Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Everything You Didn't Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information, the
show that brings you the secret histories and little known
facts behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.
We are your final answers of Frivolity. You're maestros of

(00:22):
the multiple choice questions. Your regents of regis Philbin.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
My name is Jordan run Tag, You're Call of Friends
who Don't answer phone calls.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
And I'm Alex Cycle. And today we are talking about
the game show phenomenon that burned fast and bright like
shooting star across the y two k landscape. I'm talking
about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The title lack
of question mark, because let's face it, it's not really
a question, is it.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
It should have just been called once to Be a Millionaire?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, you want this? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
E pathetic dreamer? Oh I keep a little less so
bees happy. Those thrilling initial episodes honestly felt like less
of a game show than a televisual event when it
first began airing in the United States. Is a two
week special in the late summer of nineteen ninety nine,
almost exactly twenty five years ago, and honestly, I think

(01:17):
this was the key to its success. It wasn't just
a quiz show with unusually high dollar amounts. This felt
like history. No one had ever been given this kind
of money on television before, and this take might be
more unique to me. I'm curious to what you have
to say about it, but I was a budding historian
around this time in nineteen ninety nine, and this was
right before the turn of the millennium, when we were

(01:39):
inundated with coffee table books and TV mini series and
special edition magazines that all offered like highlight reels of
major twentieth century moments. So in a way, I feel
like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was able to
ride that wave because of all those supercuts of the
Beatles on ed Sullivan or Nixon's resignation. That all kind
of helped prime the population to recognize and crave another

(02:02):
major television moment. And it was also kind of the
perfect way to close out a century that had been
defined by TV.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I would agree with your take. It was a neat
way of hearkening back to this thing that everyone loves
game shows and providing some kind of fresh format in it.
Even if it was just jewel tone ties. I forgot
about like Reach's actual style on the show until research. Well,
so I went to when I went to a Catholic school,

(02:30):
and we had to wear ties, and I didn't know that, yeah,
ties were part of the middle school uniform. So then
when this show came on, obviously I went out and
bought like three cheap jewel tone ties and just rotated
through those for the rest of my school career.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Did you have to wear ties in high school too?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I didn't go to Catholic high school, probably where it
started going wrong for me, at least in terms of
making connections, not in terms of actually getting closer to
my faith.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
I mean. And that's the other thing about Who We
Se to Be a Millionaire that made it so distinctive
is that it didn't look like any other game show
we'd ever seen at that time. This wasn't some colorful,
bleep bluepe carnival like game like Wheel of Fortune or
even Jeopardy around this era, Who Has to Be a Millionaire?
It looked like the set of Entrapment starring Sean Connery
and Captain Setta Jones or some other thriller. And of

(03:21):
course that doesn't factor in the actual drama at the
show's core, as people competed for this life changing opportunity.
It was basically reality TV a year before it's generally
agreed upon birth the following year in two thousand at
the start of Survivor. But this was also reality TV
at a time when the monoculture still existed, which made
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire seemed completely ubiquitous in

(03:44):
a way that very few aspects of pop culture have
felt since, Like Barbenheimer and the Super Bowl and I'm.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Out Barbenheimer was real.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
I was there, I was there, Were you a big
fan of me? I just loved every second of this.
I mean, I know I mentioned this on the show
a lot, but it was very rare that I actually
engaged with pop culture as a kid, So this was
very special to me to be involved with this. I
loved feeling like I was witnessing history and a part
of something. And of course I've also been very vocal

(04:20):
on this podcast about how much I loved the game shows,
especially quiz shows. I was already a trivia nerd, studying
trivial pursuit cards at this time in a desperate attempt
to convince my family that I didn't need to go
to school because I was a genius, because I hated
going to school because I had separation anxiety. Didn't work,
but kind of got my foot in the door of
the whole trivia landscape. Also one of my favorite movies

(04:43):
around this time was Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford
about the nineteen fifties quiz show scandals, which is a
great movie if you've never seen it. John Traturo and
refines really good. So all in all, who el Swemilonaire
hit all sorts of buttons for me? What about you?
Is this mandatory viewing in your house?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I definitely remember watching it a good bit. We were
not a Jeopardy house or really any kind of game
show house, but it just came on in like the
primetime time slot more than anything, and so I think
that's how we were exposed to it. But I did
love trivia. I still love trivia. I mean I was
on a middle school quiz Bowl team and I love that.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
I still can't do math and still don't know that
much about sports. So those are my my week spots.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
But you get geography.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Geography was okay. I don't feel like maths should be
included in trivia.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
No, that's not trivia, that's a skill. No, I feel strong.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
And that's where we would get creamed in the competitions.
It's just like the second we were up against someone
who had like a math whiz on the team, it
would just be like, well, I can't carry this one,
sorry guys, And then uh, yeah, I do remember watching this.
I very specifically remember all the dramatic lighting cues and
like laser shows and all of that stuff that was like,

(05:54):
it really did feel different from like The Price Is
Right or Real Fortune or whatever else I had kind
of stumbled upon on as far as televised game shows period.
And uh, you know Regis Man, he's a great behind
the mic. He's he's Regius.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Like, come on.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
The thing that I always end up plowning on the
most for who wants to be a millionaire was like,
isn't Even as a child, I knew that they were
like clearly trying to that the contestants were clearly told
to like milk as much out of each at bat
that they got. So even if it was something like
it was like, what is one of the chief ingredients

(06:31):
in mozzarella, and they're like, well, I have an uncle
who lives in Germany, so it's not curry.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Worst the producers behind the camera Stretcht's like, I've got
you know, I went to I went to high school
in Jacksonville, so I know it's not alligator meat.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
And one time Elton John bottomed me at the roxy.
You know, so I know the answer isn't ky jelly.
So I'm gonna go ahead and say milk, Regis, what
is milk? It's just like that that kind of as
a very attention deficit child that that was just like

(07:15):
just say the just just say the right answer, Just
say it and move come on.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
So, I mean, I never really thought about this until
right now.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
But there was a kind of like sweet and sour
aspect of the show where like the whole set and
vibe of it seemed very menacing and frightening, but at
the heart of it was the most genial man on television,
Regis Philip, who genuinely.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Seemed to want you to win, which was very nice.
Oh and the other thing I hated was the classic
fake out you really want to go with milk, Well,
it's a good thing. Answer longer pregnant pause.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Oh, I'm so sorry that your journey.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
With us has to continue.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
The answer was mail, that's Oprah, But.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, that's a lot of That's like when I first
started being exposed to a lot of those tropes from
game shows, and then I got into Weakest Link because
that lady was so mean, and I liked the mean
lady Shocker.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
You know, I didn't watch it that much because she
was too mean, and I thought it seemed like a
pale limitation of who was to be a millionaire and
it was group play. I didn't like the group play.
M Yeah, yeah, No. For me, it's it's an endurance test,
it's a sprint. It's just you against the questions and
or Reegi's I mean, I guess this is probably the
time to mention that this episode has a very special

(08:41):
residence to me, because asn't mention where you're going to
get that I finally did. I mean, I've talked about
this way too many times on this show, and I'm
afraid I'm going to get some one star reviews for
shoehorning in a personal anecdote, but this one's relevant. I
was lucky enough to make an appearance on Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire back in twenty thirteen, and it
was simultaneously a dream come true and also one of

(09:01):
the biggest disappointments in my life. This was well past
the show's glory years. It had moved out of prime
time and was buried in daytime syndication. The hot seat
was long gone. I had to just stand there awkwardly,
which is weird. Regis had also moved on, and so
did Meredith Vieira, and I had to make do with
Cedric the entertainer, who was like a couple of weeks

(09:23):
into his i think one year reign as the host
of the show. His heart wasn't it? Yeah, I kind
of hate to say I kind of felt that too.
It was also a huge letdown because by this point
the rules had completely changed on the show. And we'll
get into this later in greater detail, but the show
was in its shuffle period. Are you familiar with this? No? Yeah? Good?

