OLIVER PAIPOONGE – Come on down, Murray Ross, you’re the next contestant on the Price is Right.
More than 40 years after his parents were in the audience for a taping of the iconic game show, the Oliver Paipoonge resident and his wife Pat found themselves in the crowd too, and took it one step further.
Ross, the second person called to contestant’s row on Jan. 10, was the first person to win his way on stage for a pricing game, and after earning four chances in the Punch-a-Bunch game, handing back prizes of $500, $1,000 and $1,000, opted instead for the card hidden in the top left-hand corner of the board.
He was rewarded for his patience with a $5,000 prize.
To get to the stage, he bid $700 on three pairs of designer shoes, the next lowest bid coming in at $3,000, which was $65 higher than the actual retail price of $2,935.
“It’s a good thing I knew nothing about shoes,” he said on Friday, dressed in the same grey Canada T-shirt, complete with the famous Price Is Right name tag he wore on the show, a day after he and Pat were joined by about a dozen friends for a watch party for Thursday’s airing of the episode he was on.
Ross said it was a dream-come-true to be on the show.
“I loved it,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“It was the start of our vacation and we talked about it the entire vacation.”
Ross said they’ve still got a VHS tape of his parents in the audience, which helped fuel his love of the show, made famous by long-time host Bob Barker who began hosting the show in 1972.
“I’ve been watching Price is Right almost ever since. When we decided to go to L.A. my wife got us tickets and we went on and we had a fabulous time,” he said.
Ross said he couldn’t have been treated better throughout the experience.
Host Drew Carey, who took over from Barker in 2007, and announcer George Gray, were down-to-earth and very friendly, Ross said.
“They talked to you just like you were common people,” he said.
“Drew came and shook hands and talked to people. He’s a very nice man.”
Ross said he was hoping to get on, but didn’t use his parent’s experience in the audience as a selling point to show producers, who interview audience members beforehand to get a sense of what they might be like on stage.
“I was hoping to get on, but you never know. When I got on, I just went with the flow. As you can see by the video, I didn’t take too long to punch. I was going to run it out to the end anyhow. My wife would have wanted that.”
Cameras panned to Pat, who wore a matching outfit, several times during Murray’s time on stage.
The humble Ross joked the prize he won was not all that surprising.
“It’s kind of nice,” he said. “I guess $5,000 seems to be my lucky number. A year ago on HAGI TV Bingo I won $5,000.”
Ross wasn’t as lucky in the Showcase Showdown.
He spun the big wheel, stopping on 85 cents, but the next contestant bested him and his time on the show came to an end.
“It’s a heavy wheel, but it’s not a problem for me,” he said.
“I thought I had a good shot at it with an 85, but the young lady behind me topped it with a 90, so it is what it is. I’m still happy to be there. I was laughing for two or three days."
The toughest part of the experience was keeping it a secret until the episode aired, a condition for being on the show.
“I’m (usually) a blabbermouth,” he said, but acknowledged he and Pat didn’t even tell their cruise mates, while sailing from Los Angeles to Miami through the Panama Canal, how they fared.
