Oprah gave away new cars to all of her audience members today. These people were picked because their relatives and friends wrote in to say that they needed a car. My question is, how did they know this was coming up in order to write in? I mean it’s not an obvious idea a bunch of people would have simultaneously: “Hey, I think I’ll write to Oprah so that maybe she’ll have a show to give away a car to my friend who needs one!”
After one of her Christmas freebie shows, I went to her website to find out how people sign up for a specific show, but there was scant information on the topics of future shows.
Oh, I can believe that Oprah gets requests for cars and such all the time. All they’d need to do is collect enough to make an audience. In fact, I’d be willing to believe that it wouldn’t be hard for her to collect such an audience more than once a year.
Has she ever given out dental work? My son is about to marry someone with four missing front teeth. And three kids by three. . . but that sounds like something for another talk show.
Re: “teeth”, maybe ask about any “extreme makeover” shows coming up?
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I know sometimes they go online and find people–my mother has come to like a particular newer vocalist (that I don’t like, so I ain’t saying who it is). This vocalist was scheduled to do a show for Oprah, and so the Oprah show’s people went online to various fansite web forums and they told about the upcoming show and said how to request free tickets. They ideally want the audience seating filled, you see, perferrably with really enthusiastic people. So no, I did not go. For such occasions (when they aren’t sure how many people will show up) they will even give out multiple tickets to each request at a time–for shows they know will be a big draw it’s only two tickets per request, but for this show they were giving out up to four tickets per request.
The car thing I don’t know. They probably get requests for stuff all the time, as noted.
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Oprah’s giveaway show was by invitation only and the people selected were culled from letters she has received. For example, the family with the foster kids and new home was selected from a letter written by a neighbor/friend of the family asking Oprah for some help for the family.
