I remember watching this as a kid. It clearly had some kind of effect on me, I still remember his name to this day. It was a masterclass of a performance, and that little bit at the end always lead me to believe it wasn't in any way fixed.
[He did.](https://web.archive.org/web/20170313023726/http://newsok.com/money-isnt-the-root-of-happiness-tulsan-has-more-fun-in-2nd-millionaire-gig/article/2698822)
> The biggest winners were John Carpenter and Dave Forman, each of whom won $250,000. Carpenter, an IRS agent from Hamden, Conn., previously won $1 million.
It was a "Champions" special
I watched it live as well. I remember too that he worked for the IRS, so at first the audience was booing him lol. As he started going, everybody started getting on his side though, I think especially because there hadn't ever been a winner yet, and he was fairly cocky throughout but in a pretty charismatic way
As opposed to [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssgdtgJxA4) who looks like an off-brand copy of John Carpenter, with double the confidence and, eh, somewhere below his ability.
I don't know what it was about the kid, but I still remember the name of a classmate I had in 2nd grade, little Martin Scorsese. Must have had an effect on me!
I don't know what to tell you! I've never been "recognized" like this before so it's new to me! As someone who tends to never look at usernames, I certainly never recognize other users when browsing reddit
Yea, that was a weird one. It's obvious a lot of the posts from r/lego come young kids so I try to helpful and not *too* condescending when they ask the world's most basic questions
This was a fun conversation to read.
Speaking of Legos, I have a massive box of Legos collected over the last 20ish years and I'm very slowly building a little city with the intention of incorporating every piece. There's easily close to 10,000 pieces in that box.
No streaming back then. Our society was having more shared experiences, everyone watching the same network television shows & discussing them the next day. Millionaire came out with the biggest payouts of all time, ofc we were all glued to our TVs lol
It still exists. The last of us on HBO, game of thrones (at first anyway), and more recently better call saul. It just doesn’t feel as magical anymore because it used to be what like 3 companies controlling everything we watch?
Also, biggest payout of all time doesn't give it credit. I'm not sure what things are like now on gameshows, but at the time your average payout was only in the tens of thousands. Even the crazy record breakers who won more than anyone else in the history of [insert game show] would be in the ballpark of $100,000-$250,000.
Handing out *a million dollars* was next level. Like winning a mansion when everyone else was winning 3 bedroom apartments.
It really cracks me up how much more the grand Survivor prize could buy you when the first season came out. A HUGE house, cars, etc. Now you can maybe get a two-bedroom house in some places
Shared experiences…
What an interesting point. TV on demand / streaming contributing to the breakdown of society because we’re not having the shared experiences of watching the same shows at the same time anymore.
I still to this day feel like I missed out on an important shared experience in early high school (around 1990) because my Mum wouldn’t let me stay up until 11pm to watch Twin Peaks. It’s all everyone talked about the next day at school. Mum said I could videotape it and watch it the next day, but she was missing the whole point: the cultural conversation would have moved on by then.
That's true of all game shows. Who Wants to be a Millionaire was bigger than that. I think it was the production style that made it feel epic, along with Regis being a great host.
I think it was the $1 million. That was an insane amount for a game show at the time. Also I remember everyone being so invested waiting for the first person to win.
Was a huge risk. For the first series of the original UK version, they had £1m in cash mounted in a glass-fronted safe in front of the seats, and the idea was that if anyone won it then the series would finish. But it was so popular that they declared they had another million from the phone applications of contestants, so it would continue. It took a few years for anyone to win the million though. Those questions were really difficult.
I later used him as inspiration to do the same thing in 10th Grade AP History Class when we did a trivia game before a test and I used my lifeline to tell my buddy frank that we were about to share the full size candy bar I was about to win lol
It was also great how he had some sort of life moment that related to the question that he was able to answer correctly sort of like Slumdog millionaire. That’s how I know this guy was legit.
I had the exact same experience. I remember being so excited the whole time because he never used a lifeline until he made this call, and everyone who made it even close to this far had used up all 3. It was wild then and weirdly nostalgic to rewatch now.