(09:46):
It upsets me now even thinking about it. Instead of
having the questions increase with difficulty and monetary value, which
is you know, the entire premise of the show, the
first ten questions were just given to you at random,
and the difficul culty had no relation on how much
the question was worth, So your first question could be
the hardest, and you really had no idea if the

(10:06):
question was like actually easy, or if it was a
trick question, or what it was really hard to like strategize,
which maybe was the point because, as we'll talk about
the show, I ended up getting sued by the insurers
who paid out the jackpot early in its life because
it felt that the questions were too easy. Yeah, it
just it was really really hard. And if I sound
a little bitter, it's probably because I am, because clearly

(10:29):
I did not win a million dollars. I actually made
it kind of far and then I and then I
blew it.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Would you blow the money on? Or what did you
get down to? And then what did you walk away with?
I don't care about the questions. I care about the money.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
I was up to fifty thousand dollars and I thought
I knew the answer, and I got it wrong.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
With fifty fifty years of safe safe stone. No, no,
it's not not not in this, not in this way,
not in this to nothing one thousand, But I mean.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Just happy to be there, et cetera, et cetera. It's like,
what eight hundred after taxes, it was like six hundreds,
maybe five hundred. Yeah, it was it was I really
thought I knew. I really thought I knew, you know
what it was. I had one lifeline left. It was
a fifty to fifty, and I knew I already used
the other two, and I thought, you know what, if
I use this now, there's no way I'm going to

(11:19):
make it to the million with no lifelines. It's just
not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I'm reasonably certain I know this answer, and I didn't.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
What was the question? Question was who's the only person
to have filled in as a guest host for the
Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Was it Jerry Seinfeld? Was
it Betty White? Was it Katy Kirk?

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Or was it Dick Van Dyke? And I don't know
that I probably would have guessed.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Say them again, Jerry Seinfeld, Betty White, Katie Kirk, Dick Van.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Dyke, those are all NBC people, though I'm.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Gonna give you all the information I had.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I don't know. Was it Dick Van Dyke?

Speaker 1 (12:00):
I said Jerry Seinfeld because I thought they had some
kind of like car collection.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
You'd think friendship. He doesn't have the charisma for that.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Well, no, it was when I tell you the answer,
you're gonna be like, oh it was Katie Couric Today Show,
Tonight Show, a little synergy there, NBC synergy. I should
have guessed Katie, yeah, I know, yeah, me too, and
I didn't, and it was it was really sad. Oh.
The worst part was the like every contestant's assigned a

(12:30):
producer to kind of like you know, shepherd you there
throughout the day. Well okay, well no. Two things that
were really bad. One was that I definitely got the
sense that they were trying to like feed me questions
that were like tailored to me. I got the sense
that they thought that I was like good on camera
and all the auditions and were like trying to like

(12:50):
make the show go. Because I talked about how much
I loved like, you know, game shows and late night
TV hosts and like that kind of stuff. A lot
of the questions were, like it felt not that random,
bearing in mind a lot of the stuff I told
them during like the pre show interviews and stuff that
had occurred during the previous weeks. So I felt like
they were like trying to help me and I blew it.

(13:12):
And the producer that was like assigned to kind of
be my guardian that day. Oh, she was beautiful and
she was like, I'd like to look in her eyes. Afterwards,
was like, so she seems so disappointed. And then when
I went to work at People Magazine, she was there.
She'd gone to work on the People TV show, and
so I had to go see her every single day
I worked there. Yeah, So that was just salt and

(13:34):
the wounds all the time. So that pains things to
this day, but it hasn't dampened my ardor for this
fantastic show. While researching this episode, I discovered that some
psychotic website lists all the questions for every episode ever
and I found my batch. Do you want to try
some of mine other than that one? Oh? Sure? Hit me?
All right, there we go. Okay, my first question. FEMA

(13:57):
recommends keeping all but which of the following items in
your disaster supply kit. A, A radio, B, water, CE,
food or D condoms.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
D condoms Yes, correct, that is the lasers.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
That is five thousand dollars. That was five thousand dollars. Again,
the difficulty has no bearing on the monetary value, and
that was like, yeah, I know, okay, next question with
a shade called tweety. Sally Hanson's fuzzy coat products are
a novelty line of what a facewash, B self tanner,

(14:35):
CE nail polish, or D handflotion. None of those words
are in the Bible.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Say all that again. I thought I just went into
a feud.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
State A state, facewash, B self tanner, What was the
brand name? Sally Hanson, C nail polish or D hand
lotion with a shade called tweety. Sally Hanson's fuzzy coats
are novelty line of what houzz he coats? So oh,

(15:04):
nail polish? Correct? You now have twelve grand What is
nail polish? Which of the following has Dennis rod been
never done? Starred in a peda campaign, headbutted a referee
said he was going to marry himself or wrestle a pig.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
I want to say head butt a referee, but it
could also be wrestle a pig, because I feel like
I would have seen that in like a countdown of
things that Dennis Robin has done head better referee, they
would have kicked him out of the league.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Probably. I'm gonna say that. I'm sorry that's incorrect, but
I didn't know the answer, and one of the lifelines
at this stage was skipping a question, So I skipped
that one. So you're still in the game. You are
still in the game.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Okay, What was the correct answer?

Speaker 1 (15:47):
It was wrestle a pig. Considering wrestle a pig and
starring in a peda campaign run the same question. You
kind they kind of canceled each other out, so I
feel like it was one or the other. What not
only quote helps the medicine go down, as Mary Poppins noted,
but also may help curb the burn from spicy foods.
Just give it to me, it's spoonful of sugar. Correct,

(16:07):
You now have twenty two thousand dollars. Easiest might have
ever made my mind? I trust me, I know. In
a twenty twelve commercial for the iPhone, Zoey Deschanel asks
her phone, what bizarre question? Where's my dog? Is that rain?
Can you ski? Or what's for dinner? This was more
zeitgeisty in twenty thirteen. Is that rain? Yes? Correct? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:29):
She asks it what's for dinner after she realizes it's raining.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
M h, you're absolutely right, you know how forty seven
thousand dollars. Damn, I know it was only one left.
In an article about songs with incorrect grammar, readers Digest
said a famous James Brown line should technically be what
father has a brand new bag, like a love making

(16:54):
machine in a cold perspiration? Or I feel well, I
feel well correct. I don't know why, but I asked
the audience on this. I think I just because is good?

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Is It's like the same thing when you're like if
you ask someone how they're doing and they say I'm
doing good, and you say, no, you're doing well, the
Superman does good? Yes, yes, yes, yes, that the same
pedantic And then the next one was the one was
the one I got wrong, but you got.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
It wrong too, So now I feel better?

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, all right, so hey, and we walked away with
six hundred dollars. Probably could have gotten more money, more
money from that for just like stealing Cedric the Entertainer's hat,
or like just stealing something off the set and selling
it on eBay.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
I do remember we were told to like approach him
very reverently, and I remember just kind of thinking, why
mister the entertainer, please, please, mister the entertainers my father well,
from the time Regis Philip and dramatically resigned as early
TV gig on air, to the retired British Army major
who was busted for allegedly cheating through a series of coughs,

(18:02):
the way the set was designed to psychologically break contestants,
and the truly badass move made by the first top
prize winner in the franchise's history. Here's everything you didn't
know about Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Very good.

(18:27):
Like so many of my favorite things in this world,
Who Wants to be a Millionaire has its origins in
my beloved United Kingdom. It's a show that's been remade
and aired in one hundred and sixty countries worldwide. Can
you believe that? I can't, That is shocked. Yeah, but
it has its beginnings in the UK. And you know
what else has its beginnings in my beloved UK. Front

(18:48):
of the Pod Lee w a wonderful fan and generous
contributor to our coffee page. Thanks Lee, we love you
and friend of the Pod John two. Of course, Who
Wants to be a Millionaires famous format was created by
David Briggs, Mike Whitehall and Stephen Knight, who'd previously developed
other promotional games for a morning radio show hosted by
British broadcaster Chris Tarrant, who had become the eventual host

(19:12):
of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in the UK.
Just a quick word on one of the Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire creators, Stephen Knight. He went on
to be kind of a big deal. He created the
BBC series Peaky Blinders and also wrote a draft of
Shutter Island before it was rewritten for the Scorsese movie.
There's also a smaller anecdote that's funny to me personally.

