Shane Riggs, Special to the Times-News
Cumberland Times-News
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The crowd was chanting suggestions. The red light on the studio cameras flashed. The charming host thrust the microphone in her face.
“What will it be? Curtain number one? Curtain number two? Or curtain number three?”
Oh, the pressure.
What’s a girl from Cumberland, Maryland, to do?
The answer to that question will be made clear next week on national television when Sarabeth Whetzel, an employee of a LaVale restaurant and a former Miss Queen City, appears as a contestant on the CBS game show, “Let’s Make a Deal.”
Sarabeth and her mother, Teresa, were in Las Vegas where the show is filmed accompanying Miss Maryland Brooke Poklemba to the Miss America pageant last month when Teresa obtained tickets to a taping of “Let’s Make a Deal,” which at the time was filmed just a few blocks from the theater where the Miss America pageant was being staged.
“I have to admit right here and now, until I saw a taping of the show, I had never in my life watched one episode of ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’” Sarabeth said.
Revived for television several years ago and based on the 1970s classic hosted by Monty Hall, comedian and singer Wayne Brady now is at the helm of the quiz program in which contestants are pressured by both the host and the television studio audience to surrender a known prize for a different one behind one of three curtains. The catch is, the prize behind the velvet drapery could be everything from a new car to a jar of Turtle Wax.
Shortly after the show premiered, knowing they would be picked from the audience, people attending the show would dress in costumes to increase the chance of being noticed by producers. That tradition continues with the new version of the show and yes, Sarabeth Whetzel was in costume. She was dressed as a vintage cinema ticket taker. Her mother did not dress up for the show but admits she was tempted to steal a sheet from the hotel and go as the “ghost of Monty Hall,” Teresa said. “Even though I know he is still alive. I thought it would be funny.”
When the mother and daughter team arrived at the CBS studios in Las Vegas for the taping, Sarabeth was immediately approached by a producer.
“They do preshow interviews and they prepick you as a possible contestant while you are in line for the show,” she said. “They take a picture of you and then they asked a bunch of questions really fast. Even when they put you in a seat, you still don’t know if you have been picked to be a contestant.”
But her mother knew.
“They put Sarabeth on an aisle seat and I just knew she had been picked for the show,” Teresa said. “I could just tell she was going to be on the show.”
After one male contestant was chosen from the audience, Brady approached Sarabeth and took her hand to join him on stage to play the game.
“Oh my, Wayne Brady is so hot actually,” she said. “I tried to ask him on a date but all I could say was I just saw him on (the talk show) Tyra. I was so excited. I could barely breathe. I talked really fast. I just hope I don’t look too much like an idiot on national television.”
After appearing on the show, Sarabeth signed an agreement with CBS that she is not permitted to discuss the outcome of the episode on which she appears. She is not allowed to mention whether or not she won or even what curtain she chose or even if she chose a curtain at all.
She did hint, however, with a smile, that she did not walk away empty handed.
“It was really weird but it was amazing,” she said. “It really didn’t feel like I was on television. I must have hugged Wayne Brady 18 times. In that moment, when you have to make a decision the nerves really do kick in. And the audience is screaming and my mom was sitting in the audience telling me what to and shouting and I just had to listen to what my gut told me to do.”
The episode of “Let’s Make a Deal” featuring Cumberland resident Sarabeth Whetzel is scheduled to air on CBS daytime television Wednesday, March 24. Check television listings in the Cumberland Times-News for times, local channels and affiliates that carry the show. The first available airing of the program should be at 10 a.m. that day on WUSA Channel 9 out of Washington, D.C.
Shane Riggs is the managing editor of Allegany Magazine, the sister publication to The Cumberland Times-News.
