It had been a night of animated conversation, a pleasant pre-Christmas office party in a downtown Calgary restaurant.

No one noticed Cora Aronoff.

She was the woman busying herself on the other side of the small room, a “cartoon-like character” no one would soon forget.

“Imagine Bob Barker’s The Price is Right,” recalls Steve McDonough. “That’s what it was like. She turned on the bright lights, the music came on. Suddenly the restaurant was like a TV show.”

The Go-Show's Cora Aronoff stages a 'professional, TV quality' quiz show for fun corporate events.

McDonough was responsible for the sudden commotion. As the vice-president, and partner of iDEA MACHINE, a Calgary advertising company, he’d hired Aronoff to make some waves.

But he had no idea of the fun he and his staff were about to have as “contestants” in the irreverent TV game show: Bob is Your Nose Ever Brown. “Cora pulled it off,” says McDonough. “We, as a company, always remember the times we laugh together. As part of our corporate culture, we always encourage that.”

The show was based on a year’s worth of inside office “dirt” that Aronoff had culled in interviews with McDonough and a couple of other managers. McDonough quickly became an easy target.

“It wasn’t mean spirited, or over the top,” he says.

“In a way, laughing at the boss brings everyone together. I was the one who gave her the information.”

The words are sweet music for the 28-year-old Aronoff.

Outgoing, fast on her feet, funny and bright, she’s found her calling.

On stage since age six, she’s an actress, improv artist and comedienne who spent a decade in the sales world as a front line worker and later as a manager.

Two years ago, feeling she’d accomplished everything in sales, Aronoff fulfilled a dream. She sold her house and car, pulled on a backpack and travelled for a year in Mexico and Central America.

“In a way, I was hoping for an epiphany,” she laughs. “I’d always wanted to combine my drama skills and my business background. It was so frustrating because there was nothing obvious.”

Once back in Calgary, fate interceded. While working for the Calgary Straight selling classified ads, Aronoff received a call from a B.C. man seeking a business partner. He had purchased podiums, lights, mixers, an amplifier and monster speakers from a Florida company.

Opportunity was calling, and Aronoff’s mind lit up like a bank of studio lights. She arranged a meeting, and a month later purchased all the equipment.

A “busy gal” with 10 different irons in the fire, she dropped everything six months ago to concentrate on the Go-Show, refining the games and marketing the concept.

“It’s been hard, hard work to polish the show,” says Aronoff. “It’s a professional, TV quality game show, and not a second is wasted.”

Self-described as the Hostess with the Mostess, Aronoff is part Bob Barker, Monty Hall and a dozen other TV hosts rolled into one. She bows to comedian Carol Burnett’s brilliance, and as luck would have it, she married a Burnett — Chris. He is her business partner, but has kept his day job, says Cora, “so we can continue to feed the dog.”

She has fine-tuned 15 game shows such as the Wheel of Fortune, Human Scrabble, science, geography and trivia games – even a program based on TV theme songs. All productions have their own theme music, the tick-tock time’s-running-out countdowns, a technician who runs the scoreboard, and Aronoff, a whirling dervish constantly changing outfits and keeping everyone on their toes.

“She finds the people she can play off,” says Fred Graham, a sales manager at Telus.

Graham hired Aronoff to host his wife’s “milestone” birthday in their local community hall in January. “It was memorable, just a blast,” he says. “People were calling two weeks later saying what a unique experience it was.”

Graham has encouraged sales teams in his office to try the show, and incorporate key elements of their promotions into one of the games.

The idea behind the Go-Show, says Aronoff, is simple: Have fun, and, when dealing with corporate clients, create a sense of team.

“Turnover rates are real high and the buzz is, ‘how do we keep our employees?’” she says. “We know that more money doesn’t necessarily work.”

Fluent in French and Spanish, Aronoff holds a degree in marketing and management and is taking courses in human behaviour to complement her resume.

While she can talk human resources jargon with the best, she chooses not to. “I’m not going to give you an analysis of your performance afterwards and tell you how much you’ve learned,” she says.

Instead Aronoff marvels at the people she’s met in the dozen gigs she’s hosted. She recalls the businessman — “He’d had a couple of martinis” — who became so caught up in the game show that he pounded his fist in the heat of the moment and pulverized the podium.

“People get so excited, it’s hysterical,” she says. “Just watch The Price is Right. There’s a sea of expectant faces, just waiting for Bob to call the next name.”

In Calgary, she’s building her own audience of supporters. Following last December’s office party, McDonough offered to build the first phase of The Go-Show’s hip Web site free of charge.

“She’s a good judge of corporate character, and she’s created something that’s really unique,” he says. “I think she has great potential.”

Web Watch:
www.thegoshow.net