(19:33):
A friend of mine had a boss, her editor, who
she absolutely despised, and he wrote a book called The
One hundred Foot Journey, and when it was a marginal success,
it pissed her off. And when she learned that it
was being made into a film starring Helen Mirren, it
pissed her off even more. And it turns out that
one of the creators of Who Wants Toy a Millionaire
wrote that screenplay.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
That was not a very good movie though, no, it's
a terrible movie.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
No, no, no uh. He also wrote a biopic on
check master Bobby Fisher, starring Toby Maguire, which I've never
heard of, but I'd be interested in seeing a sequel
to World Wars Z called World War z Z, World
War Z two, World War ZII Beneath the Planet of
the Z. And most recently, and probably most notably, he

(20:21):
wrote the script to the Lady Diana biopic Spencer starring
Christen Stewart, And now he's apparently writing both a Star
Wars film and the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, with
Robert Downey Junior eyed for the Jimmy Stewart role. Wow, Dodge,
that's weird. Yeah, all from the Huasui millionaire creator guy.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
So he's never had any good ideas, no good car ideas,
not one who making attached to being attached to being
a Star Wars film in twenty twenty four. It's like
kind of embarrassing and remaking Vertigo. Okay, sick job, buddy.
I can't wait to see what you'll do with that.

(21:00):
I mean, idiot, it's like somebody trying to remake Goodfellas
or like, I don't know the conversation, how do you
remake Vertigo?

Speaker 1 (21:09):
I mean it's a movie that like I feel like
the script in the story isn't really the selling point.
It's what Hitchcock did with it.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
And yeah again, in like Star Wars, at this point,
they're just like focusing in a guy who was like
vaguely out of focus at one point one shot of
like the second Star Wars film for like thirty seconds,
and they're like, it's now called like.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
The Book of Empire ble Plow.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
And it's just like a stupid little droy And then
that's the new character. I don't know, don't Jordan. You
didn't miss that too much.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Well, much of the same way that we forget. One
of the initial hooks of the game show Jeopardy was
that it featured a novel twist. In that case, contestants
are given the answer and are asked for the question
who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Was developed as a
variation on standard game shows of the day. For example,
there would be just one contestant playing, as opposed to
a group competing against one another like Jeopardy or Wheel Fortune,

(22:07):
and they would be allowed to pull out at any time,
even after they'd seen the question and the possible answers,
which was unusual. Also of note were the three lifelines
that would offer them assistance, which you'll remember were initially
the fifty to fifty, the Phone a Friend, which was
quickly phased out after Google and ask the audience. The
working title for this game was initially Cash Mountain, which

(22:29):
makes a certain amount of sense because you know the
money increases with the difficulty of the questions, but Cash
Mountain is not that grabby, and the ultimate title took
its name from a Cole Porter song used in the
nineteen fifty six film High Society starring Frank Sinatra and
Celeste Holm.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Another thing that's had Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
apart was the set was created by the British born
production designer Andrew Walmsley, who also designed sets for several
theatrical musicals, including The Buddy Holly Story, and later went
on to do TV shows like So You Think You
Can Dance and America's Got Talent. His work on Millionaire, though,
was innovative. While while most game shows of the eighties

(23:12):
and early nineties resembled casinos with bright fashion lights and
lots of colors, like the Wheel of Fortune set is
what you should all have in mind, the set for
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire looked like something out
of a sci fi thriller. Other game shows wanted contestants
to feel at ease. Millionaire literally wanted to make you uncomfortable.
It resembled the interrogation chamber on a spaceship, with contestants

(23:33):
literally in the hot seat, although to be fair, those
chairs were modeled after those found in hair salons, which
I don't well, I know, I associate that with stress.
The floor was made of plexiglass, beneath which they lay
a huge dish covered mirror paper. The lighting cues were
designed for maximum drama, with the lights dimming as the
contestint cressed further in the game. There were also spotlights

(23:55):
situated at the bottom of the set that zoomed down
on the contestant when they answered a major question, again
like an interrogation. To increase the visibility of these light beams,
oil was vaporized, creating a haze effect. So just like fog,
like a brand fog machines.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely said that it wasn't dramatically that
I needed to.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, I was gonna say it wasn't like you know,
high test. A professor at Syracuse University, doctor Robert Thompson
has said that the show's lighting system made the contestant
feel as though they were outside of a prison with
an escape in progress.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Sure man, yeah, by that.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
The original licensing agreement for the US version of Millionaire
required that the show's set design be replicated faithfully to
the tune of two hundred thousand dollars, while this same
licensing agreement applied to all other international versions of the show,
which made the Millionaire set the most reproduced scenic design
in TV history. What was like the poorest country that

(24:54):
had had a millionaire?

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Oh, here we go, Okay, I actually put this later,
but yeah, some of the international show kind of skimped
out on the top prize. Angola's top prize was worth
five thousand US dollars, Vietnam's top prize was worth roughly
two thousand US dollars, and Mongolia's top prize was worth
a reported three hundred and forty seven dollars US dollars.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
So they definitely weren't paying two hundred thousand dollars worth
of set.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
I mean a lot of it was like you know,
I mean a millionaire in different like in Japan, like
a million yen is not that much money. I think
that the top prize there was like ten million yen,
which was only worth like, I think eighty thousand dollars.
You asked see if they really knew what they were
doing in Mongolia, would have been who wants to be
a horse lord? And they would have just been giving
away horses. That means more to people than three hundred

(25:42):
and forty seven dollars American. It's probably what they're going
to spend it on. Anyway.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I don't mean that derogatorially. I wish I lived in
Are you kidding me? I wish I was a Mongol
just right around your horse all day.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Sheep.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
I guess fight wars they have dumplings at least oh momos. Yeah,
that might be Tibetan. Yeah, So either way it sounds great.
Sign me up. The licensing agreement also stipulated that other
elements of the show's on air presentation be rigidly adhered to.
This included the musical score, lighting system, and even the
host's wardrobe, so the gemtne tie y.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Initially, the hosts were required to wear Armani suits, as
host Chris Terran did in the UK, though Regis later
released his own clothing line on Van Hweson. I know, right,
the department store thing everybody buys their homecoming suits from. Yeah,
so some of those rules were later relaxed as the
years went by. Speaking of the music, the music for

(26:46):
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was composed by father
and son duo Keith and Matthew straitchin stretching, Stretch, hand.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Stratching, I'll go stratching.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Unlike order game show musical scores, Millionaire's music was or
was created to feature music playing almost throughout the entire show.
As the game progressed and the prize amounts increased, the
theme was raised in semi tone increments to increase the tension. Also,
the soundtrack make the sound of a beating heart, which
added to the stress level as both the audience and
contestants pulse increased. There's a great there's a is it

(27:21):
Sonny by Bobby Bobby Head.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah. It just keeps going up a.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Half step, yeah, yeah, every every time that the form
starts over again. That's cool, that's right.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
There's like there's no chorus to that or bridge.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's just just the same, why semny, And it just
gets more and more desperate as it gets further out
of the rain.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
I never thought about that. That's so crazy. That is
a great tune.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, there're ninety two separate pieces of music written for
who some millionaire?

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Is that nuts? Holy? I know.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with
more too much information after these messages.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Now we're in a section I like to call I
want to be a millionaire in America song like the
West Side Stories. I want to be in a Miamie. Yeah,
like exactly, thank you. It's a lot better than I
can have done it.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
This scanchion it doesn't quite work, but you know, we'll
just no badaddies and brainstorming, buddy.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
One of the coolest things.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Go on.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
One of the coolest things about Patty LuPone close was
in green Point when they had that like drive in
movie theater right along the East River. They played West
Side Story one night. We went to go see it,
and you know, the opening has those like incredible overhead
aerial shots of Manhattan. It was so cool to like
watch that and then like right off to the side
was like actual Manhattan. Yeah, it was really cool. Whosm

(29:01):
Millionaire premiered in the United Kingdom on the ITV network
in September nineteen ninety eight and quickly captivated the nation
for its ability to harness cinematic drama with what we
now call reality TV. News of the show traveled across
the Pond to the United States, where it caught the
attention of British born, US based TV executive Michael Davies.

(29:21):
Davies was vice president at ABC, which was languishing in
third place of the big three networks to such an
extent that it was in danger of actually being beaten
out by Fox, which was then still seen as a
relatively scrappy upstart. Davies knew he needed to make a
bold move, and he turned his attention to game shows.