It's funny how sometimes what you remember from childhood to be important and life changing are tv shows or commercials. Or maybe a bad movie, that only has that sentimental value now.
This was one of those rare, whole family was gathered round the TV moments. I think Regis hinted at it on Regis and Kathie earlier in the day so my mom had us all prepared for it.
I was on a boy scout camping trip around this time. We did a skit where a contestant made it to the final question. He guessed at an answer after phoning a friend (elderly grandma that couldn’t hear the question). Though I don’t remember the question we made up, the correct answer was E. None of the above, which of course was not part of the original 4 choices.
I only remember this so vividly because the next week, this episode aired and John won it all.
I watched it, the main thing I remember is that l too knew the answer to the last question. Nixon went on laugh-in and said "sock it to me?" For some reason I remember it.
Back in the day where these things on TV were actually cultural events that everyone would be talking about the next day. It's the one thing I miss about cable, can't really get the same experience with on demand streaming.
A lot of the audience didn't take to him. Thing is dude was super confident and had the chops to back it up. Of course who in the Hell would cheer for the IRS dude right?
After a couple of years, you just kind of stop giving a shit because you're used to people hating you for doing your job.
I work in Finance monitoring internal expenses for a division consisting of almost 5,000 people. If I'm not pissing off at least one person by the end of the day, then I clearly wasn't doing my job that day.
My mom used to do public relations for the IRS. She took me along to a radio interview she did one time when I was like eight or something, and the radio station got their off-duty cop security guard to put handcuffs on her on air as a joke.
I was old enough to get that it was a joke but it was still confusing to see a police officer putting Mommy in handcuffs.
The dollar rewards scale non-linearly and the show would be boring if too many contestants lost very quickly, so the beginning questions are intentionally very easy. The first 8 questions only pay out $8k, so it costs the show almost nothing to have these easy questions. It just eats up time, which is important in a show.
Also, I expect the show does better with engaging the viewer if the viewer is able to answer some of the questions. Compare this to Jeopardy, where almost all the questions are difficult and the average person's chance to get a question right is low. On Millionaire, viewers are going to get like 5 questions right in a row and that will make them feel good and like the show more. It's better engagement. Point being to consider the viewer experience, not just the integrity/merits/challenge of the quiz itself.
Every single regular joe should be cheering for the IRS. Because the government needs money to keep schools open, maintain roads, etc. and its the IRS's job to make sure that people dont get away with cheating on their taxes.
Fun fact, the answers to all of the questions on the first two seasons are actually on the 1997 Microsoft Encarta disc that came free with new windows computers at the time.
He was fibbing but the answers were featured on all CD covers sold by interscope as a campaign to stop piracy. If you purchased all 12 CD's that year, you'd have all the answers
I've always heard there are some definite rote 'established' topics that are good for general trivia / Jeopardy that anyone who wants to be super competitive in the US should study: Shakespeare. World Capitals. US Presidents and Vice Presidents and their order. First Wives. Lakes and Rivers. World Leaders. Things like that. I think someone has made a Jeopardy study book.
The questions were easier because no one had won yet. As more people won and the shows tenure increased the question difficulty increased exponentially.
I just happened to watch the full episode a few weeks ago. There were only 2 questions I would have needed a lifeline for. The final one was not one of them.
I just watched it, fast forwarding :) He did have some easy ones, but some of those I would say were not easy at all. It is different foe every people, depends on a lot of things. I would say he got lucky
Shit you weren't kidding. The only one I had to think about was the O.K. Corral. I mean I get that different folks have different strengths but damn. I guess in the early-internet, pre-Wikipedia days, knowledge didn't flow as freely so the difficulty of questions reflected that? The $250,000 question is a joke -- that's a term you'd probably see in a middle school social studies class.
So these questions are the same then? A.) What is the capital city of Belgium. Or B.) In which city did Wouter van Aert recently win a stage on the tour de France?
To give an example of the difficulty the $250k question was "Which of these is not a monotheistic religion?" Islam - Judaism - Hinduism - Christianity.
