During her 25-year talk show run,Oprah Winfrey had 283 "favorite things": products she handed out in her annual audience scream-a-thon each holiday season. Her carefully chosen gifts ranged from favorite books and CDs to BlackBerrys (de rigeur at the time) to, famously, shiny new cars for all 275 hyperventilating audience members.
Some of the nascent products she promoted became instant bestsellers, like shapewear brand Spanx, in its first year of production when Winfrey held a pair of footless pantyhose aloft in front of millions of viewers. Spanx founder (and now, like Winfrey, a billionaire) Sara Blakely's website crashed with the immediate influx of buyers.
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