(29:42):
This was kind of a weird move, considering the fact
that the popularity of game shows was at an all
time low in the United States. Aside from The Price
Is Right, they were entirely absent from the daytime network
lineups at the time. However, Davies helped create a game
show for Lifetime called Debt and More Germane to My
Interests Comedy Central's brilliant win Ben Stein's money, so he

(30:05):
decided to take a big swing at a primetime game show. Originally,
he set his sites on reviving the classic quiz show
The sixty four thousand Dollars Question, but then Millionaire debuted
in the United Kingdom. Being British by birth, he asked
some of his family members over there to tape the
show and send them a VHS copy, and he subsequently
ended up receiving about eight FedEx packages from different family members,

(30:28):
each containing a copy of Millionaire's first episode. Davies was
so won over that he showed The sixty four thousand
Dollars Question reboot and decided to pursue an American version
of Millionaire. In the storied tradition of good ideas getting
presented to executives, ABC initially passed when Davies brought the
idea to network brass, so he resigned his position there

(30:48):
and became an independent producer, which, as I can personally attest,
is a ballsy thing to do. Davies felt that the
key to the success of Millionaire in the United States
was attaching a celebrity host. He considered many broadcast stalwarts
during development, including Peter Jennings, Bob Costas, Phil Donahue, and
Montel Williams. What do you think of.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Those Donna you know Montel, Yeah, Peter Jennings way too
stiff for costas.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I could see costs working.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
He should have gone with uh, who's a big sitcom
guy at the time, Oh.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Jeff Foxworthy, although they did go it for him for
Are You Smarter Than the Fifth Grader? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, was Beckett Becker?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Oh? Ted Danson?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah it was Ted still.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
I think you're right. I think you're right. He should
have gone with Ted Danson. Oh. Man, you know who
was on ABC And I think his show had just
wrapped and he would have been great, And I think
this was a he missed his calling John Goodman. John
Goodman is a genial game show host. Yeah, that would
have really worked for the stressful show. All would have

(31:58):
been great. Yeah, I love him.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
What about Crispin Glover, David Lynch? What about David Lynch? God,
that would have been amazing.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
I'm kind of shocked he hasn't done a game show. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
but the host and gig went to the guy who
apparently wanted it the most. Regi's Philbin. According to show lore,
he'd seen an episode of the British version and absolutely
loved it, so he was an early adopter, and when
Davies the producer approached ABC again after hiring Philbin, the

(32:28):
network finally agreed to accept the US version of Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire? And now we have to
do a brief history of Regis Philbin. We have to must,
we we must. Regis so named apparently because his father
wanted him to attend this alma mater, the prestigious Regis
High School in Manhattan. That's the losers.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Well, I'm telling you right now, don't do that to
your kids. I don't care if it worked. That's still
like the most thirsty losers in the world.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Well, Regis got the last laugh because he didn't go there.
Oh hell yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
For him, it's like naming your kid choked.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
The producers for a Millionaire couldn't have picked a bigger
pro than Regis Philbin. By that point, he was nearing
fifty years in the biz. He's been called the hardest
working man in television, and not without good reason. In
two thousand and four, he earned the Guinness World Record
for the most hours spent on US TV fifteen thousand,
one hundred and eighty eight hours all totald. That's six

(33:26):
hundred and thirty three days, so nearly two years of
this man's life was documented on TV. Incredible. Good for him.
He surpassed the previous record holder, Hugh Downs. Hugh Downs,
it's like a name, I know, but I don't really
remember what you know, idea he could have made it up. Yeah,

(33:47):
while we're talking about Regis's TV records, he made one
hundred and fifty appearances on David Letterman's two late night shows,
making him Letterman's most frequent guest. He's such a pro
that he had antioplasty on his life, left artery in
nineteen ninety three and was back on the air three
days later.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
That's what you need in television, just a workhorse.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
When Millionaire was being developed for the American market, Regis
was most familiar as the host of the daytime staple
Live with Regis and Kathy Lead. He hosted his very
first talk show nearly forty years earlier, with nineteen sixty
one's The Regis Filbin Show in San Diego. I mentioned
this purely because of how hilariously low budget it was.

(34:31):
He couldn't afford writers, so he began each show by
just riffing with the studio Audience, which was a movie
he borrowed from Early Tonight Show host Jack Parr, which
he would quickly make his own. The Regis Filbin Show
was picked up for national syndication in nineteen sixty four,
but it didn't last and his slot was given to
fellow game show legend MERV Griffin, the talk show host

(34:52):
who in his spare time, created Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune,
among many other game show classics. We've talked about him
on our Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy episodes. Regis got
his biggest break in nineteen sixty seven when he was
tapped to be second tier rat packer Joey Bishop's sidekick
on the Joey Bishop Talk Show, borrowing from the dynamic

(35:13):
of their competition Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. A recurring
bit on the show was Joey Bishop the star playfully
teasing Regis, who would just kind of eat it. But
this blew up in everyone's face when Regis apparently started
hearing rumors at the ABC brass were not happy with
him and specifically hated his thick bronx accent.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
How much did that suck if your gig was being
the guy that the most get on member of the
rat pack got on yep.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yep, Well that kind of explains why. One day on
air he went on to a allegedly unplanned rant about
not being wanted and being let down by the program,
and he abruptly quit on air, and several nights later,
Joey Bishop addressed his absent host on air and promised

(36:01):
him that the frequent jokes were not meant to be
taken personally, and Regis eventually came back a few days later.
It went down as an epic bit of TV lore,
but in Regis's two memoirs he claimed that this walk
off was a.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Pre arranged stunt designed to boost ratings, and I don't
believe it.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
It didn't work. The show was canceled the following year,
in nineteen sixty nine. In either a medium funny bit
or a hilarious bit of pettiness, Joey Bishop walked off
the show and announced live on air when he learned
that they were canceled, leaving Regis to finish it out,
and the time slot was then given to my beloved
Dick Cavot.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
The whole walking off thing that Regis did may have
been another bit that he picked up from his hero.
Jack Parr, the famously mercurial late night host, walked off
The Tonight Show in February nineteen sixty after growing frustrated
that a joke about a WC water closet or bathroom,
are shouse or what have you was censored. The full

(36:57):
text of the joke reads as follows. An English lady
is visiting Switzerland. She asks about the location of the WC.
The Swiss, thinking she is referring to the Wayside Chapel,
leave her a note that said, in part, the WC
is situated nine miles from the room that you will occupy.
It is capable of holding about two hundred and twenty

(37:17):
nine people, and it is only open on Sunday and Thursday.
It may interest you to know that my daughter was
married in the w C, and it was there that
she met her husband. I shall be delighted to reserve
the best seat for you, if you wish where you
will be seen by everyone. Probably killed in the fifties.
So Jack Parr was pissed that that joke was excised

(37:38):
from his broadcast and replaced by news coverage. His response
to this overreaction was an epic one of his own,
where he tearfully resigned on air, saying, I am leaving
the Tonight Show. There must be a better way of
making a living than this. There's a way of entertaining
people without constantly being involved in some form of controversy,
which is on me all the time. It's rough on

(37:58):
my wife and child. I don't need it. I like
the National Broadcasting Company. They've been swell to me, and
I've been pretty wonderful to them. I took over a
show with sixty stations. There's now one hundred and fifty eight.
The show is sold out. It's the highest I think
money producer for this network. And I believe I was
let down by this network at the time when I
could have used their help. You have been peachy to

(38:20):
me always. And then he walked off kind of a
mixed bag of it.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
I think it's been theorized that he was by Paular
or something. He definitely was, Oh interesting, was a moody gentleman. Well.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
The man who finished out the show was our old
friend Hugh Down, the man that Regis would beat out
for the title of most televised Man in two thousand
and four. Jack Parr stayed away for a month before
his friend, the comedian Jonathan Winters, convinced him to return.
His comeback was a major TV event, which opened with
him strolling on stage and delivering a devastatingly deadpan as

(38:56):
I was saying before I was interrupted.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Plause.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
After the audience erupted in applause, Park continued, I believe
my last words were there must be a better way
of making a living than this. Well, I've looked and
there isn't.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Also got a huge yeah, also got a huge plause.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
He then went on to explain his departure with typical frankness.
Leaving the show was a childish and perhaps emotional thing.
I have been guilty of such actions in the past
and perhaps will be again. I'm totally unable to hide
what I feel. It is not an asset in show business.
But I shall do the best I can to amuse
and entertain you and let other people speak freely as
I have in the past.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, like I was saying. It's been theorized by some
that he suffered from bipolo disorder or he was just
really stressed out about having to come up with an
hour and forty five minutes of television five nights a week.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
When did they institute writer's rooms to tonight's shows.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
I don't know. I mean there might have been. I
think there was some then too, but I think he
was kind of like leading it, you know. I don't
think he delegated very well. No, he's a fascinating guy,
Jack Parr. Anyway, Regis bounced around various TV gigs until
beginning his famous morning show in nineteen eighty three. At

