Posted on 09/13/2004 10:47:00 AM PDT by Feiny
Chat show queen Oprah Winfrey celebrated the opening of her 19th season on US TV today by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car.
We’re calling this our wildest dream season, because this year on the Oprah show, no dream is too wild, no surprise too impossible to pull off,” Winfrey said.
Making sure the audience was kept in suspense, Winfrey opened the show by calling 11 audience members onto the stage. She gave each of them a car – a Pontiac G6.
She then had gift boxes distributed to the rest of the audience and said one of the boxes contained keys to a twelfth car. But when the audience members opened the boxes, each had a set of keys.
“Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!” Winfrey yelled as she jumped up and down on the stage.
The audience members screamed, cried and hugged each other – then followed Winfrey out to the car parking of her Harpo Studios in Chicago to see their Pontiacs, all decorated with giant red bows.
The cars, which retail for £15,500, were donated by Pontiac.
“A little idea grew into a big idea,” said Mary Henige of Pontiac
Winfrey said the audience members were chosen because their friends or family had written to the show about their need for a new car. One woman’s young son said she drove a car that “looks like she got into a gunfight” another couple had almost 400,000 miles on their two vehicles.
In other segments on the show, Winfrey surprised a 20-year-old girl who had spent years in foster care and homeless shelters with a four-year college scholarship, a makeover and £6,000 in clothes. And a family with eight foster children who were going to be kicked out of their house were given £72,000 to buy and repair the home.
The Oprah Winfrey Show is syndicated to 212 domestic markets and 109 countries.
Oprah Winfrey has one of the most impressive success stories that you will ever come across. I like her as a person and try not to allow her politics to get in the way.
I have long maintained that the rural poor are virtually forgotten. Inner city poverty is often blamed on racism. Rural poverty is often blamed on ignorance. That really burns me up.
I think they were all people whose families had written in regarding their various circumstances. Some folks may not be "lower income" per se, but they have a ton of medical bills or other priorities over a new vehicle at the moment or they may even be folks who have just been working their hineys off through some tough times and the staff thought that would be a good person to give a break too. Personally, I don't think it has to be "needy" based on income since I can think of a few folks I know that are supposedly "needy" on wic and all that who have more entertainment dollars at their disposle than those of us a few 10ks over their income.
I agree with you.
Some people will rain on anything and anybody.
It's new for 2005. Just trying to promote it.
Generous, good people are all around us and they're not the cynical self promoting celebrities! Kill your TV!
All of these gifts were probably paid for by the show sponsors. Still, it's a great way to garner viewership and boost ratings. The scholarship was a nice gift, but in terms of congrats... Sean Hannity has done a lot to raise scholarship dollars for military kids. There are many organisations (I work with one) working hard year in and out to raise dollars to help college bound seniors. It would be nice to see Oprah 'endow' a perpetual scholarship to help kids in foster care. That would go a long way toward helping a lot of people.
Now I can't argue with that! Particularly to the dems in the audience.
Well, I figure if people are so shallow they cry and wail over material things they deserve a little challenge to their priorities. Why not go and find some families struggling to survive without asking for help and give them a car, gas, and insurance.
had MPLS and the state of MN just bought the people who actually pay to ride light rail on a regular basi s a new car rather than build light rail, the
state would have saved money in compatative cost to benefit
analysis.The same could probably be said of many , if not most state's super choo choos.
Elvis Presley was known to give Cadillacs away like Halloween candy. Don't know the number, but it was probably a high number. Still, Oprah's act can't be denied.
Read more about charity. Suggest starting with the Bible.
Oprah: "Pontiac, how about donating a bunch of cars to one of my studio audiences?"
Pontiac: hmmmm... publicity... cheap advertising... massive good will... "You bet!"
DD: "Pontiac, how about dontaing a bunch of cars to the folks at Free Republic?"
Pontiac: "Get lost, you pajama-wearing digital brownshirt. Who the heck are you, anyway?"
there's no surplus inventory of G6s
they just went on the market this month
but it is great advertising (hopefully)
I believe Bill Gates is probably the most generous with
his personal money, like him or not...
I find this whole thing grotesque. It simply feeds this notion, that is a centerpiece of the Kerry/Edwards campaign, that you get something for nothing. While we fawn over oprah distributing cars that she get donated from pontiac you may as well fawn over john edwards and his distribution of other peoples money in frivolous lawsuits, and hey why not fawn over john kerry for distributing wellness in the new department of wellness. We all can't marry wealthy republican widows and be part of the studio audience for the oprah show. Cheap Theatrics.
They can get a loan based on the equity of the vehicle in order to keep the car if they so desire. It's still a huge boon to the benefactor.
Why people bother with new cars I will never understand...
I'm not saying I feel sorry for them. But it isn't the generous act everyone is making it out to be. The cars RETAIL for $15,500. They must be titled and everything before they can be sold. I do not know if you have to pay sales tax on a gift car or not, maybe not, but you do have to pay property taxes and income/gift taxes. You also have to buy insurance. So let's say it costs them $5,000 to get this free $15,500 car. Yeah, that's a great deal if you can swing it. But these people were driving junkers. If they had $5,000 they would not have been driving junkers. Anyway, say they sell the car for $15,500 just because some people will be impressed with the fact that they are the now famous cars given away on Oprah. Even if they sell it for less, that does leave them with plenty of money to buy something better than they've got now. I was just saying that it wasn't Oprah's money and nothing is free anyway. The gov't always gets a cut.
Most of the people reading the article will assume Oprah gave away the cars. In reality, it was Pontiac/GM....that evil corporation. Pontiac/GM should get the credit.
Regardless, it was a nice gesture by whomever.
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