Then an army of pretty young women circulated through the audience distributing little boxes to the crowd.
"Everybody is being given a special package. I don't want you to open it. Do not open it until I tell you!" barked Oprah, who is also something of a drill sergeant.
Driving them delirious: Winfrey and some of the 276 audience members who yesterday received new Pontiac G6s, courtesy of show sponsor GM.
(Bob Davis -- Harpo Productions Via Reuters)
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"DO NOT OPEN, DO NOT OPEN, DO NOT OPEN, DO NOT SHAKE IT, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL I TELL YOU!" she shrieked, sending her audience into near hysterics.
Oprah explained that the key to the remaining car was in one of the boxes. She then called for a drum roll, because Oprah is also something of a drama queen, and told them to open the boxes.
"YOU WIN A CAR!
"YOU WIN A CAR!
"YOU WIN A CAR!" Oprah bellowed, pointing one by one at different people in the studio.
"EVERYBODY GETS THE CAR!
"EVERYBODY GETS THE CAR!
"EVERYBODY GETS THE CAR!" she screamed. By now she's leaping up and down onstage, audience members are weeping and screaming and grabbing each other.
"And guess what? Hold on, your cars are waiting right outside! How cool is this? Follow me, follow me. I think I'm going to pass out!"
The audience, still screaming and hugging, seemed to understand that she wanted them to follow her outside, rather than follow her as she passed out, and she took them to the parking lot of her Harpo Studios, with her arm draped over the shoulder of one, the same way she liked to be photographed with fellow jury members when she would emerge from a hard day being the center of media attention during the murder trial of Dion Coleman.
"Thank you, Oprah -- I love you!" one woman screamed at the camera; another stepped up on to the frame of a driver's side door and hugged the car, shouting, "Oh, my God!"
Other big companies' wildest dreams came true during the second half of the show, but on a much smaller and quieter scale.
The UPN network -- which is owned by Viacom, which distributes Oprah's show -- also received millions of dollars' worth of publicity when Oprah staged a makeover of a 20-year-old homeless woman by model Tyra Banks, the creator and star of UPN's hit reality series "America's Next Top Model," and Banks's "Top Model" team.
Ditto Jane magazine, which, Oprah announced on the show, has agreed to run photos of the lucky woman.
And telecom company SBC Communications got a nice plug when it awarded the same woman a college scholarship.
After that, Crate & Barrel and Best Buy got on-air mentions and their trucks were seen delivering appliances and furniture to a family with eight foster children in Upstate New York. And Oprah cut a gigantic Publishers Clearinghouse-size check for $100,000 so the family could buy the house from which they were about to be evicted.
She threw in another check for $30,000 to fix up the house "because Oprah thinks of everything," the person who handed the check to the family assured them.
