Jonith Johnson Jr., a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department and resident of Skyline Ranch in Santa Clarita since 2019, will appear in a special episode of “The Price is Right,” which celebrates first responders, on Friday, July 4.

Johnson has flown helicopters for the L.A. Fire Department for the past 10 years and was actively involved in battling the Palisades Fire in January.

He applied to appear on the “The Price is Right” after he saw a flyer posted on a fellow firefighter’s Facebook page.

“I thought it would be a cool opportunity to get on the show,” Johnson said. “I’ve always watched ‘The Price is Right’ and thought it would be great to be on the show.”

Johnson said he arrived at the studio where “The Price is Right” is taped about two hours before showtime where the potential contestants were interviewed to see who would be called up to participate in the games.

“They had us in a room with music playing, people were dancing, they made it a fun experience before we went out to the studio,” he said.
Johnson made it up onto the stage where he chatted with the show’s host, Drew Carey and played the Shell Game.

The Shell Game is a pricing game where a contestant must guess which of four shells hides a small ball. The contestant wins by correctly identifying the shell after correctly guessing whether four offered prizes are higher or lower than their actual prices.

“I got the game I wanted to play and was able to chat back and forth with Drew Carey, he is a good guy,” Johnson said.

Johnson is married with two daughters, ages 8 and 10. The family moved to the Santa Clarita Valley in 2019 after living in various areas in Southern California.

He is stationed at Fire Station 114 at the Van Nuys Airport.

“We wanted to live somewhere closer to my work,” Johnson said. “We found Skyline Ranch and it checked all the boxes for me. It’s a good place to raise a family and I can get to work in about 30 minutes.

Johnson said he started working fighting the Palisades Fire on the second night.

“It was the most challenging firefighting I’ve ever done,” he said. “I have fought some pretty big fires in the past, but nothing like the Palisades Fire. I have never seen anything like it. The visibility was bad and you want to help everyone, but you can’t.”
Johnson said he worked two weeks straight on the Palisades Fire.

“We kept the helicopters running almost nonstop, just swapping out pilots,” he said. “We have very strict limits on how many hours we can fly in one shift for safety reasons.”

Johnson’s appearance on “The Price is Right” is his second national television appearance this year.

On March 2, Johnson represented the firefighting pilots of the LAFD on the “Oscars” telecast hosted by Conan O’Brien.

“The Oscars was an amazing experience, I never thought I would ever do anything like that,” he said. “At first I didn’t feel like I should be the only one from my unit to go, but my Chief told me it would be good to go and represent the Los Angeles Fire Department.”

Not only did Johnson appear on stage with O’Brien at the Oscars, he also spoke and told jokes.

“To speak and tell some jokes was nerve-wracking,” he said. “I have never spoken on camera before.”

After the “Oscars” he also attended the Governors Ball, the official post-Oscars celebration hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he saw, and met, celebrities attending the event.

Johnson said he enjoyed his experience at the Oscars and “The Price is Right.”

“Being able to make it up there on stage at ‘The Price is Right’ was surreal, he said. “I want to thank the ‘Price is Right’ and the ‘Oscars’ for recognizing the first responders and to have the opportunity to be part of it.”

Johnson will appear on “The Price is Right” on Friday, July 4 at 10 a.m. on the CBS television network, KCBS-TV channel 2 in the Los Angeles area.

Jonith Johnson Jr. is a helicopter pilot for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Jonith Johnson Jr. represented th Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter pilots on the Oscars telecast in March.