‘The Price Is Right’ for Lucky Sophomore

Students crowded into an Eliot House common room Monday night to watch their friend Alyssa M. Smith ’04 win a truck, a gas grill, a baby carriage and trip to San Antonio, Tx. on the longest running game show in TV history, “The Price is Right.”

“You couldn’t really move in here,” Smith said, describing the atmosphere in the common room. While everyone knew that Smith would eventually end up with the loot, the evening was still full of anticipation as her friends waited for her to appear as the second-to-last contestant to get up on stage in the hour-long show.

In “The Price is Right,” contestants are randomly chosen from the audience to compete for the chance to play pricing games and win prizes by guessing the cost of household products.

Smith attended a taping of the show during an intersession trip to California with her blockmates and a friend. They were among the last to be granted admission to the audience because they were only able to obtain stand-by tickets.

“We were pretty far back in line,” Smith said.

After a brief group interview in which Smith told a representative of the show that she was from Jonesboro, Ga. and concentrated in History and Literature at Harvard, she took a seat in the audience.

She did not stay there for long. The show’s sparkly-suited announcer Rod Roddy soon shouted “Alyssa Smith, come on down!” and she became one of the show’s first five contestants.

She said that most of the products that Smith was asked to price, such as golf clubs and a metal detector, were not ones she was familiar with.

“I bid what I would pay,” she said, which turned out to be a lot less than the items actually cost.

When a gas grill came up for pricing, Smith was the most accurate contestant and was invited on stage with host Bob Barker to play a pricing game: Master Key.

She won two keys by choosing the right price for two products. She then used the keys to unlock two of five locks. Each lock corresponded to a combination of prizes. One of the keys she chose was the Master Key which won her all three prizes in the game: a truck, a trip to San Antonio, and a baby cradle.

While Smith said she has no immediate plans for the baby cradle, the truck will soon be delivered to a car dealership near her home and she is looking forward to her trip to San Antonio.

For now, Smith said she is enjoying the spotlight. Reflecting on the whole experience, she says “It was all very unreal.”