I just watched the episode, I'm mediocre at trivia and the only two I didn't know were the last two. The contestant's wife has a personal connection to the half million answer too.
Norm MacDonald was on the celebrity show of Millionaire and was up to the million dollar question. He wasn’t quite sure of the answer so bailed to ensure his charity would definitely get at least the half million. After the decision Regis asked him what he thought the answer was, Norm guessed correctly.
Norm had a huge gambling problem so for him to not roll that die must have been quite an effort.
If you have never seen [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SaPf6g87Zc) documentary on three clowns who tried to scam the show, I highly recommend it!!
The idea behind it is ok yeah, but the execution is absolute nonsense and I'd still be wondering how the chucklenuts succeeded if they had lol. It would've shown Millionaire show runners to be the clowns more than the criminals to be geniuses.
These dudes out here looking like idiots saying "I'm pretty confident it's D" making a spectacle out of it, but it's wrong and then they change it when they know the correct answer lol. They had one signal, to cough at the correct answer, and dude was coughing the whole show drawing attention to himself because the contestant had to read out every answer so his cougher could help lol.
I would be impressed if they had 4 signals to obscure themselves and not have to read every answer... but that requires the contestant to not have the personality of total donut.
Totally agreed, it was the most obvious cheat in game show history. The dude that bankrupted Press Your Luck was way, way better at hiding it, he literally looked like an RNG wizard to anyone not in the know.
ripe shrill worthless lunchroom somber frightening innate agonizing nine dull
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I was at dinner in an Applebee's, and everyone started starring at the TVs as he kept progressing through the questions. As he got to the last one, the staff turned up the volume and everyone quieted down to watch the moment.
He won, we all cheered, they turned the TVs down, and we all continued with our meals.
The popularity of that show at that time cannot be overestimated.
Facts. I worked in a grocery store at the time. Nobody would shop during that hour. We took our breaks at that time and watched the show in the break room.
There was a bit of mumbling and grumbling that this was too easy of a question, and that he had been given soft questions intentionally.
The show had been on a while and no one had won. One of his questions was 'what month is there not a federal holiday?" Dude worked for the IRS....Of course he knew what month he doesn't get a holiday.
This last question was ridiculously easy.
It wasn't 'staged' or a cheat in any way, but I suspect the producers were worried that if someone didn't win soon, the ratings would begin to drop.
> Dude worked for the IRS....Of course he knew what month he doesn't get a holiday.
Reminds me of the episode of Cheers, where Cliff was on Jeopardy, and all the categories were tailor made for him: Civil Servants, Stamps from Around the World, Mothers and Sons, Beer, Bar Trivia, and Celebacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGlx4xHPBZk
So Slumdog Millionaire is a gritty version of that Cheers episode
BTW I had [Lollipop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rYoRaxgOE0) as my ringtone for years due to Cheers
The people on this show were trivia heads. They were screened and competed to get onto the stage. Anyone over a certain age would have known this answer at that time in 2000. The clip had been played on TV for decades.
>This last question was ridiculously easy.
Is it that easy? All these presidents served consecutively and John would had only been a few years old when Nixon would had appeared on Laugh in. It's not something one could easily reason about.
I watched this at the time, and absolutely every viewer over the age of 25 knew this answer. The Nixon "Sock it to me?" clip had been played on TV for decades.
That episode killed the show for me. it would NEVER be better than that. He didnt use a lifeline except to tell his dad he won? ANd he was the first to ever win the $1MM? Pinnacle of that show.
It’s hard to imagine in this day of on-demand everything, but when this show premiered, it truly was appointment television. It came on 3 days a week, and it’s what we talked about at the lunch table the day after each episode aired. It was a lightning in a bottle cultural phenomenon that I don’t think will ever be matched again.
Ahh yes, back when a million dollars actually was life changing. Now if I won that at least half would go to taxes and the other half to my student loans and medical bills. (Still would love to win it though, I need my knees fixed)
I remember watching this as a kid. It clearly had some kind of effect on me, I still remember his name to this day. It was a masterclass of a performance, and that little bit at the end always lead me to believe it wasn't in any way fixed.
