You may have forgotten, but in the fall of 1999, the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was a pretty big deal. I was in my second year of law school and, along with a couple friends, was daily calling in to try to get onto the show.
At the time, the process was you had to call in and answer five questions. Among those answering those days questions correctly, ten were randomly (?) selected. And in January 2000, over the Christmas break and while in Oklahoma, I was randomly selected.
So they flew us to New York City for two nights and put us up in a hotel near Columbus Circle. We spent the first afternoon–a Sunday–exploring the city. As we walked down Broadway and into Times Square, I said something about now being in Times Square. Holly (who’d never been there) replied: “How can you tell?”
Most of Monday was spent in the studio. During an information gathering session, they asked me what would be my dream million-dollar question would be. I said something about the Supreme Court and was told that the last “Fastest Finger” question from the last episode was putting Supreme Court Justices in the order they were appointed. That was the show I was supposed to be on.
We also went out on the stage for a run-through. We filed in, sat in our chairs, and ran through a number of practice “Fastest Finger” questions. Every time I was a second or so behind the fastest answer, so I decided that I would focus on getting the first two items in the correct order and leave the last two to a 50-50 chance in order to speed up my answering time. We’ll see how that worked out. We also got to sit in the “Hot Seat” and answer a few questions.
So after several hours in the studio (I recall really disliking one guy who kept acting like winning the $1M was a foregone conclusion for him–more on him later), it was time for the actual taping. We met Regis backstage just before getting started. It took about 90 minutes to film, and let’s just say I didn’t win any money.
Disappointed, I wanted just to go back to the hotel, but we had tickets to go see Cats and Holly was right to push me out into the night. Cats was, well, Cats. You’ll either love it or feel completely blaze about it. I’m glad we went since it ended its Broadway run shortly thereafter.
On Tuesday, we had mid-afternoon flights out of town. (Holly was going back to Oklahoma to get the kids; I went to Cleveland as classes had already started.) I’m not sure what we did other than ride the subway down to Battery Park and go out to the Statue of Liberty, but it looks like the weather was pretty decent for January.
Lady Liberty
Holly and lower Manhattan; odd to see the Towers in old photos
I got home just as the previous episode was ending, which announces the contestants for the next episode (which would air on Thursday night). Our phone started ringing off the hook from people near and far who saw that I’d be on. A local TV station even came to the house to do a short spot on me–don’t worry, I’ve included a part of the video (where I’m nattily attired!). That aired on Thursday night as well.
So here is the condensed video of the episode. A couple introductory comments. 1) The video is terrible. It was recorded on a VCR–a VC-what?–and I guess we didn’t have cable, so the graininess is not surprising, but it is arresting. Looks closer to 1970s TV than 21st Century TV. 2) I’m not really sure whether this video captures it (still not willing to watch the whole thing), but I’m sitting directly behind Regis whenever it’s a direct shot of him. So I’m like a really valuable extra. Glad the camera didn’t catch me picking my nose. 3) I swore to myself that I wouldn’t make any gestures during the introductions. I failed.
Ugh. Anyway, so the guy I didn’t like. He was the first one in the Hot Seat (and went with the “double guns” during introductions) and then promptly missed the $100 question about the nursery rhyme. I’d say that’s karma working, but I’m pretty sure he got a car going on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. And we now know that my Fastest Finger strategy failed miserably since I didn’t answer a single one correctly. /sniffle
And sadly, this wouldn’t be my only Millionaire failure. But that’s for some other post–maybe.
[Originally posted July 11, 2010]
I think you should do a “Chris Maynard Come-back.” That would be really cool!
I remember this all so clearly – and, yet, there are things I’d forgotten. For instance, what a tool that double gun guy was. And that you missed all four fastest fingers – even the north to south one.
I also remember waiting by the phone in Cleveland, as a lifeline. Mostly what I was thinking was: just what sort of question would it have to be for me to get called when Emery was also an option? Sports questions involving the Illini, and anything involving flip, hilariously inappropriate responses. Let’s just say I didn’t expect a call.
I was also wondering if I should be missing class for this. Then I realized, if neither Chris nor Bug were in attendance, there was really no reason for me to be in class anyway.
I was also at your house when the local news people came by. I think we were watching Lebowski or something. Maybe part of Hudson Hawk. Anyway, I remember Holly wasn’t there. And it only dawned on me later that she never seemed to be there when I came over. “Oh, yeah, she just stepped out. She had to run some errands that will take exactly the duration of your visit.”
So if you were at the house when the local news came over, why didn’t you suggest that I, you know, put on some pants?
In my absence, did you ring the bell in Coffee’s class? Or did it go on forever?
Did you have a mirror in that home? Did you look in it before you were interviewed? So funny!
In my very limited defense, I wore such pants pretty much everywhere from December-February back in those days. If it was good enough for Brooks Brothers (and in reality it wasn’t–got terrible customer service), it was good enough for the local news.
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