Well, it finally happened during this particular prime-time revivial: our first $0 winner. YouTube has the video for those that didn't see it.

YouTube link

My take: She may have keyed in on the wrong part of the question; if she concentrated on "blue state" rather than "red state", she probably would have figured it out, despite the clock. Some have speculated that may have been a poorly worded question.

And for the 2nd Sunday in a row...Millionaire pulled in 7 million, second in overall viewers behind 60 minutes and Big Brother (note that the PGA Championship did run long Sunday afternoon):

Zap2It TV ratings for Sunday

Fred

A few observations on last night's episode:

- a bit disappointed that the holdover contestant from Thursday's show, Eddie Lawhorn, didn't go further. An impossible question at 100K (especially with 45 seconds) made for a quick exit with his $50,000, unless, I suppose, you're a huge Simpsons fan. Even then, you have to be familiar with all of the minor characters and who voices them.

- a really awkward editing "cut" when the next FF winner, Rebecca, mentioned that her husband was on Super Millionaire. I wonder what s/he said?

- Congrats to Rebecca for looking great and winning $50K!

- The next FF winner, Ellen Gaines, looked so nervous to me when she won. I SWEAR I thought to myself "she is going to screw this up in the first 5 questions". I wanted Regis to come around and give her one of those famous Dick Clark back rubs to relax her or something, because she looked SO nervous. She 'llamas out' on the 1K question, apparently misreading the question. I don't know if the clock was a factor here, but she definitely needed to take a breath.

Question: In a NYT Election Day Crossword Puzzle, which of the terms had the clue "Blue State" and not "Red State"?

A) Melancholy
B) Communism
C) Outrage
D) Insolvency

She incorrectly answers "B", Communism. Seriously, I was just heartbroken.

- Next contestant, another woman (!!!!), Leah Grigsby. She looks a little like Annie Hall. Seems smart enough but didn't trust herself on an easy question that 94% of the Audience got -- so she's burned that lifeline. She'll be back tonight....

- Connie Chung was hilarious, if not a little useless. i thought for sure she'd know the "Radiance/Rosebud" question. I mean, she got it, but wasn't too sure I think.

I officially hate the clock. I mean, I like the principle of it, but there should be one, maybe 2 additional lifelines where you can just take "extra time". i think that would help some people out and calm a few folks down.

Can someone tell me what happens if you run out of time? If you are at 4K going for 8K, and you don't say "I'm going to walk with my money" before time runs out, do you go back to 1K, or is it treated as a "non-answer" and you stay at the level you are at?

Also: does anyone know if the FF contestants were truly picked at random? There seems to be GREAT diversity, and that never used to happen before on the old Phone game. It used to be like 90% white males. Now you're lucky to find 4 white males amongst the FF contestants. Not that I'm complaining -- just wondering? They had to screen the winners of the Phone Game somehow to get this assortment of people. No way this is "random".

Three women in a row tonight!

It is constituted as a Walk Away, so you leave with the money you have won.

What was the question? Would love to see if I would've gotten it.


The latter. You would go home with $4,000. Fair enough, since it's the same way of saying "I don't know and don't wanna risk 3-grand on a wrong answer." It sucks, however, if you're in the first tier and walk with $300 because of a brain fart.

What was the correct answer?

A) Melancholy.

"Blue" is synonymous with sadness, and "melancholy" is also synonymous with sadness.

Yeah, the wording was tricky, but not so tricky that using a lifeline wouldn't have helped.

"Melancholy", would be my guess.

A) "A blue state" (of mind)

I was thrown for a loop myself. The question came up, and I was like, "Now let's see - 'blue states' are Democratic, and 'red states' are Republican ..." For a second, I thought the answer was "Communism" too - until I realized at the last second they were going for "melancholy." For $1,000. Damn clock.



ABC made a big to-do about that in a promo that aired on "AFV" just before WWTBaM. I didn't catch it on video, but the announcer was going on about how "one of these three women" (or maybe he said "contestants") could be on her way to winning a million. Yeah, right. Unless it's the third one - who hasn't finished yet - that they're talking about.

The rules on the website said they would be picking contestants both form the phone game and interviews. i do not believe it said how many of each on each showl

Oh, all right ... ;-)


On 'The Simpsons,' which of these pair of characters is typically voiced by the same person?

a) Apu & Mr. Burns

b) Moe & Crusty the Clown

c) Ned Flanders & Principal Skinner

d) Kent Brockman & Mayor Quimby



Answer below:


c) Ned Flanders & Principal Skinner, both voiced by Harry Shearer.

Hmm...when was this show taped, in relation to the previous one? If the contestant was paying attention to the categories on Thursday's show, he could have noticed that he'd be coming back to a question about (likely) The Simpsons and tried to cram a bit of Simpsons trivia off of the Interwebs before walking back into the studio.