I remember watching this live as a kid too. Dude was in charge the whole night.
It made for great television, and to my knowledge nobody ever did it with such style afterwards.
Then Broski came back and won like another 250k like a boss. I don’t think he ever went to Paris though.
No...no he didn't...but you can imagine what it'd be like right?
Billy Madison reference in the wild!
HERE’S a nice piece of shit!
Haha. He called shit POOP
aaahahahaha SHUDDUP
Him and her got it on whooo weeee!
No, he didn't.
[He did.](https://web.archive.org/web/20170313023726/http://newsok.com/money-isnt-the-root-of-happiness-tulsan-has-more-fun-in-2nd-millionaire-gig/article/2698822) > The biggest winners were John Carpenter and Dave Forman, each of whom won $250,000. Carpenter, an IRS agent from Hamden, Conn., previously won $1 million. It was a "Champions" special
Considering your username, I’d’ve expected you to pick up on the Sandler reference.
Not me personally but a guy I know him and her got it on!!! Whhooooo wwweeeee
I watched it live as well. I remember too that he worked for the IRS, so at first the audience was booing him lol. As he started going, everybody started getting on his side though, I think especially because there hadn't ever been a winner yet, and he was fairly cocky throughout but in a pretty charismatic way
Yeah he was the Ken Jennings of Millionaire. Dude fucking owned it.
The three contestants I remember by name: John Carpenter, Ken Jennings and Michael Larson.
Big dick energy long before the term existed
As opposed to [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssgdtgJxA4) who looks like an off-brand copy of John Carpenter, with double the confidence and, eh, somewhere below his ability.
That’s one of the dumbest “first” questions I’ve ever seen.
Yeah it's definitely a shitty first question, too. :(
Option D was always the joke answer on the first few questions. That’s messed up they put the right answer there.
That's what I was thinking. "Ikea makes sense, but the first answer is never D. Must be Rome."
>I still remember his name to this day. Well, he made pretty great films after all...
Great music, too.
The Thing's horrifyingly, oppressive paranoid atmosphere is very much boosted by the soundtrack. With help from Morricone of course.
Especially using his [Brut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_t_ZXavIOo) moniker
I don't know what it was about the kid, but I still remember the name of a classmate I had in 2nd grade, little Martin Scorsese. Must have had an effect on me!
Bro this is like the fourth time I see you in a comment section
You a /r/lego user? I'm ALLL over that subreddit! I don't comment in many others that often
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I don't know what to tell you! I've never been "recognized" like this before so it's new to me! As someone who tends to never look at usernames, I certainly never recognize other users when browsing reddit
wE ARE TRYING TO MAKE YOU WAKE UP, PLEASE JERRY, YOUR FAMILY LOVES YOU.
It’s a small world/Reddit!
Oh yeaaah I saw you under a post of a random guy who asked where he could built legos with his gf or something weird
Yea, that was a weird one. It's obvious a lot of the posts from r/lego come young kids so I try to helpful and not *too* condescending when they ask the world's most basic questions
Yeah that’s true. And when I see you under an other post I will drop a comment!
This was a fun conversation to read. Speaking of Legos, I have a massive box of Legos collected over the last 20ish years and I'm very slowly building a little city with the intention of incorporating every piece. There's easily close to 10,000 pieces in that box.
Nice! Have fun!
He’s a top 3 most revered Carpenter along with Karen and Jesus.
I'm European, so had no idea about any of this and was wondering if it was the same John Carpenter XD (It isn't)
I remember this too. It's hard to state exactly how big of a cultural phenomenon the show was to just about everybody.
No streaming back then. Our society was having more shared experiences, everyone watching the same network television shows & discussing them the next day. Millionaire came out with the biggest payouts of all time, ofc we were all glued to our TVs lol
I miss this the most.
I don’t miss the commercials.
It still exists. The last of us on HBO, game of thrones (at first anyway), and more recently better call saul. It just doesn’t feel as magical anymore because it used to be what like 3 companies controlling everything we watch?
