Deal or No Deal (USA)/Episode 253A/253B

Episode 253A/253B
Season 2, Episode 55
Airdate	March 19, 2007
← 2x54 Episode 252A/252B	2x56 → Episode 255
Deal or No Deal (USA) — Season Two

Episode 253A/253B is the fifty-fifth episode of the second season of Deal or No Deal, and the ninety-fourth episode overall.

Guest Stars:

Gameplay

• A two-player game kicked off this two-hour episode, where twins Annie Hewlitt and Aubrey Wentworth played for double-stakes. Each twin picked one case apiece (Annie chose 7, Aubrey selected 23), and male firefighters from the San Diego Fire Department served as the models.

After a very rough first round where they knocked off five amounts of $150,000 or more, the girls rebounded to see their deal peak at $86,000. At one point, they rejected a deal containing a lifetime supply of Doublemint gum (a stick of gum for every day of rest of their lives, worth $4,250). However, with six cases left, the twins lost their last mega-amount — $1,000,000 — but they played until accepting the final offer of $6,000. Aubrey's case had $1,500, while Annie's case had just $10; the $20,000 case remained in the gallery.

• The second game was billed as having a contestant, picked off the street at random without being pre-screened, and possibly he or she never having never seen "Deal or No Deal" (or even heard of the game). Mandell went to Westside Pavillion in Santa Monica, California and chose Shell Cartney, a 23-year-old vendor at a Hot Dog on a Stick restaurant. Shell (who had seen the game on TV) and her twin sister, Jennifer, traveled with Mandell to the studio for their game; Shell's parents — who were aware of the game but rarely watched it — and boyfriend (who never watched it) were contacted and asked to come to the studio.

Shell (who chose case 13, for founder Dave Barham's birthday of June 13, 1913) had an up-and-down game, wiping out all but the $100,000 case in the first four rounds. However, she left three sizable amounts to the end — $50,000, $75,000 and $100,000 — allowing her to be offered $67,000. After saying "no deal" to that, she lost the $100,000, but it wasn't that costly. On the very next deal, Shell accepted a $62,000 offer — not bad for a woman who expected to make $40 that day and was supposed to attend a barbecue that night. Inside her case: $75,000.

Notes

• Male firefighters from the San Diego Fire Department served as the models for the first game. The female models returned for the second game. Clips of the firefighters in rehearsal with the female models, along with interviews, were played during commercial breaks.
• During Shell Cartney's game, two of the models — Hayley Marie Norton and Tameka Jacobs — revealed their ties to Hot Dog on a Stick. Norton said she applied for a job but was turned down, while Jacobs was a former employee. It is, however, possible that this was not true, as one of Howie's frequent running gags is that Tameka always has, or has had, the same unusual profession as the contestant.
• An update was played on $202,000 winner Brian Thompson, who used his winnings to fund his town's Fourth of July festival.
• It is unknown what would have happened if Annie and Aubrey had refused their final deal, but Howie's explanation suggested that they would probably win the sum of their two cases. If this is so, then the bank would be expected to have offered more than $6,000 when the contestants had a 2/3 chance of having $20,000 in one of their cases, and the least they could possibly take home was $1,510.