'Jeopardy!' Contestant Proposes to Girlfriend from Show Stage
A “Jeopardy!” contestant from Orlando decided to make the most of his on-stage debut by asking his girlfriend a critical question on Sept. 27.
As game show fans will recall, ‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek always spends the first few moments of the show introducing the evening’s contestants.
When Trebek turned to contestant Micahel Pascuzzi, he pretended to not have any information on the guest.
Not to worry — Pascuzzi will take “Memorable Moments” for $200.
“I can fill in for you,” Pascuzzi told Trebek, turning to address the audience.
“I just wanted to say one quick thing, and ask Maria Shafer, right there, if she would make me a winner today and marry me?” he said.
“Will you marry me?”
The camera panned to the crying Shafer, who blurted out her answer before Trebek could take a dramatic commercial break.
“Yes, of course,” Shafer said.
“I was about to say we’ll have the answer to that question right after this commercial break,” Trebek joked.
But Shafer made the best joke when she phrased her answer to match the “Jeopardy!” style of answering questions.
“That would be, ‘What is yes?'” she said, to the audience’s delight.
Pascuzzi said he and Shafer have been dating for ten years, and he decided backstage that it was finally the right time to propose.
“I asked the other two contestants if they would be cool with it, and they were great,” Pascuzzi told Inside Edition.
Trebek was on board with Pascuzzi’s impromptu request.
“He could have shot it down. He was in on it,” Pascuzzi told the Orlando Sentinel.
Pascuzzi said his girlfriend was a good sport about the surprise on-air proposal.
“She was like, ‘Maybe you could have clued me in so I could have put some makeup on?'” Pascuzzi said his new fiancée responded.
They have yet to settle on a date, but the couple hopes that Trebek will officiate their wedding.
“It’s a joke I keep putting out there,” Pascuzzi said. “I don’t know if he’d be game.”
But who knows — maybe it won’t be long before the game show host selects “Marriage Ceremonies” for $600.
Though Pascuzzi came in second place that night, he certainly left a champion.
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