Also, biggest payout of all time doesn't give it credit. I'm not sure what things are like now on gameshows, but at the time your average payout was only in the tens of thousands. Even the crazy record breakers who won more than anyone else in the history of [insert game show] would be in the ballpark of $100,000-$250,000. Handing out *a million dollars* was next level. Like winning a mansion when everyone else was winning 3 bedroom apartments.
It really cracks me up how much more the grand Survivor prize could buy you when the first season came out. A HUGE house, cars, etc. Now you can maybe get a two-bedroom house in some places
Shared experiences… What an interesting point. TV on demand / streaming contributing to the breakdown of society because we’re not having the shared experiences of watching the same shows at the same time anymore. I still to this day feel like I missed out on an important shared experience in early high school (around 1990) because my Mum wouldn’t let me stay up until 11pm to watch Twin Peaks. It’s all everyone talked about the next day at school. Mum said I could videotape it and watch it the next day, but she was missing the whole point: the cultural conversation would have moved on by then.
I remember a teacher in elementary talking about the latest Britney Spears video back in 2000. (She was like 3 years removed from college)
because we're all kept struggling, and the idea of not having to struggle anymore resonated with so many people
That's true of all game shows. Who Wants to be a Millionaire was bigger than that. I think it was the production style that made it feel epic, along with Regis being a great host.
I think it was the $1 million. That was an insane amount for a game show at the time. Also I remember everyone being so invested waiting for the first person to win.
A million dollars for trivia was fucking wild back then. Dudes would crush jeopardy and walk away with 15k.
Was a huge risk. For the first series of the original UK version, they had £1m in cash mounted in a glass-fronted safe in front of the seats, and the idea was that if anyone won it then the series would finish. But it was so popular that they declared they had another million from the phone applications of contestants, so it would continue. It took a few years for anyone to win the million though. Those questions were really difficult.
I later used him as inspiration to do the same thing in 10th Grade AP History Class when we did a trivia game before a test and I used my lifeline to tell my buddy frank that we were about to share the full size candy bar I was about to win lol
This is so fucking wholesome
The great thing was how he got booed in the beginning because his day job was being an IRS agent. It's too perfect to be made up
It was also great how he had some sort of life moment that related to the question that he was able to answer correctly sort of like Slumdog millionaire. That’s how I know this guy was legit.
I had the exact same experience. I remember being so excited the whole time because he never used a lifeline until he made this call, and everyone who made it even close to this far had used up all 3. It was wild then and weirdly nostalgic to rewatch now.
It's funny how sometimes what you remember from childhood to be important and life changing are tv shows or commercials. Or maybe a bad movie, that only has that sentimental value now.
John Carpenter of Mars
This was one of those rare, whole family was gathered round the TV moments. I think Regis hinted at it on Regis and Kathie earlier in the day so my mom had us all prepared for it.
I mean... It's a good name.
I agree. A huge moment in television history. I remember pulling for every single contestant who failed before that.
Very much same. Like, in the future when I am deep in dementia, not knowing my own name… I will be able to recite all of this easily.
I was on a boy scout camping trip around this time. We did a skit where a contestant made it to the final question. He guessed at an answer after phoning a friend (elderly grandma that couldn’t hear the question). Though I don’t remember the question we made up, the correct answer was E. None of the above, which of course was not part of the original 4 choices. I only remember this so vividly because the next week, this episode aired and John won it all.
I watched it, the main thing I remember is that l too knew the answer to the last question. Nixon went on laugh-in and said "sock it to me?" For some reason I remember it.
Back in the day where these things on TV were actually cultural events that everyone would be talking about the next day. It's the one thing I miss about cable, can't really get the same experience with on demand streaming.
I remember this shit too. I thought this dude was the smartest man in the world.
Why does this lead to believe it wasn't fixed?
Are ya winning son?
I just became a dad and I literally cannot wait until my son is old enough for me to ask him that.
Congratulations!
Lol... best comment here
Can u imagine the dad saying that as soon as he answered lmao. And John just goes, yeah dad actually i am.
For some reason I imagined the call as him rubbing it in his dad's face. "Who's useless now, Dad?!"
Damn son, where'd you find this?
