DC ExtraTime: Winning in the Daytime

From during The Challenge Invasion and Are You The One? Season 5

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

If you're one of those people who might be older than the average MTV viewer, are a college student or one of those who are a stay-at-home parent, then you spend your afternoons having to fend for yourself at home, while also perhaps enjoying that refreshing feeling of having to sleep in. One of those daytime activities includes watching daytime television: from addictive soap operas and all kinds of talk shows, to daily sessions with the many courtroom shows and newsmagazines, there's something for everyone for every taste. And for someone like me, there's also those live daytime sports events like PGA golf, European soccer and, of course, March Madness.
   That springtime tradition is only part of the leadership position CBS has proudly boasted in network daytime programming, as this past week the Tiffany Network marked 30 years now as the #1-rated choice for those needing a TV companion while the kids are at school and everyone else is at work. The Eye's daytime lineup includes The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful and The Talk with MTV alum Sharon Osbourne and Big Brother hostess Julie Chen - who's also wife of CBS head honcho Leslie Moonves. Also on the slate are the two remaining game shows left on network daytime, something that was a staple of daytime TV for years before settling into the 7-8PM timeslot of syndicated prime access, and then with ABC and NBC currently airing shows in prime time. That provides some context for this rather fun installment of ExtraTime.

With seeing Marie being one-and-done this time, it brought back memories of summer 2012 and Real World St. Thomas. We've discussed here how important her, Latoya and their season are to my development as a fan of first Real World and The Challenge and of how I'm able to interact with cast mates here. And the subject of the first of these two instances has been featured a few times here in having four lucky numbers and then last year of playing a baseball video game during the mundane part of the sports year with no action in the four major sports taking place.

IG @MTVTrey

   Trey Weatherholtz has been a favorite of mine since my first Twitter day, which also was the premiere night of his Real World season...he's also wished me happy birthday each year since then, just a few days before his own birthday each mid-November. We all know what happened the last time he was on The Challenge when a mere technicality saw him and champion Zach lose an elimination after Thor threw a helmet to the onlookers in apparent celebration, and there was that previous summer when he found himself in love with the other girl of that season, Nebraskan Laura. After what happened on Rivals II, Trey looked to an unlikely source to redeem himself.
   In that late summer of 2013 - just after he had competed in Thailand, Trey traveled to Los Angeles to join the panel of AfterBuzz TV to chat up the late part of his last Challenge appearance... and he also did something else, too. Like many people who have had an appointment in the late morning for 45 years now (including me who always relished those summers off from school watching it at home), Trey applied to be on that classic show The Price is Right, and was chosen to go to CBS Television City where the show takes place inside The Bob Barker Studio to try his luck with many others.
   But, he also came to the show with one extra stipulation: his common name Trey actually means he is the 3rd person in his family to use his actual first name, which is Walter. And instead of using that same name that those like me had grown to know from the three shows I've watched him, instead he would go with his actual given first name. Thus, Walter Weatherholtz III actually came to The Price is Right, and by sheer luck - he was told to "Come on Down!"
   When he came to contestants' row in the presence of that icon Drew Carey, Trey did what many people like to do: when he sensed that the three other contestants had overbid the prize that was on offer, a surfboard, he made a bid for $1. He won that surfboard, got to go on stage and try his luck at one of the pricing games and then a shot at spinning the big wheel, and thus a chance at going to the Showcase Showdown. He got himself just that surfboard he would then give away later to a fan.

And a few years later, we saw another MTV alum on the airwaves of its one-time Viacom sibling. In 2009, CBS brought back to television a game show that began in 1963: Let's Make A Deal. First hosted by Monty Hall and now hosted in its current incarnation by Drew's colleague on Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Wayne Barry, the show sees members in the studio audience make deals with the host on whether to keep something of value or risk exchanging it for a chance to win a prize of greater value or get "zonked" by getting a cheap item in return. That Truth Booth trade-in offer we're seeing on this AYTO season has similarities to what they have on that show. And of course, the show's most distinguished feature is of audience members treating this like Halloween in dressing up in crazy and outrageous costumes to up their chances of being picked.
   It's that very premise that brought an Are You The One? original to LMAD a year ago and brought one of his most unique talents to that stage with Brady & friends. Three years ago this winter, viewers watched Ryan Malaty become part of that renowned season 1 of the love experiment as that quirky, playful and nice-looking guy from Denver with a charisma and nice demeanor that attracted the ladies he sees. In that house in Kauai, he was part of a love triangle that emerged with Southern belle Kayla and Stephen Curry lookalike Wes, which saw the Truth Booth solve their puzzle where he was sent in first in their seventh try and emerged a no-match, and then with Wes the next week which brought them to the Honeymoon Suites. And in that ensuing Matchup Ceremony for week 8 (and Episode 9), Ryan decided to put on not a suit or a dress shirt, but an outfit he wore to Comic Con just months before filming that season.
   If you have kids who love Disney films (and it will also be the focus of an ExtraTime featuring a member of this season's AYTO cast later in the season), then you've heard about the movie Aladdin which was 1992's best-selling film during the animation studio's golden era and a movie I remember watching in theaters when I was young. The title character went around his Arab neighborhood with a genie bottle in his hand, voiced by the late Robin Williams, and the film documented his adventures with a magic carpet, his romance with Princess Jasmine and battles with Jafar. From a musical standpoint, Aladdin is best known for the song "A Whole New World," which earned the movie Best Original Song at the 1993 Academy Awards.
   So when Ryan went onto Let's Make A Deal last year, it was absolutely no surprise that Ryan donned that Aladdin outfit once again and, as you can see in the photo above, he was dancing on that set with Wayne Brady and other contestants, or "traders" as they're referred to, when he was chosen to go for those prizes on the show. And since that first season, Ryan has now become a host for AfterBuzz TV on their after shows for Teen Wolf, has hung out with Kermit the Frog, a Minion and his fellow MTV family, even modeling during L.A. Fashion Week.

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Ryan is not alone when it comes to having appeared on the modern-day version of Let's Make A Deal... later during this fall MTV cycle, we'll look at when a Real World alum from earlier in this decade got to appear on this year's Christmas in July episode of LMAD.

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