[MartianMark]

This is live television. The folks in charge didn't have time to dick around after they opened the envelope to figure out how things needed to unfold.

I would assume they were color coded to ensure they had the maximum amount of time between the choosing of the envelopes and then posing the right question.

But I agree, there was absolutely no reason to have them color coded at all other than to buy some more time being that this was all live.