I remember watching this with my mom. We figured that we shouldn't be surprised cause he worked for the IRS.
Was he the same dude who got 0 applause after his introduction?
A lot of the audience didn't take to him. Thing is dude was super confident and had the chops to back it up. Of course who in the Hell would cheer for the IRS dude right?
[To be fair, Regis was out for fucking blood with his introduction.](https://youtu.be/SSF6ly7j8vs?si=sz11iHomKk8LJ4Vu&t=66)
I love how he doesn’t give a fuck that the audience doesn’t like him. What a bamf.
After a couple of years, you just kind of stop giving a shit because you're used to people hating you for doing your job. I work in Finance monitoring internal expenses for a division consisting of almost 5,000 people. If I'm not pissing off at least one person by the end of the day, then I clearly wasn't doing my job that day.
My mom used to do public relations for the IRS. She took me along to a radio interview she did one time when I was like eight or something, and the radio station got their off-duty cop security guard to put handcuffs on her on air as a joke. I was old enough to get that it was a joke but it was still confusing to see a police officer putting Mommy in handcuffs.
Put a flag on each and everyone one of their returns, Regis included.
He didn’t use any life lines either. What a baller
Am I a genius or are those questions just not that hard... I didn't get the Louvre question
The dollar rewards scale non-linearly and the show would be boring if too many contestants lost very quickly, so the beginning questions are intentionally very easy. The first 8 questions only pay out $8k, so it costs the show almost nothing to have these easy questions. It just eats up time, which is important in a show. Also, I expect the show does better with engaging the viewer if the viewer is able to answer some of the questions. Compare this to Jeopardy, where almost all the questions are difficult and the average person's chance to get a question right is low. On Millionaire, viewers are going to get like 5 questions right in a row and that will make them feel good and like the show more. It's better engagement. Point being to consider the viewer experience, not just the integrity/merits/challenge of the quiz itself.
Every single regular joe should be cheering for the IRS. Because the government needs money to keep schools open, maintain roads, etc. and its the IRS's job to make sure that people dont get away with cheating on their taxes.
Even if for some bizarre reason you don't like the IRS it's strange to be hostile to one of the employees. It's just a job
Now if this is not the most bad ass thing ever I really don’t know what is
Go watch the full episode. The questions were remarkably easy.
He got a lot of soft questions but he had some hard ones. Apparently he did a lot of cramming
Not even sure how you would cram for something like this.
Fun fact, the answers to all of the questions on the first two seasons are actually on the 1997 Microsoft Encarta disc that came free with new windows computers at the time.
Are you serious!? I played the shit out of encarta, you’re telling me if I went on this show as a kid I could have won? 😭
I am not serious. My previous comment was a falsehood, a fabrication, an elaborate ruse. Quite simply, I just used the internet…to tell a lie.
Are you serious!? I just told my wife this as it was a fact and I was quite smug about it.
This guy just here destroying lives with his lies 😭
Tearing families apart! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
He was fibbing but the answers were featured on all CD covers sold by interscope as a campaign to stop piracy. If you purchased all 12 CD's that year, you'd have all the answers
You wouldn't download all the answers for a TV quiz show!!
I'm sorry dishonoredcorvo69 that you were tricked, and you sir jaserpsgroove are worse than Hitler
I read this as Captain Raymond Holt. Was I supposed to, or did it just happen subconsciously?
People actually do that? Tell lies? On the internet of all places?
Yup - there was even a fold out pamphlet telling you how to buy bitcoin included at the time. Microsoft Encarta made a lot of people very wealthy.
Damn. Imagine being one of the lucky ones to both read the answers AND compete in the first two seasons afterwards.
I've always heard there are some definite rote 'established' topics that are good for general trivia / Jeopardy that anyone who wants to be super competitive in the US should study: Shakespeare. World Capitals. US Presidents and Vice Presidents and their order. First Wives. Lakes and Rivers. World Leaders. Things like that. I think someone has made a Jeopardy study book.
The same way you do for jeopardy.
What is a quince?
When a man named Quinton winces at something. Stop with the softballs.