Probably not worth thinking about if your game straddles at, say, $4,000, but this is six figures we're talking about here.

With my luck, it would turn out to be a question about Jessica and Ashlee Simpson.

Did anyone else wonder why Rachel Ray didn't go immediately to the phone-a-friend for her question? I figured if anything was set up for a PAF/internet lookup question, that was it. I was even more surprised the audience got it right.

I have to be honest, I'm surprised the celebs have gone 6 for 6 so far. Even more impressed that Lauren Conrad seemed like the only one that knew her answer off the back.

R.

I hope some of you saw Patricia Heaton tonight. They edited the shit out of that thing to make it remotely air-able. A ton of moaning and groaning and other stupid blather was edited out. She didn't know the 30 seconds was the time limit for the Phone A Friend. She thought that was thinking time and he gave the answer after. They edited that giant complaining session of hers out. She thought after Phone A Friend didn't give her anything she lost the game and they edited a small portion of that out. It was the most painful experience I've been through in studio.

I saw it. Then I wtf'd. I honestly wondered what kind of drugs they left in her dressing room. Seriously, just because you have a new show on ABC doesn't mean you'd make a good contestant. I understand the being nervous, but damn, Regis did everything but give her a calculator.

That being said, I'd give her a math lesson of my own, something involving multiplication, if you catch my thrift kthxbai.

Sure it's easy from the comfort of the audience or from home, but much different with the Heaton.

Even at home, that was painful to watch. I would understand that a question like that may take some time off of the clock, if you were a regular contestant. But you can still think it through and use common sense (90 pennies could have instantly been ruled out). But because these celebs aren't timed, as soon as the question popped up, she basically was giving up without using an ounce of simple math logic. If you live in this country, and you can't add up your country's various forms of denomination, thennnnnn i'm sorry.

Bah-Zing!

Going out of lurk mode for a little bit:



To "llama out" on Millionaire means to go out on the first question. Any $0 win past question 1 can just be chalked up to bad luck (among other things).



If time runs out, then you walk with whatever money you had to that point. Exception: If you Double Dip, and you don't lock in the correct answer before time expires, you go back to the last milestone ($1000 or $25,000) since you can't walk away. A contestant lost $15,000 this past season because he didn't lock in any answer (much less the right one) after using the first half of the Double Dip, especially after Meredith said that if he got the question wrong, he'd go back to $1000. Again, since he didn't lock in anything before time expired, back he went. (Thanks for the correction.)

That's why the Double Dip is one lifeline you CAN'T turn back on. Once you're comitted, that's it. Just answer the question within the rules of that lifeline & work from there. It'll save you the embarrasment of second-guessing yourself later.

As for Heaton, I knew this was more trouble than the other celebrities so far. If you're gonna claim that you went to such & such university, youi better well BACK IT UP! Otherwise, problems will ensue as evidenced by that segment. This is why I HATE that bit at the end. Celebrities as well as overexposure killed the original run. Apparently, ABC didn't "learn its lesson".

Heh. Four years ago, I would have made a snarky, personal attack at this comment.

All I could do last night was shake my head and say "Patty, Patty" (she's easy on the eyes at least, and I liked
her on "Raymond"). This is a woman who went to college and has won multiple emmy awards. And that is NOT meant to be a knock on Ohio State. Besides, she only uses credit cards!

Unless she was putting on one hell of an acting job as a dumb celebrity... An Emmy winning one!
Nah, I don't think so. Regis practically gave her the extra $25,000.

Yet another reason the clock is dumb. Actual people, trying to make the most of their fifteen minutes, get less than a minute to run the mental arithmatic, yet she gets all day just because she was on a popular TV show 5-10 years ago?


That would explain why she used it. That's a terrible question to try to make someone answer in ten seconds (after the time to read the damn thing aloud, giving a couple seconds at the end to actually spit out the answer). I mean, I needed about that long to tease out the question, and I've got a math degree!

/Of course, mine is *also* from a Big Ten school.
//Which apparently makes it worth about five Euros, or seventy nickels.

I saw the Heaton train wreck last night. What pissed me off was not that she couldn't figure it out, but it seemed like she didn't want to be bothered doing it. Regis had to force her to figure it out, and even then. It's not like it was Algebra or Geometry (God forbid!!), this was SIMPLE FRIGGIN' MATH. When she was declared correct, I said "Yeah, congrats, you stupid B____!!"

Patricia Heaton made Katy Perry look like a genius - and God knows that isn't easy.

I actually saw this episode in the studio, but I didn't see Patricia. The celeb my audience saw was Snoop Dogg, who appears on tonight's show (8/18). Patricia did her segment earlier in the day, and after seeing how she did, I just want to say one thing to Patricia - THANK YOU - for not making me sit through your crap!!

Why did she call her husband, as equally math challenged as she was, apparantly? The audience would
have saved her! Heck, why didn't she call her 15 year old.