(40:07):
the time, the nine am time slot for WABC suffered
from low Nielsen ratings because of competition from NBC's Donahue
and CBS's Game show block featuring jokers Wild and Tickdac Doe.
Within a few years, he was joined by his new
co host, Kathy Lee Johnson later Gifford, and ratings took off.
This allowed him to close the Ford dealership he'd opened

(40:28):
in Gilbert, Arizona as a side investment a few years earlier,
when his TV career was looking a little dicey. That's atorrible.
If daytime TV made Reagis a star who wants to
be a millionaire, made him a primetime legend. This was not, however,
his first time on the game show circuit. In nineteen
seventy five, he hosted a short lived game show called

(40:50):
The Neighbors, in which two female contestants guest which of
her three female neighbors said gossipy things about her. So
it just seems like you're just like starting with your
neighbors for money. Yeah, I can do that. New York
Times journalist Alex Winchell wrote in nineteen ninety nine, the
X factor of millionaire success seems to be besides the money,

(41:12):
of course, that mister Philben genuinely wants contestants to win.
By all accounts, Regis's reputation as a truly nice man
was based in reality. One of my favorite examples of
this is his friendship with Howard Stern. For years, Stern
made a sport of making fun of Regi's on air
during his radio show Really Mean Spirited Mockery. Then Stern

(41:33):
moved into a new apartment building and one day he
entered the elevator to find Regis Philbman. Apparently they were
now neighbors. Regis could have very easily snubbed him, but
instead he went full reach. Hey, you're new to the building, Howard,
welcome whyt to check out my apartment, to meet my wife.
That seems like a never mind. Regis gave Howard a

(41:54):
tour of his apartment and offered him tips about where
to go in the neighborhood. It was generally just a
great neighbor And the next day on his radio show,
Howard Stern publicly apologized to Regis and the pair became
friends from that day forward, which I find adorable. And
while we're on the topic of seemingly random Regis connections,
his son Daniel worked in the Pentagon and was branded

(42:15):
a hero for his brave acts on nine to eleven.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
You've worked in the Pentagon, but okay, burning, that's shredding
the right dogs.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Also, Regis and Kathlee was.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
On in the middle of the nine to eleven attacks,
and it's one of the most surreal episodes of TV
I've ever seen. Is I would not I could not
watch that. I don't know how you do that to yourself.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
It's just them trying to make sense of what's happening.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Like there's like a little like live news broadcast like
on like the lower third, and yeah, it's it's very weird.
They're like taking audience questions and just trying to like
figure out what's happening, very very weird.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's on YouTube. Uh. Also, I don't know if you
know this, but Regis has not won but two albums
of crooning classics. Nineteen sixty eight, it's time for reaches.
In two thousand and four and two thousand and four
it's still time for reaches. He does a version of Swanny. No, yes,

(43:11):
all right, pump it in when you get it this,
I gotta I gotta hear this Swanny.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
How I love you, How I love your mind, dear
old Swanny, I give the world to me among the
folks in d I X, I even know my mammy
Waite and for me brand for me down by the Swanny.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Oh keep going, and two thousand and four is when
You're smiling. Sadly, this last release received poor reviews, and
he never recorded another record, though we frequently sang duets
with guests on Live with Regis and Kelly. And of course,
let's not forget this classic fact we noted back in
our Beauty and the Beast episode from years ago, Regi's

(44:10):
audition for the voice roll of the Beast in Disney's
Beauty of the Beast, which I still don't fully understand
if that was just like, yeah, no, now so.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
The US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
premiered on August sixteenth, nineteen ninety nine, as a special
two week event, with a half hour game airing each
night in primetime on ABC. Notably, the name lacked the
question mark that appeared in the title of the British counterpart,
because Americans turn everything into an attack.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
It's a threat.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Which one of you bozos wants to be a millionaire?
When asked about this, producers responded by saying, who wants
to be a Millionaire isn't really a question, is it?

Speaker 4 (44:52):
But?

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Which? Who? Is it?

Speaker 2 (44:53):
The who that's on first? Who's the next? Pete's among us?

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Who goes there?

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Which of the who? Oh?

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Who? Who? Hardened? Did Harten hear them? Yeah? Is it
the who that? Uh? Where were we? No? First? I?

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Oh no, I've gone cross hide. It was the first
US network game show to offer a million dollar top
prize to contestants, and the buzz this generated was immense.
By the end of the first week, they'd reached an
audience of fifteen million. This initial run contained only thirteen episodes.
Since the show is essentially just a summer replacement It
did so well that ABC scheduled another two week long

(45:33):
special event that November, but the episodes expanded to an hour.
It wasn't until January ninth, two thousand, after well after
y two K fever had calmed down, the fires were
put out that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was
given regular status as a primetime show, and boy was
it ever. At the height of its popularity, it was

(45:54):
airing on ABC five nights a week. That's insane, That's
what I remember it as. The show drew in up
to thirty million viewers during the nineteen ninety nine to
two thousand season, averaging number one in the ratings against
all other television shows. Naturally, the success launched game show
Crezze spawned a series of imitators, as rival networks either

(46:14):
rebooted old shows like twenty one aka the show that
kicked off the quiz show scandals of the nineteen fifties,
or imported other shows from England and Australia, including Winning Lines,
It's Your Chance of a Lifetime, and most famously, The
Weakest Link. Hilariously, the producers of Millionaire tried to milk
their cash cow by signing a deal with Deic Entertainment

(46:36):
to make an animated spin off titled to the Adventures
of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? That's dumb as hell.
The proposed series was to follow the fictional winners of
the show, who would have used their prize money to
take trips to various exotic locations, while the fictional host
would keep in touch with them through the Millionaire Command Center,

(46:57):
so that like the World Bank, the IMF. I guess
this was pre nine to eleven. Yeah, it was in
building seven. The idea was per Wikipedia silently scrapped without
a formal announcement.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with more. Too much information in just a moment.
Considering what a cultural pillar Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire turned out to be, it's easy to forget that

(47:38):
it was kind of a flash in the pan in
the early two thousands. In many ways, it was a
victim of its own success. Millionaire fatigues set in and
ratings began to fall during the two thousand and two
thousand and one season, and by the following year, episodes
is no longer ranked in the top twenty. ABC started
to freak out as they fell from the First Place
network once again, and initially they planned to switch the

(47:59):
format to something that would emphasize comedy more than the
game and feature a host other than Regis. I don't
know why that would be the solution. Mercifully that never occurred,
and ultimately the primetime show was canceled, with its final
episode airing on June twenty seventh, two thousand and two. Instead,
they went to a half hour daytime syndicated version that September,

(48:22):
and this would prove to be too much for Regis,
who was not only busy hosting his own daytime talk show,
but also he was in his seventies at this stage,
so the producers sought out a new host. Rosie O'Donnell
was initially offered the gig, but she turned it down,
so it went to Meredith Vieira. Can't get Rosie. You
get Meredith. It's what I say, so I always say.

(48:43):
Her tenure brought about many changes to the game. In
two thousand and eight, they instituted time limits on questions,
the hot seat was removed, supposedly because it made contestants
too comfortable, and some of the lifelines were changed, most
notably phone a friend as Google began the game popularity.
It was later reinstituted, but a producer was on hand

(49:03):
at the friend's house to make sure that they didn't Google.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Right break your neck afterwards. It's just like sitting yeah,
or like a hefty wrench, like aim right at one
of your kneecaps.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
He's like, I want you to think very carefully about
what you're about to do. But the biggest and dumbest
change was instituting my hated shuffle round. I'm obviously biased
because this is what ultimately led me to fail during
my appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? But
I strongly feel that it just it messes with the
sanctity of the game. It's no longer it's no longer

(49:38):
a mountain. It's just random. It's just any other quiz
show now. The first ten questions are just randomly thrown out.
There no ascending order of difficulty or monetary value. You
just answer it and you find out afterwards how much
money you got, like having a career. It's just it's chaos,
total chaos. The second round took things back to normal.