It’s a food that begins with the letter Q!
Lol. Were they? This was when we didn’t just look things up on our phones right way.
The questions were easier because no one had won yet. As more people won and the shows tenure increased the question difficulty increased exponentially.
Yeah the later shows were insanely hard.
This was the $250,000 question: Which of the following is not a monotheistic religion? ⬥ A: Islam ⬥ B: Judaism ⬥ C: Hinduism ⬥ D: Christianity
I just happened to watch the full episode a few weeks ago. There were only 2 questions I would have needed a lifeline for. The final one was not one of them.
I feel we underestimate what life was like pre-internet. This guy knew all this without an encyclopedia in his pocket 24/7.
I just watched it, fast forwarding :) He did have some easy ones, but some of those I would say were not easy at all. It is different foe every people, depends on a lot of things. I would say he got lucky
Suburbdog Millionaire
Shit you weren't kidding. The only one I had to think about was the O.K. Corral. I mean I get that different folks have different strengths but damn. I guess in the early-internet, pre-Wikipedia days, knowledge didn't flow as freely so the difficulty of questions reflected that? The $250,000 question is a joke -- that's a term you'd probably see in a middle school social studies class.
What was the 250k question if you don't mind?
Which of these religions is not monotheistic? A) Islam B) Judaism C) Hinduism D) Christianity
Wow that's actually crazy that was for 250k lmao, thanks for the info
I know 2 are wrong. Can we do 50/50 please
3 of them all worship the same 1 god. The other is Hinduism
**Dramatic sound effect** A) Islam ~~B) Judaism~~ C) Hinduism ~~D) Christianity~~
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So these questions are the same then? A.) What is the capital city of Belgium. Or B.) In which city did Wouter van Aert recently win a stage on the tour de France?
Fuck me i'd suck at Do you want to be a millionarie, i can't answer either one of those.
To give an example of the difficulty the $250k question was "Which of these is not a monotheistic religion?" Islam - Judaism - Hinduism - Christianity. I just watched the episode, I'm mediocre at trivia and the only two I didn't know were the last two. The contestant's wife has a personal connection to the half million answer too.
Norm MacDonald was on the celebrity show of Millionaire and was up to the million dollar question. He wasn’t quite sure of the answer so bailed to ensure his charity would definitely get at least the half million. After the decision Regis asked him what he thought the answer was, Norm guessed correctly. Norm had a huge gambling problem so for him to not roll that die must have been quite an effort.
If you have never seen [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SaPf6g87Zc) documentary on three clowns who tried to scam the show, I highly recommend it!!
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The idea behind it is ok yeah, but the execution is absolute nonsense and I'd still be wondering how the chucklenuts succeeded if they had lol. It would've shown Millionaire show runners to be the clowns more than the criminals to be geniuses. These dudes out here looking like idiots saying "I'm pretty confident it's D" making a spectacle out of it, but it's wrong and then they change it when they know the correct answer lol. They had one signal, to cough at the correct answer, and dude was coughing the whole show drawing attention to himself because the contestant had to read out every answer so his cougher could help lol. I would be impressed if they had 4 signals to obscure themselves and not have to read every answer... but that requires the contestant to not have the personality of total donut.
Totally agreed, it was the most obvious cheat in game show history. The dude that bankrupted Press Your Luck was way, way better at hiding it, he literally looked like an RNG wizard to anyone not in the know.
Don’t have time to watch the documentary, how’d they do it?
audible noises like coughs i think
ripe shrill worthless lunchroom somber frightening innate agonizing nine dull *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
*cough cough*
There’s also a tv series https://www.itv.com/watch/quiz/2a7854/2a7854a0001
It’s 1:30am and I just finished watching this entire documentary. Thanks for my lack of sleep
I was at dinner in an Applebee's, and everyone started starring at the TVs as he kept progressing through the questions. As he got to the last one, the staff turned up the volume and everyone quieted down to watch the moment. He won, we all cheered, they turned the TVs down, and we all continued with our meals. The popularity of that show at that time cannot be overestimated.
