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 (Essay Originally Posted March 14, 2001) Like millions of people in North America, I occasionally enjoy the ABC television game show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'. And like many viewers, I often think to myself 'That question was so easy - how could he/she blow it. I should be a contestant!' My wife, Darlene, also tells me all the time how good I would be on the show. Well I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is. Literally. Because on April 3rd, 2001, I will be one of the 10 contestants vying for the million-dollar first prize (well hopefully it will be over two million, but there is a chance someone could win the bonus between now and my show's taping which is on Monday, March 19th).
Here's how the whole process has worked. Occasionally the show will invite people to call their 1-800 phone number (1-800-833-4321) to try to be a contestant. If you're able to get through (and here's a hint - don't wait until Regis mentions it during the show because you'll get busy signals. When the number is operational, you can call anytime after six pm and usually get through on the first try). But if you do get through, you'll have to give your birthdate, the last four digits of your social security number and then have to answer three questions correctly. Usually the questions are along the lines of putting something in order - like the debut dates of four television shows. The three questions are progressively tougher and it's kind of the luck of the draw. Sometimes all three were pretty easy in my eyes - other times, the first or second question just completely stumped me. I would say that in the 20 to 25 times either I or my brother Craig tried to answer the questions, we got all three questions right nine of the 25 times (for those keeping track, Craig got all three right five times but he also tried more times overall so my percentage was higher). Getting the questions right, however, is the easy part. The toughest part of the whole ordeal is getting a call back the next day. No one outside of the show's producers know exactly how many people are calling in and how many are getting all three questions correct. But I would guess that each day, thousands of people are put into a computerized random drawing to receive a call back the next day. And you better be ready to answer the phone if you are lucky enough to get a call back (Craig swears that one of our co-workers cost him the opportunity to win millions when they said Craig wasn't available one day because he was on another phone line. Our poor co-worker has no idea who was on the phone). Somewhere around 40 people, however, do get a call back and I was one of the very lucky ones called on Wednesday, Feb. 28th. In fact, the show producer who called me caught me in the middle of a business meeting. Luckily I had given them my cell phone number and was able to excitedly excuse myself to talk to the person and give them the correct biographical answers they needed to verify I had correctly answered the three questions the previous day. Once you do get a call-back, you are given another number to call, a pin number and have to answer five questions correctly. Miss any of them and you won't be on the show. My call-back date was Monday, March 12th. The questions I was asked are below (I'm not going to write in the answers, but email me if you're stuck....
From the famous poem, '30 Days Hath September', put these months in order in which they are mentioned...
Put these First Ladies in the order in which they were born, starting with the most recent...
Put these TV shows in the order in which they debuted, starting with the earliest...
Put these musicians in order of their age, starting with the youngest...
Put these inventions in order in which they appeared, starting with the earliest... Luckily they were all pop culture-type questions - my specialty. And even more luckily, I was able to get through my nervousness to answer all five correctly. The only one that gave me any trouble was figuring out if Ozzy or Tina Turner was older; ironically we had just put a picture of Ozzy on this site not too long ago but it's not like that helped with getting the correct answer. Once you answer all five correctly, you're not guaranteed a spot on the show. If the WWTBAM folks ('Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' abbreviated) have more than 10 correct answers, they once again do a random drawing to select their show's contestants. This time the waiting period would be quicker - the recording promised a call between 4 and 7 pm that night. But once again, I had to play the waiting game.... |