Technically, you're right, but given this post as we play another sterling edition of INVISION RETRO. . .



. . .I'd let it slide.



You make it sound like she told him twice while the clock was running that he couldn't walk away (which wasn't the case--she didn't say "you can't walk away" until after he had already lost). Either way, the guy was an idjit.

1) I'm under the impression that the celebs only have one person to Phone-A-Friend. Why bother with tying up anyone else for what's essentially a throw-away segment?
2) She specificially said she was calling him because, I kid you not, he's from Europe. She was so caught up in the 'Euro' thing that she didn't notice that wasn't relevant to the question.

HEADS UP - POSSIBLE SPOILER














According to post at Buzzerblog, Regis was on Larry King's show and told him . . . .















There will be a "million dollar moment" on one of the upcoming shows. That doesn't mean someone WINS the million, but we may see someone see the $1M question. so you've been warned. Sorry, don't know how to do the "invisible type" thing.

That reminds me of something else that bothered me. During her efforts to put 2+2 together (almost literally), she grumbled out "I'll throw in the extra $25,000...", as if she couldn't wait to get the hell out of dodge. I don't mind having celebrities every so often, but when they treat the gig like community service, then it gets lame. Honestly, since ABC brought back some of their memorable contestants from 10 years ago, why not bring back some of the memorable celebrity contestants? How about Ray Romano instead of Patricia?

/Oh yeah...Patty's got the new show on ABC
//Wonder if Bergeron would've made an appearance

I'm just more shocked that Lauren Conrad has been the only real competent celebrity to hit the hot seat. I never thought I'd say that.

You don't watch Family Guy, do you?

Well, at the very least... I can say that if fortune was on my side, and I did make it to NYC, I'd probably would have ended up with $50k as well like Eddie; however, with the proper lifelines... maybe 100k... kinda a downer that I'd be on par as everyone else, but... still, not a bad chunka change had I made it :)

The Nulling Out was just sad... and frankly, yes she did misread the question... as I nearly did... but... thanks to a nice game show that deals with crosswords, I prolly woulda made the save.

Cross-Wits?

Seeing as he qualified it with "nice", that's the only one I can think of.

I'm just surprised that the original episode in question aired 2 months ago

Not Scrabble?

Maybe Patty Heaton, heaven help us, was secretly auditioning for the pilot of a new game show -- Nit-Wits!

Tonight, the question Wynonna got was easier than Patty's, and she did struggle with it, but at least she didn't make an ass out of herself.

/I posted the "million dollar moment" thing in the comments before Alex did
//Anyone wanna give Ms. Heaton the keyboard cat treatment?

Yeah, that Simpsons question was tough. I think I know a good bit of pointless trivia about that show (more than a sane person should), and I could only narrow it down to two. When I read the question, I was expecting the right answer to be something like Burns and Smithers (notable since the actor is frequently talking to himself) or Principal Skinner and Reverend Lovejoy (since they sound somewhat similar). All of the answer choices were just random pairs of characters.

It was a difficult question for a Phone-a-Friend to Google, if that was any consideration.

Not to play Repeat the Meme (coming up next on most of these CBS stations), but it was a snap for me and probably many Simpson-o-files. Again, you either knew it cold or had no chance.


--Mike

Y'know, comparing her to the rest of the celebs who have gotten in the hot seat, Family Guy may be onto something here :)

The studio needs to file a restraining order against Patricia Heaton. Yes, millions of Americans suck at math, but for you to throw your hands up at first sight, before the "trick choices" were shown, is pitiful. Her time in that chair, at least to me, reched a new level of douchebaggery when it comes to celebrities and gameshows.

/First time I've called a woman a douchebag
/it feels goooooooooood :)

As someone that hasn't frequented this board as often as I used to, that's news to me. But whatever. I choose not to play the "No, YOU'RE wrong, I'M right" game here.



Duly noted and corrected. He knew what he was getting into when he double-dipped. Chalk it up to a brain fart or whatever, but yeah, considering he still had a 1/3 shot of getting it right, but let the time expire anyway, that guy *was* an idjit.

Math lessons on WWBTAM:
(150 *5) / 25 = 30
3 * 4 = 12

Get Danica McKellar as a celebrity contestant. "Winnie" has published books about math!

True, but at least Patricia managed to figure it out (somewhat) on her own. Wynonna just trusted whatever her Phone-A-Friend managed to blurt out just before the clock hit zero.

At least Wynonna didn't have a meltdown like Patricia did. Regardless, here's a memo to the producers: NO MORE MATH QUESTIONS FOR THE CELEBS!!

Unless it's Dustin Hoffman.

...yet that's exactly what you did here. To your credit, though, you did it without using the word "otaku."

I'd hit it so hard that REGIS would feel it.

You wouldn't know the first thing to do with her, kid. :-P

/"Danica, I have a bell curve in my pants which needs to be analyzed."