(Warning: Spoilers ahead for Thursday’s episode of “Beat Shazam”)
Shazam has been beaten.
Christine Porcelli and Steve Lester became the first team to win the coveted million-dollar prize during Thursday’s episode of the Fox game show “Beat Shazam.” Host Jamie Foxx rewarded the Nashville-based couple after Porcelli correctly identified the Tears for Fears hit “Shout.”
“It still hasn’t sunk in,” Lester told TheWrap about the seven-figure windfall. “We’re very blessed.”
Not every moment went smoothly for the couple, as Lester whiffed on Night Ranger’s power ballad “Sister Christian” early in the episode.
“As soon as I heard ‘Sister Christian,’ and I answered it totally wrong, that’s when I was like, ‘OK, crap. You gotta get your head out of there,’” the bartender and aspiring musician said. “That was a tough way to start, getting the first one wrong.”
Porcelli said that her awareness of the 1984 tune “Shout” came from an unlikely source. “My grandmother, who passed away, she used to love Tears for Fears, which is really weird,” the waitress said. “My mind caught a memory, and then the song title came to me.”
As it turned out, the couple came close to voluntarily walking away with the money instead of running the risk of losing it on the final song.
“The original plan was not to [try the million-dollar song] — we both said during the break, ‘OK, we’re just going to walk away,’” Lester said. “The amount of money we saw we had, we’ve never seen in our entire life. So I said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’”
Luckily, they gave it a shot, and it paid off, as the pair plans to put some of the money toward their wedding. They’ll also be giving plenty of their winnings to their family members, along with saving some to purchase for Porcelli’s first-ever car.
As for advice they would give to future contestants, they admit that they spent three pop music-filled months cramming for their appearance on the show, during which time they were constantly familiarizing themselves with genres that weren’t necessarily their favorites.
“I’ve probably never listened to more Justin Bieber in my life than studying for this,” Lester said. And Porcelli concurred: “We basically didn’t even have a relationship — we just would get up every morning and put music on.”
“Beat Shazam” airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.