(50:00):
They called it Classic Millionaire Round, with four questions of
increasing difficulty one thousand, two and fifty five hundred thousand
and the million dollar question. Given that this crappy system
total is screwed with the game that everyone knew and loved,
it's no surprise that the viewership for the syndicated show
started to decrease. Murdith Vieira left in twenty thirteen and

(50:20):
was replaced by Cedric the Entertainer for a year, before
being replaced by Terry Cruz in twenty fourteen, and then
the final host of the syndicated series was Chris Harrison
of The Bachelor I Believe Sure Whatever. He took over
from Cruz in twenty fifteen and hosted until the show
was canceled, with the finale airing on May thirty first,
twenty nineteen.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
I had no idea it was. It took that lot,
I know.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Jimmy Kimmel brought it back for a twentieth anniversary season
in twenty twenty, for which he served as host and producer,
and it was renewed for round two later that year,
but then the twenty twenty chaos brought havoc to the show,
resulting in a three year hiatus. Was it until twenty
twenty four that it came back for a third season
tied to the twenty fifth anniversary this last July. That

(51:06):
run ended at the end of August. It paired off
celebrities for each game. Are You United, Keenan and kel
It was nice? Yeah yeah. At present, the future of
Huisbe Millionaire seems uncertain. But you're not here to learn
about the sad decline of this beloved televisual franchise. You're

(51:27):
here to learn about the money, aren't you? Aren't you
beg for It? During the US series run, including primetime,
syndication and specials, there have been sixteen winners of the
million dollars, fifteen solo contestants and one group of two
Iken Anne Baron Holtz, the father and son comedy duo,

(51:47):
who won for the celebrity edition just this past August,
making them the second celebrities to win the top prize.
The first celebrity to win the million dollars for charity
was Mamafuku chef David Chang. Oh hell yeah. During the
twenty twenty reboot. He was the first million dollar winner
in eleven years.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
God imagine that. How bad that made everyone else who'd
been there those eleven years felt yep, David Chang just
came in and whipped all of your asses in between
sixteen hour Ships and Coucher.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
A few other notable winners include Kevin Olmstead, who won
on April tenth, two thousand and one, during a special
jackpot stunt on the show, and instead of winning a
million dollars, I guess the whole bit was that every
time a contestant didn't win, it was like a rolling jackpot.
In every episode they added a ten thousand dollars to
the jackpot, So he took home two million, one hundred

(52:36):
and eighty thousand dollars, making him the biggest winner in
television history at the time. It's back in two thousand
and one, so that's probably like four million dollars today.
Ken Jennings today has the record for the most money
won on game shows courtsudoes. His cumulative total is five million,
two hundred ninety six thousand, two hundred and fourteen dollars

(52:58):
in twenty nine, four and a half million of which
came from his run on Jeopardy. Ken Jennings was on
other game shows too, which feels like, of course he
was shouldn't have been allowed dude, Yeah, oh you think so?
I mean yeah, I mean we got a bit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
It does feel a little bit like Brigand and a Ringer.
But you know, Michael Jordan was allowed to flop at baseball,
could at least be allowed to try.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah. Fair. Another interesting story involves Ed Taunton, who appeared
on the show in January two thousand and one. This
is when the whole jackpot thing was going on and
the jackpot was at one million, eight hundred and sixty
thousand dollars. He got kicked out after getting the sixteen
thousand dollars question wrong, but was later invited back that
September when he discovered an error in their question. This

(53:46):
story is just absolutely deliciously pedantic. We should really have
this guy on the show. As written. A question he
got wrong officially was scientists in England recently genetically altered
what vegetable so that it glows when it needs water?
He said tomato, which is also the answer he received
by using the ASCA audience lifeline. The correct answer was potato. However,

(54:10):
per millionairefandom dot com, after his run was over and
doing some research, he discovered that the experiment had been
done in Scotland, not England, and then an Oxford professor,
doctor Mark Knight, having doing research growing tomato plants, thus
rendering his original answer valid. After sending the show and
email detailing this, they decided to bring him back. Well

(54:33):
that's classy, I know, And during his second appearance, he
resumed at sixteen thousand dollars where he left off, and
he went on to win the jackpot as it was
at the time of his appearance. I don't even think
they were doing the whole jackpot thing anymore, but they
decided to honor it, and so when he got to
the last question, instead of just making a million dollars,
they made it one million, eight hundred and sixty thousand,
so he doubled it and he won. It's incredible. Almost

(54:56):
seems like a stunt. I don't think it was. How
deep is this rabbit hole?

Speaker 4 (55:00):
Go?

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Right? I know? I love that In.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
The first ten months of the show's American existence, six
people made it to the Big Question, so many that
the insurance company that paid out the big jackpots actually
sued the show's creators because the game was too easy.
The first millionaire in the entire show franchise was John Carpenter,
not that one, and he did it without using any
lifelines sort of. He went down on the November nineteenth,

(55:25):
nineteen ninety nine episode of Millionaire, and the crowd initially
booed him when he revealed that he worked by day
as an IRS agent, which was the correct reaction, but
he ultimately won them over by doing the most badass
thing anyone has ever done on a game show. The
final question was which of these US presidents appeared on
the television series Laughing, with the choices being A. Lyndon Johnson,

(55:48):
B Richard Nixon, C Jimmy Carter, and D Gerald Ford.
He asked to use the phone friend option to call
his father. When his father picked up, he said, I
don't need your help. I just wanted to let you
know I'm going to win a million dollars, before immediately
selecting the correct answer, which is Richard sock it to.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Me, NICKXA very good.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
John Carpenter, not the other guy, later said, I thought
I'd looked so cocky if I didn't use my life lines,
so I faked it, not realizing that what he did,
of course, was so much cockier. After taking a vacation
with his winnings, he returned to his job at the IRS, explaining,
after the taxes, it's not change your life kind of
money if you want to eat every day. As of

(56:31):
twenty twenty four, Carpenter continues to work for the IRS. Yeah,
he gets a pension. Ah, like what six other fields,
and that's still a thing. Carpenter also noted that the
fame had a bigger impact on his life than the money,
later stating the money doesn't change your life. What happens afterwards, Mike,
he kind of got overshadowed by Ken Jennings, but he
was a big deal for the time. He was on

(56:51):
the cover of People magazine, played himself in a Saturday
Night Live skit in which Donald Trump, portrayed by Daryl Hammond,
announced that Carpenter would be his running mate in the
presidential election.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
That was much funnier many years ago. Yeah, that's weird.
I don't understand the context of that skit, but it's
pretty weird.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Afterward, Carpenter pretended to call his father before shouting live
from New York, It's Saturday Night.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
It was simpler time.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Carpenter appeared to himself in the second half of the
fourth season of oz HBO the brutal prison drama.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
He plays a contestant in a fictional TV game show
called Up Your Anti that the prisoners in m City
are watching. He has also appeared on various anniversary specials
of Millionaire. But enough about these winners. Yeah, let's all
make ourselves feel better by talking about the losers. Over
the course of the program's history, two contestants have made
it to the million dollar question and blown it, being

(57:51):
bumped all the way back down to their thirty two
thousand dollars. Safety net man named Ken Bason missed it
during a tenth anniversary primetime special the show and a
guest of two thousand and nine. He was caught with
the classic rock in a hard placed position that Jordan
knows all too well, walking away with five hundred thousand
and finding out if he was right, or going for
the million and getting it wrong, which would result in

(58:14):
him losing four hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. The
question was for ordering his favorite beverages on demand. LBJ
had four buttons installed in the Oval office labeled coffee, tea, coke,
and what. The button wasn't labeled what that was? The
answer We'll just pause for all of you.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Give the options.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
You gotta give the options. I'm so sorry. The options
were Fresca V eight, you who, and ANW presumably root beer.
I don't care for ANW.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Cream.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Oh oh yeah, I like the cream.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Have you got your answers? In? All of you?

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Wonderful Basin guessed you who, and it was Fresca idiot.
It was the first contestant on the US version of
Millionaire to miss the million dollar question. The next unfortunate incident, though,
occurred during the daytime syndicated show in September of twenty
thirteen with contestant Josina Reeves, but this happened during the

(59:09):
shuffle version of the game, so she had jumped the
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and five hundred thousand
dollars questions and had only one hundred thousand dollars in
her bank, which still probably stung.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
The question was.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
In addition to his career as an astrologer and prophet,
Nostrodamis published a fifteen fifty five treaties that included a
section on what A training parrots to talk, B Cheating
at card games, C, digging graves and D making jams
and jellies, she said, digging graves, which was a stupid guess.

