Oprah 3: YOU GET A CAR!

Making

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2016

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the show’s final decade, Oprah and her team staged massive spectacles of increasing grandiosity, from the infamous car giveaway to a 21,000-person flash mob that shut down part of Chicago.

“It had become increasingly more difficult to top what you’d done the year before,” Oprah told WBEZ’s Jenn White. “I mean, to the point where we literally sat in a room saying ‘What about outer space?’ ”

That’s what we look at now: Oprah living her life at the top, pushing the boundaries of what could be done with the world’s most powerful talk show, and why it all had to end after 25 years.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Jen White and this is making Oprah...
0:06.3	...making Oprah.
0:08.0	I wanted to work for Oprah from the day she went on the air.
0:14.6	As a child, Lisa Erspammer loved television.
0:18.6	At the age of 18, she created a vision board.
0:22.0	One of those posters with images that represent what you want to have,
0:25.9	do or be in your life.
0:28.0	Lisa put up Oprah Winfrey.
0:30.3	I put Chicago and executive producer and I think there was a baby that never ended up happening.
0:37.5	A few other weird things.
0:39.6	It was definitely a big climb for me and I had a lot to learn.
0:49.0	Lisa was hired by the Oprah Winfrey show in 1994.
0:52.7	Ten years later, she was asked to be co-executive producer.
0:55.9	It was extremely stressful because it's sort of a big responsibility
1:00.4	and I don't think it was a role I really ever thought I would have,
1:03.4	even though it was on my vision board.
1:05.3	Lisa had it up some big shows.
1:07.4	One involved some cars.
1:09.4	You're gonna talk! You're gonna talk!
1:11.4	Uh-uh, not yet.
1:13.0	We'll hear about that episode later.
1:15.0	Across years of producing the Oprah show,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WBEZ Chicago, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WBEZ Chicago and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.