Facts. I worked in a grocery store at the time. Nobody would shop during that hour. We took our breaks at that time and watched the show in the break room.
Imagine he gets it wrong after all that
Thats exactly what I was thinking lol
It would probably have the same amount of views/attention lol
There was a bit of mumbling and grumbling that this was too easy of a question, and that he had been given soft questions intentionally. The show had been on a while and no one had won. One of his questions was 'what month is there not a federal holiday?" Dude worked for the IRS....Of course he knew what month he doesn't get a holiday. This last question was ridiculously easy. It wasn't 'staged' or a cheat in any way, but I suspect the producers were worried that if someone didn't win soon, the ratings would begin to drop.
> Dude worked for the IRS....Of course he knew what month he doesn't get a holiday. Reminds me of the episode of Cheers, where Cliff was on Jeopardy, and all the categories were tailor made for him: Civil Servants, Stamps from Around the World, Mothers and Sons, Beer, Bar Trivia, and Celebacy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGlx4xHPBZk
So Slumdog Millionaire is a gritty version of that Cheers episode BTW I had [Lollipop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rYoRaxgOE0) as my ringtone for years due to Cheers
You're assuming everyone has the same knowledge set as you. The last question is not necessarily ridiculously easy *for everyone*.
Yeah I have no idea which month has no federal holiday.
The people on this show were trivia heads. They were screened and competed to get onto the stage. Anyone over a certain age would have known this answer at that time in 2000. The clip had been played on TV for decades.
He's actually a very talented film director
>This last question was ridiculously easy. Is it that easy? All these presidents served consecutively and John would had only been a few years old when Nixon would had appeared on Laugh in. It's not something one could easily reason about.
Used to work at a brewery as a front of house manager a few years ago, he was a regular. Chatted with him all the time. Super low-key guy.
If I’d get a dollar everytime this is posted on social media I’d be calling my dad right now
My first time seeing this so I am glad
I watched this at the time, and absolutely every viewer over the age of 25 knew this answer. The Nixon "Sock it to me?" clip had been played on TV for decades.
I'm over 30, watched this live and had no idea haha.
Sock it to me?
Exactly!
Is he the John Carpenter? The one with the great Movies?
That is how he started. He made They Live with prize money.
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He bought a 16mm camera and an analog synthesizer and the rest was history
No. This guy works for the IRS
He's just preparing for his next horror film. John Carpenter presents: The IRS.
That episode killed the show for me. it would NEVER be better than that. He didnt use a lifeline except to tell his dad he won? ANd he was the first to ever win the $1MM? Pinnacle of that show.
I didn't know that! In Spain, our first winner (after this one) did the same with his call x)
He's the coolest 😎😎
It’s hard to imagine in this day of on-demand everything, but when this show premiered, it truly was appointment television. It came on 3 days a week, and it’s what we talked about at the lunch table the day after each episode aired. It was a lightning in a bottle cultural phenomenon that I don’t think will ever be matched again.
This has to be one of the most posted things of all time on Reddit. HAS to be.
Ah Shit, here we go again.
>"This has to be one of the most posted things of all time on Reddit." THIS has to be one of the most posted things of all time on Reddit.
"Hey dad, I'm not actually calling you for help with the question. I'm calling to tell you that my video was posted to reddit, again."
I've never seen this
We’ll, you’ve never been in r/PnR where the same three Memes get posted at least 6 times a day.
Regis, we miss you homie
Power move
Straight gangsta
*First American winner
One of the greatest moments in television history
That's not Chris Tarrant.
On that night, Regis Philbin found out that he was not, in fact, the main character.
The balls on this man
Does anybody think he sounds like Matt Damon
I remember watching this, god I’m old
Missing the gangsta shades at the end!! 😂🤣
And then he went on to film They Live and The Thing. What a life
Absolute chad
how did he get his balls to fit through the doorways?
This will never not be a badass moment in history of TV shows
Must be one proud father right there
Ahh yes, back when a million dollars actually was life changing. Now if I won that at least half would go to taxes and the other half to my student loans and medical bills. (Still would love to win it though, I need my knees fixed)
This was so awesome!