing the game, Drew was telling me jokes in my ear and doing little quips, throwing me off.”
Having attended two different tapings before his name was called during the second show, Skaggs explained that there was a whole lot of waiting. The whole experience was at least a six hour process.
“It was boring a lot of times. But once you get in there it’s actually really exciting. The show is actually taped to speed, so the speed you see on TV is actually the speed they tape it at.”
Skaggs explained that getting tickets to be part of the audience really isn’t as hard as you might think.
“For The Price is Right specifically, anyone can go on the website and request tickets. My aunt ended up getting four tickets and so me, my mom and two of my aunts decided to fly down to Hollywood,” said Skaggs “It was a really unique process, you go in, show them your ticket, they put you in a holding area, take your picture then you go into different holding areas then you go into the studio.”
What was the whole experience like?
When we were actually playing the game, Drew was actually telling me jokes in my ear, doing little quips [to throw] me off.
If anybody wants to be on, everybody in the audience get’s interviewed by the show’s producers. When you get interviewed by the producer, [you have to] be yourself. You have to be ready to answer those questions.
They interview in one of the holding areas, and you get about 20 seconds. “What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your favorite game? Do you watch the show? Do you watch the show everyday? If you don’t watch every day, [still] say it.
How do you make choices when everyone in the audience is yelling at you?
Oh, you can’t. I was pretty much looking at my mom.
How’d it feel to win?
Oh my gosh, [I was] so happy. With the game I was playing, I actually won a consolation prize because I was going for 100,00 dollars but stopped at a certain point.
So, you have to wait 90 days to get your prize?
Yeah, I still haven’t gotten it! When you’re on Bidders Row, you bid on your prize and so I also got an iPhone and then the headphones, I’m the advisor of LASR so headphones and an iPhone is right up my alley!
**Since the article has been written Skaggs has received his cash prize