(59:47):
There's not a handbook out there worth of materials on
how to dig a grave.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Well, I mean, oh, well, okay, I guess dig.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
A hole step one, fill the whole in step two.
That's not even a pamphlet.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Wait for somebody to die this step a.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
She said, digging graves, as I said, a stupid guess.
But it was making jams and jellies, which I probably
would not have got either. Yeah, would have said cheating
at card games.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Yeah, yeah. If you're able to convince somebody that you
can tell the future, cheating at card games seems like
a lot of Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
We should also talk about Rudy Reber from A show's
first US season, who phoned a friend for the five
hundred thousand dollars question and the friend was wrong. Fallout
of the friendship was chronicled in a long Washington Post
feature that ended in a very tragic murder suicide. That's
not true. I just made that up. I just lied

(01:00:46):
to you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
And now we've got to talk about the infamous alleged
cheating incident that went down during the English version of
the show. I can't believe you left me to talk
about this. It seems like something to be very much
your Yeah, but you love cheating, that's true, Well so you.
But I love the English You love deception? Yes, elaborate
on that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
You just love all the you like all that cloak
and daggers.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Yeah, I thought you did too, Okay. The man in
question is named Charles William Ingram, and his Wikipedia introduction
describes him amazingly as quote an English fraudster, novelist and
former British Army major. He appeared on a September ninth,
two thousand and one episode of the show after his
wife and her brother had already appeared on HUSB Millionaire,

(01:01:30):
each winning thirty two thousand pounds. I find it weird
that some many members of the same family all qualified
to get on the show, because I can personally tell
you all the auditions and tests and stuff. It's not easy.
That's weird. But anyway, Perry's Wikipedia to prepare Ingram practice
for about twenty minutes per day on a handmade fastest

(01:01:50):
finger machine. That's the game you play to like when
all the hope fools line up at the beginning and
put four things in order, and whoever does it quickest
gets to go up to the hot seat. Ingram got
to the hot seat, but used two lifelines early, ending
the day at four thousand pounds with only the fifty
to fifty lifeline remaining. When they brought him back the

(01:02:11):
next day, the production team didn't expect him to proceed
much further, but he ended up making it all the
way to the million dollar top prize and this is
where it gets weird. Producers were suspicious to the guy
from the start due to his risky and some would
say foolhardy moves. For example, one question was who had
a hit UK album with Born to Do It released

(01:02:33):
in two thousand. After using his fifty to fifty his
last lifeline, the two remaining answers were A one, which
he believed the answer to be, and Craig David, who
he said he'd never heard of. After very nearly locking
in A one as his final answer, he backed off
and said that eighty percent of the time I'm wrong
when I guess say you know what, I'll go Craig

(01:02:53):
David talk about not betting on yourself working out that
ended up being incorrect, and then at the five hundred
thousand pound question Ingram was asked Baron Hausman is best
known for his planning of what city among the options
were Berlin in Paris. Initially, he assumed it was Berlin
due to his belief that Baron Hausman was a German name. However,

(01:03:18):
after a while he inexplicably said there's a possibility that
it's Paris and suddenly locked that in as his final answer.
This got Ingram to the million pound question. A number
one followed by one hundred zeros is known by what name?
To which he thought the answer was nanimal and initially
said he didn't know what a Google was. This is

(01:03:39):
pre Google, obviously the search engine. However, eventually he decided
to walk in Google as his final answer, even though
he didn't know what that word was, and he won
the million pound prize. An executive producer for the show
was quoted as saying, it became obvious that he wasn't
under the pressure that he should have been somehow. He
should have been very very careful and very certain, and

(01:04:00):
he certainly wasn't either of those. In fact, producers were
so suspicious that they conducted a physical search of his
person before he left the studio, combing through his clothing,
his shoes, and even his air looking for something that
would have enabled him to cheat, but nothing was found. However,
they did find it weird when the host of the
UK version of the show, Chris Terrant, went into Ingram's

(01:04:21):
dressing room afterwards with a celebratory bottle of champagne, only
to find Ingram and his wife viciously arguing. Oh. Because
of this, producers suspended the jackpot payout while they investigated further.
And what they discovered upon reviewing the tape of the
show was fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
You couldn't keep it together.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
I know until he left the studio, I know. The
producers noticed a connection between Ingram's answers and a series
of coughs heard in the studio. Some coughs came from
one of the waiting contestants, a guy named Techwinn Whitlock,
while another came from Ingram's wife, Diana while she was
in the audience. Based on all this evidence, all three

(01:05:03):
were accused of cheating. Basically, they thought that when the
questions were read and all the answer the potential multiple
choice answers were given, the person would cough during the
correct answer. The producers literally made a federal case out
of this. The prosecution alleged that there were one hundred
and ninety two coughs recorded during the second night performance,

(01:05:25):
and thirty two of these were significant in quotes, those
are their words, and had been done by this guy Whitlock,
who they thought was in cahoots. During the trial, another
contestant on the show was adamant that he had known
the answer to Ingram's questions and told the court that
he'd been able to detect a pattern of coughing that
he was entirely convinced had been designed to help Ingram

(01:05:48):
when the correct answer was given. However, Chris Tarrant, the
host of the show, denied hearing any coughing during the episode,
claiming that he was too busy, you know, hosting the
show to notice. Following a four week trial.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
So there is a guy who came in and snitched.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Well, no, not snitched, but just like, wait a minute,
like there was always a cough when the correct answer
was given. I noticed it even at the time. Yeah,
sounds like snitching. Sure. Following a four week trial, Ingram,
his wife, and this other contestant, Whitlock, were convicted and
given prison sentences. The Ingrams were sentenced to eighteen months,

(01:06:25):
while Whitlock was sentenced to twelve months, and each fined
fifteen thousand pounds and were ordered to pay prosecution and
defense costs, which meant that they were out some one
hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. The Army Board ordered Ingram
to resign his commission as major after sixteen years of service,
but allowed him to keep his pension. Well well, yeah,

(01:06:47):
oh generous. Yeah. Ingram, for his part, claims that he
either listened, for, encouraged, or noticed any coughing. Later, in
two thousand and three, Ingram and his wife were charged
with further fraud offenses after so they attempted to claim
on an insurance policy after an alleged burglary at his home.
He was given a conditional discharge on the charge of

(01:07:08):
fraudulently claiming thirty thousand pounds on insurance. Karmosot vengeance on
Ingram in twenty ten, however, when he lost three toes
on his left foot in a lawn knowing accident.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
I don't know, man, like all this effort, like you know,
like Apple doesn't pay taxes in some countries, Like just
feels so like petty, I don't care. Let him cheat?

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
What did he do?

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Who did he defraud the British television public?

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
He cheated? Well, well, I guess he didn't cheat that well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Forcing this like it's international Well we don't even obey
international law at this point, but like, why what is this?
What happens? Who cares? Flip a coin? Let that be
it guilty or knock guilt? Who cares?

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
My god? I mean, maybe he was a precedent from
the the fifties quish show scandals, which went all all
the way to the Senate floor because it was the
n FCC thing about like defrauding the public was that
these shows were ringed, and so maybe it became more
than just like hey, you took our money. It was
a whole like our licenses at stake here or something

(01:08:15):
like that. Maybe it was that, you know, well, before
we wrap this episode up, I want to do a
little millionaire quiz moment for my friend Alex Heigel oh hell,
and see if he has what it takes to answer
some of the million dollar questions that have been given
on the American version of the show. What do you
think you're going to go for it? Buddy, I'm ready,
or you can give them to me, which whichever, whichever
you prefer. Okay, okay, okay, well we did the laugh

(01:08:38):
in one. Okay. This one's from January tenth, two thousand.
In what language was Anne Frank's original diary first published?
Was it a Dutch, B English, C French, d German?
That's an easy one, I gotta say, is it? Yeah? Dutch? Yes? Correct?

(01:08:58):
Sick Alex Heigel, you just want a million dollars? Wow,
give me another one. The Earth is approximately Oh, this
one's kind of boring. How many miles away from the sun?
Is it a that counts as math?

Speaker 4 (01:09:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
No, I agree? Yeah. In what country are all US
Major League baseballs currently manufactured? Is it Costa Rica, Haiti,
the Dominican Republic or Cuba?

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
We had a trade and barger with Cuba. You're correct,
everyone hates Haiti.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Plead the fifth? Yeah, So what were the other one?

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Dominican Republic and Costa Rica? Dominican Republic, Costa Rica. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Oh there, I go all.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
The way back down to twenty five thousand dollars. No.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
What Shakespeare character says something is rotten in the state
of Denmark is it a Hamlet B. Marcellus, C. Horatio
or D.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Laertes Marcella's Wallace from pulp fiction.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
You're kind of correct.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Oh, this is great. I think you will probably know.
This is a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Which insect shorted out an early supercomputer and inspired the
term computer bug? Is it moth? Roach? Fly? Or Japanese beetle? Wow?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Japanese beetle is a tempting just because of the specificity.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
But fly moth?

