CEDAR CITY — A Cedar City man who recently appeared on a nationally televised game show says he had an enjoyable experience.
Patrick Matthews and a fellow contestant teamed up to win $4,000 on “You Bet Your Life” featuring host Jay Leno and sidekick Kevin Eubanks.
Although the show was filmed in Los Angeles last August, Matthews said he wasn’t able to divulge the results until after the episode had aired, which it did on Feb. 17.
In the roughly 10-minute segment of the show during which he appeared, Matthews was partnered with a woman in her 20s named Hannah Fletcher, a squirrel-loving teacher from Southern California. The pair missed their first two questions but bounced back to answer their next three correctly. All five of the questions had to do with celebrity divorces.
Matthews, who works at Ladybug Nursery in Cedar City, said that when he recently watched the show’s broadcast at home with his wife, he actually couldn’t remember what the questions had been.
“When we were watching it at home, I was yelling at the screen, ‘Pat! It’s Bill Gates!’” Matthews said with a laugh as he recalled the first question. Unfortunately, the Pat on TV couldn’t hear his future self yelling the correct answer, so they drew a blank on it, along with the next question, which referenced Angelina Jolie’s second husband, Billy Bob Thornton.
Following a commercial break, the duo then managed to come up with the correct responses to the next three questions: Scarlett Johansson, Katie Holmes and Liam Hemsworth. That netted them a total of $3,500 in prize money. They also won another $500 for saying the secret word “sport,” which Matthews uttered when he mentioned his large collection of sports cards to Leno.
The pair’s $4,000 winnings will be split between them, minus taxes and withholdings, Matthews said, adding that he has not yet received his check in the mail.
Matthews said that even though the show had neither the level of challenging questions nor the lucrative prize amounts like those seen on Jeopardy! and similar big-ticket game shows, he still had fun.
“It was a lot more low-key,” Matthews said of the show, which is patterned after the original program of the same name that featured comedian Groucho Marx back in the 1950s.
“It’s mainly just joking around with the hosts.”
After first commenting on Matthews’ resemblance to KFC’s Colonel Sanders, Leno then referred to Matthews’ side gig of square-dance calling as “country rap.”
Although he later said he didn’t really agree with that assessment, Matthews nevertheless obliged when asked to do a sample square-dance call, and was met with appreciative applause.
Another highlight, Matthews said, is when Eubanks, a noted jazz musician, commented off-camera about the necktie he’d chosen to wear, which was adorned with guitars and violins.
“Kevin told me he really liked my tie,” Matthews recalled.
“Unfortunately, though, we didn’t get to see Jay Leno’s car collection,” Matthews added. “That would have been amazing.”
Having gotten a small taste of stardom, Matthews said he has already begun searching online for other game shows to which he can apply as a contestant. He’s also been staying in touch with his former teammate Hannah, who’s an aspiring actor.
To watch the full episode, which is numbered 129 (season 1, episode 29) on the “You Bet Your Life” YouTube channel, click here.
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