When she was five years old, Brittany Fletcher announced to her family that she would win the Showcase Showdown on The Price Is Right on her 18th birthday. Brittany Fletcher might be psychic.
The 2009 Auburn graduate was the first contestant asked to Come On Down on the game show’s June 3, 2005 episode. It was her 18th birthday.
One exciting game table with a reversal board and all chess, checkers, and back gammon pieces included later—Brittany bid $550; actual retail price: $600—and “Brittany is coming up to play a pricing game.”
No, Bob, she was coming up to win a pricing game, to win the big spinning wheel thing, to win the Showcase Showdown, to win it all.
“When we were growing up, I would tape the show from 11:37 to 11:45 just to see the Showcase Showdown,” Fletcher told us earlier this year. “I knew how much everything was. I knew exactly how much trips outside the United States were. I made study guides.”
She had them with her while standing in line for the show. The pre-tape interview crew noticed. They must have thought someone with The Price Is Right study guides would make for good television. They might be psychic. Bob Barker jokingly asked if their was a psychiatrist in the audience “because this child cannot believe she’s actually here, she doesn’t know where she is…”
“You have no idea how big of a dream it was,” Fletcher said. “I couldn’t even believe I was there.”
The first thing she did on stage? Asked if she could hug Bob. Bob had no problems with that. “By all means, give me a hug.”
“I said I was going to do it before Bob Barker retired,” she said.
She’s probably also said the same thing about Phil Keoghan. Fletcher and best friend Caitlin King, a former Auburn University soccer standout, were contestants on this season of The Amazing Race, something Fletcher says was on her bucket list. They were eliminated last night. There are no study guides for dumb luck and amnesiac cabbies.
But when asked whether it was the recumbent bicycle with 16 levels of resistance or the comfy sofa that cost $1,185 during “One Right Price,” there was no hesitation: The sofa.
He training kicked in on the Showcase Showdown, too—she was just $2,516 off the cost of her total Showcase: Whirlpool appliances, a Magnussen dining room, and six nights in beautiful Belgium. It was good enough to win, though had she stuck with her original bid—she backed off by two thousand dollars, you can see the disappointment in her eyes—she would have won both Showcases. Still, “Good bid,” Bob told her. He seemed a bit surprised. If he knew Fletcher, he wouldn’t have been.
“I’ve always just loved sales and business,” Fletcher said. “When I was 10 years old I got a real cash register and a real credit card machine for Christmas.”
It might not have meant more to anyone else, but Fletcher wasn’t the first person to go all the way on the 40-year old game show while an Auburn student (or soon to be Auburn student).
In 2002, Will Gaither, then a junior at Auburn, returned Hollywood with nearly $40,000 worth of The Price Is Right winnings.
Chase Gallimore, a news anchor for WAAY TV in Huntsville, won the Showcase Showdown while an Auburn student in 2005. According to The Auburner’s Mark Paden, he was wearing an Auburn shirt. He talks about his appearance in his WAAY bio.
In February, a woman from Eclectic won the Showcase Showdown also while wearing an Auburn shirt. You can hear what current host Drew Carey said about Auburn fans during the show here.
…
Keep Reading:
* Chick-fil-a’s new logo
* Bama fan talks Auburn during sex on “Hart of Dixie”
* Human pyramid at Toomer’s Corner!
* War Eagle Moment at the SAG Awards
* Twisted Metal developer is an Auburn fan
* Muhammad Al on the Haley Center concourse
* Playboy in Auburn, 1989
* Who’s the kid with the Auburn shirt in “Return of Swamp Thing”?
Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Want to advertise?
Leave a Reply