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Oh yeah, I guess that tracks well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
We've established that I'm a loser. No Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
According to the Population Reference Bureau, what is the approximate
number of people who have ever lived on Earth?

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
That's close to math, but all out?

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Is it fifty billion, one hundred billion, one trillion or
five trillion one hundred billion?

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
At is correct?

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
A rare example of a word that does indeed rhyme
with orange. The bloornge is a what a river in Scotland?

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Sorry, a river in Ireland, a forest in Scotland, a
mountain in Wales, or a desert in Australia. I'll be
so pissed if it's Australia. After we just did our
crocodile done the episode river in Ireland or forest in Scotland.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Those are the mountain in Wales Scotland. It was a
mountain in Wales. Oh, that seems like a Welsh word
that does the war in jam. But I discounted it
too because it doesn't have the prevalence of consonants that
they usually have. Hmm okay.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
Which of the following is not the title of a
country song released by Netflix star Joe Exotic aka The
Tiger King? Is it big Hearted Cat? I saw a
tiger here, Kitty Kitty or king of the Beast.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Think of a best seems like like an Elvis song
or something. I would say that tiger man incorrect, incorrect.
The incorrect answer was big hearted cat. I guess in retrospect,
i'd probably shad guess that. Huh.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Compiled by Benjamin Franklin in seventeen thirty seven, The Drinker's
Dictionary included all but which of these synonyms for drunkenness
nim topsicle, buzzy, piffolcated, or staggerish biffolcated with a B
or with a P, piffolcated like possum. I'll go with

(01:12:24):
that one. You are correct, sir Ah. This one's just
crazy and it's gonna be the last one. Nifello coco
siggia is the practice of doing what finding shapes in clouds,
sneezing with your eyes open, breaking glass with your voice,
or swimming in freezing water. Can you spell it for me?

(01:12:44):
N E p h E l O c O c
c ygi A niffello coco siggia. Finding shapes in clouds,
sneezing with your eyes open, breaking glass with your voice,
or swimming freezing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
Water, breaking glass with your voice.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
No, finding shapes in class? Oh wow, that was actually
last on interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Yeah, I don't know, all right, let me ask let
me ask you one more, just because it feels very
I just think you'll enjoy this one. What is the
last word in the Old Testament? Is it forever true,
prayer or curse? Wow? Forever seems appropriate? True?

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Also does I don't think curse is Actually I don't
know what was the third one?

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Prayer, forever true, prayer or curse?

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Last words of the Old Testament Old Testament curse? Yes
you are correct, sir, Old Testaments the vengeful one.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
I'm just scanning to see if there's any else that
are like, notably when the TV series The Brady Bunch
was Carol Brady's maiden name.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
You'll never get it, Tyler. That's a great question, though,
Oh this is this is actually a great question. There's
no reason anyone should know it. But what club did
astronaut Alan Shepard used to make his famous golf.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Shot on the moon? That's incredible?

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
Do you know? No? No idea?

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Six iron? Six iron?

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Who's the only Nobel laureate to win an Academy award?
That's really good? Steinbeck Sartra, George Bernard Shaw or Tony Morrison.
Tony Morrison. I would have said that to George Bernard Shaw.
Really Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
What did he win his Oscar for adapted screenplay for something?

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Probably? All right? Wait, sorry, I'm sorry, it's the last one.
You're losing. The US icon Uncle Sam was based on
Sam Wilson, who worked during the War of eighteen twelve
as what a meet and inspect a mail deliverer, a historian,

(01:15:03):
or a weapons mechanic, male guy, a meet inspector. Uncle
Uncle Sam was a meet inspector.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
Well, given the amount of atrocities the country would go
on to commit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Oh wow, oh wow, Hamburger Hill. Okay, okay, yeah, well, folks,
for the ride out. That's how I used to always
end my college radio show. For the ride out. Tonight,
I'd like to give you a quote from a piece
in Slight by Justin Peters, who, like me, was a
digital media writer who achieved his childhood dream of appearing
on Millionaire, only to fall short of the titular question.

(01:15:39):
Unlike me, he got farther and fell further and was
plunged into a deep depression afterwards, whereas I was just
mildly annoyed. He wrote about it several times, including in
a piece called I Wanted to Be a Millionaire? How
failing colossally on a game show changed my life for
the better. I'd like to read you some of his
writing here. The experience of IF losing big on Millionaire

(01:16:01):
almost broke me. The shock of the sudden loss and
it was a loss, even though it wasn't as if
the Millionaire producers had deducted two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars for my actual bank account sent me into
a depressive state. I'd come so close to fulfilling the
show's big promise, and the act of falling short made
me feel like I was worse off than if I'd
never been on the show at all. To this very day,

(01:16:23):
I'm still occasionally seized with paralyzing regret over my bad choice.
Online journalism is not a lucrative field. The millionaire money
I so recklessly risked and lost would have given me
real financial security for the first time in my life.
But then he talks about hearing from fellow game show
losers and even playing on a trivia team with some
And then he continues, there's something liberating and reaching for

(01:16:46):
something meaningful, even if you aren't sure you'll get it.
I guessed on the five hundred thousand dollars question because
that was the only way I would ever get to
the million dollar question. That decision took guts and stupidity,
but mostly and once I realized I've got guts, I
decided to reorder my life around them. Since Millionaire, I've

(01:17:07):
done scores of things I'd always wanted to do but
never took the leap to pursue. This may be the
path prescribed by countless self help books. It just so
happens that Millionaire was mine. The simple lesson that Millionaire
taught me is that if you want to change your life,
either by winning a lot of money on television or
by some more prosaic means, at some point, you're going

(01:17:27):
to have to take a risk. Unless you're John Carpenter,
the famous winner of the show, yeah, the other guy,
you will eventually have to take a step into the unknown,
ban on yourself and hope that you were making the
right decision. And I think that's a good note to
end on, as well as a reminder that at some
time or another.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
We are all losers and the weakest link. I think
I'm the weakest link on this show.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
It's those solid all the people on Twitter today saying
they like the mean one better.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
It's not true. Ah yeah, I don't know. It's a
game show whatever, man, I ain't. This isn't serious. This
isn't an album, This isn't a piece of art.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Who is the Millionaire is a celebration of trivia and banality.
I thought you would come on, it's kind of like that.
I like that. I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
I'm not gonna like pretend that it's more. It's not
you know, it's not Puccini. I know it's not Nebraska.
It's not not the Simpsons.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
It's not even the Brady Bunch. I almost did be
wished for this episode, which you'll do that next turned
sixty this year. Yeah, I mean, you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Know, take a risk, dude, life's a risk. There's a
punk band called Fiddler, and they put it much more
succinctly than this guy. What if Fiddler say they said, dude,
life's a risk. Oh oh that was I thought that
was from The Big Lebowski. But that's let's go bowling. Yeah,
it's good, dude, Let's go bowling. You know at the
end of it, Jordan, I don't care. H Is that

(01:19:09):
your final answer? Oh? How did we escape making that
into a bit?

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
You know at the end of the day, Jordan.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Do you want a fun of friends? I guess I'm
already here. Yeah, you're my only friend. Jordan. Hi? Hello,
Oh my god, Jordan, I'm in deep trouble. They're gonna
bring what's going on? They're gonna they're gonna take my knees. Buddy,
I said, I didn't care about a game show. Do

(01:19:39):
I care about a game show? Do I care about?
Who wants to be a millionaire? What's my right answer?
Making money off of useless crap. Yes, I assume you would.
Oh okay, we don't do that though, right, not anymore now?

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Oh we ever gonna shout out our kofe though you
did at the top. Okay, all right, I'm gonna thanks man,
thanks man, put back on the show. No no, no, no, no no, no, pregious, Actually, Cedric,
mister entertainer, I've decided to go with my friend Jordan's answer.
I believe I actually do care about who wants to

(01:20:13):
be a millionaire. Thank you for listening. This has been
too much information. I'm Alex Sigel, I'm Jordan Runtogg. We'll
catch you next time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio. The
show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk. The
show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show was researched,
written and hosted by Jordan Runtogg and Alex Heigel, with
original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review. For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the

(01:20:53):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
That's like the long you know that's clack Bat and

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