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Oprah Winfrey opened up about her iconic "You Get a Car" moment from a 2004 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in an interview with PEOPLE magazine for their 50th-anniversary special issue. The media mogul described the audience's initial confusion, followed by utter jubilation when she created one of television's most iconic meme moments.
"So I was like, 'You get a car, you get a car, you get a car, everybody gets a car.' Because people were confused."
The Oprah Winfrey Show was one of history's most influential and longest-running daytime television shows. It ran from 1986 to 2011 and amassed 47 Daytime Emmy Awards.
The show was highly influential in shaping people's minds, and many of its themes have seeped deep into America's pop-cultural consciousness. Winfrey used her daytime show to educate people, exhibit various world events, and spread self-improvement and educational awareness among the American youth.
For those unversed, the 2004 episode was one of the iconic moments in the show's history after host Oprah Winfrey gifted a Pontiac G6 car wrapped in a red ribbon to all 276 audience members in the episode. The value of all the vehicles was around $7.7 million.
Oprah Winfrey describes the iconic "You get a car" giveaway moment-by-moment
Oprah Winfrey's massive Pontiac giveaway was a one-time television moment. However, the internet has immortalized it through a montage of archival images. Oprah Winfrey's iconic moment where she stretches her arms and exclaims, "You get a car, you get a car, you get a car," to the audience will always be remembered.
The 70-year-old media mogul discussed the nuances of pulling such a massive stunt, giving a moment-by-moment account of the episode in her interview with PEOPLE magazine for its 50th-anniversary special edition.
Initially, they had planned to gift a car to only the first 12 people in the audience. However, Oprah Winfrey realized that access to a car could make a world of difference in people's lives, deciding to give one Pontiac to each audience member.
"We got to make it meaningful because, by the time we gave away the cars, I was already operating with my producers with the philosophy that we do nothing that is not intentional," she clarified.
Oprah Winfrey recalled asking the audience not to shake the little boxes given to them because she knew they could guess that there were keys inside by the jiggling noise.
"Everybody opened the boxes at the same time. So you were looking at the person next to you who got theirs, and you're like, 'Oh, they got it. But I got it, too.' So I was like, 'You get a car, you get a car, you get a car, everybody gets a car,' because people were confused," she explained.
Oprah Winfrey wanted to wear her red Celine suit on the day of the iconic episode despite an initial warning of disapproval from her best friend, Gayle King. However, she did end up wearing that suit, which has become one of the most iconic looks of the host from the show.
Gayle King explained the backstory behind the 'You get a car' moment in a 2022 interview
Oprah Winfrey's best friend, Gayle King, was the first to pitch the giveaway idea. In a 2022 interview with PEOPLE's Pop Cultured, the CBS Mornings host explained how a coincidental encounter with a Pontiac executive led to one of the most celebrated moments in television history.
"I was at an airport, minding my own business," King, 67, explains. "A guy walks up to me — and I'll call him Larry — [and said,] 'We're really interested in giving a car to the show.'" Gayle King recalled.
However, King was intrigued when the executive explained that he wanted to give everyone in the audience a car. He explained how Pontiac had been trying to strike that deal, but no one would answer their calls.
The next challenge was executing the stunt with precision. King explained that Oprah Winfrey wanted to gift cars to "people who are deserving." Therefore, they designed a questionnaire to learn about people's automobile situations and select the giveaway recipients.
Gayle King recalled that Oprah wanted the planning to be as detailed as possible. The next challenge was nailing the aesthetics. She explained,
"She (Oprah) wanted to make sure that every car had a bow and not just a regular bow — it had to be an oversized jumbo red bow," she adds. "I remember her looking at different shades of red to make sure it was the right shade of red. It was a whole big thing."
Winfrey also shared the emotions she felt after the episode.
"That was one of the happiest days of my life. It delights me, it makes me so happy to see other people be happy and to be able to do that. That's one of the great joys of my life."
One Pontiac G6 maxed out at an average of $30,000, bringing the cost of the entire giveaway to more than $7 million. However, it seems worth it compared to how the single stunt immortalized Oprah Winfrey's legacy even twenty years later.
