By Jenny Wallace
Arts & Entertainment Editor

Brady Weaver, a CTM major at KU, and his family were featured on the popular game show ‘Family Feud’ in early 2019. While the episode his family was in didn’t air until the end of 2019, the process to get on the show began at the beginning of the year.  

Donna Weaver, Brady Weaver’s mom, was reading the newspaper when she found an ad to apply to be on ‘Family Feud.’ Before asking her family, she sent in an essay to enter. Soon after, the family received an invite to audition in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. 

The family agreed, and when they got to the hotel, there were hundreds of families in the same position as the Weavers. Brady Weaver recalls that many were wearing unique outfits, but not the Weavers.

“[We] have unique personalities. We didn’t need to be unique with our appearance,” Brady Weaver said.

The Weavers made it to round two where they were asked to introduce themselves one by one and then all together. Their introduction tape, along with hundreds of others, was sent to Los Angeles for review. 

Six weeks later, the Weavers received a postcard in the mail. Although they were ecstatic to receive the news, this still did not guarantee that the Weaver family would be on the show. In May, the family flew to LA for filming. 

“How could I ever imagine this? We had to get suits We had to get ties, the whole smorgasbord,” Brady Weaver said.

Once the Weavers made it to LA, they still were not guaranteed a spot on the show. They had two days to tape with four tapings a day, competing for a spot on the show. 

After day one, the Weavers received bad news that they were to be sent home early if the family didn’t step up their game. 

“Mom showed up and showed out,” Brady Weaver said, as the next day of filming went immensely better than the first.

During individual introductions, each family member had to give a fun fact about themselves. Brady Weaver’s was that he was a Hershey Bar and Hershey Park. 

Brady Weaver said he connected with Steve Harvey’s stand-in hype man instantly after this because the hype-man was Woody Woodpecker at Universal. 

Brady Weaver recalls that when it was his family’s time to film, he knew he had to do something special, so as the music was playing, he did “every single dance in the book.”   The audience started chanting his name. “It was the best experience of my life,” Brady Weaver said. 

Then “the man, the myth, the legend,” as Brady Weaver would say, Steve Harvey came onto the stage. Brady Weaver’s first impression of Harvey face-to-face was that “his head was shinier than the sky.” 

After filming, the Weavers finished without a single point on the board. Although they didn’t win, they said it was worth every second for the experience.  “Just to have the family back together was amazing,” said Jim Weaver, Brady Weaver’s father. 

You can watch a clip from the Weaver’s episode here:  https://youtu.be/KLP9QNttVIo