The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Jeremy Nelson on April 07, 2020, 05:12:24 PM
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With Millionaire coming back this week, who is your most memorable contestant who didn't win the million?
For me, it was Kati Knudsen- she missed a 500k question on the network run, and based on Regis' comments, she was in that hot seat for a very long time mulling over that question. What I rememebr most was Regis, as much as he was allowed to, pleading with her to take the money and go. She ended up moving off her original gut answer (which was right) to a wrong one.
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There was a contestant who appeared not long after it became a regular series, and I only remember vague details here. IIRC, it was Rudy Reber, and got a question about who a movie director who directed a Michael Jackson video. His PAF was very confident about it being (I think) John Landis, and it was not. The question was for $125 or $250K, and he went home with 32K.
(Googles) It was Rudy Reber, but he played for 500K, and the question asked who directed the Bad video. Reber went with his friend's answer of Landis, but it was Martin Scorsese.
As far as Kati Knudsen, I'd seen quite a few stories about how difficult of a contestant she was, from the studio all the way to the cab ride back to the airport.
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Ken Basin.
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I would have to go with my esteemed colleague and Pointless partner Jason Block.
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Part of me feels Robby(sp?) Roseman, who I believe was the show's first zero-aire, might be worth mention.
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Ken Basin.
Ah yes, the guy who went for the million and got it wrong on the 10th anniversary edition. The guy I remember was Ogi Ogas, who walked away with $500k and had a fit when he found out he knew the answer. There was also Norm McDonald on a celebrity edition who wanted to go for the million, but Regis talked him out of it. It turned out Norm had the right answer.
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Doug Van Gundy? First person to break six figures (he walked with
$125,000 $250,000).
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I thought Doug walked with 250K? I distinctly remember his overjoyed reaction when Regis declared his answer correct.
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I thought Doug walked with 250K?
He did.
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I thought Doug walked with 250K? I distinctly remember his overjoyed reaction when Regis declared his answer correct.
It would be hard to forget. It was nice to see him 20+ years later as part of the retrospective. Certainly one of my medal podium favorite players and certainly instrumental in Millionaire’s early success.
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Doug was my early favorite as well. Seemed like a nice guy, very down to earth. A far cry from most of the contestants cast on many of today's shows. Wasn't he working a very low-paying job at the time? I want to say I remember that being mentioned.
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Doug was my early favorite as well. Seemed like a nice guy, very down to earth. A far cry from most of the contestants cast on many of today's shows. Wasn't he working a very low-paying job at the time? I want to say I remember that being mentioned.
He was earning $11,000/year as a fiddler, yes.
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Doug was awesome. I was glad when he won.
If I'm not mistaken, they used Doug as the first Phone-A-Friend for the abc.com online game.
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I thought Doug walked with 250K? I distinctly remember his overjoyed reaction when Regis declared his answer correct.
Welp I was 5 when he first aired. Isn't $250k what I said? :P
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Phil Gibbons. He was out of lifelines after $8,000 and made it to the million-dollar question mainly by deductive reason.
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I thought Doug walked with 250K? I distinctly remember his overjoyed reaction when Regis declared his answer correct.
Welp I was 5 when he first aired. Isn't $250k what I said? :P
All good. Now get off my lawn. :)
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One guy I remember and kinda feel bad and good for was Sam Murray, the last millionaire.
I mean, it's cool that he got it and his reaction when he got his question right was great. I just wish it didn't happen in that half-cocked tournament they did. He was the only one to even attempt the question and didn't stand to lose a whole lot if he missed it, but honestly, did they really think any of the six figure winners that qualified were going to take the gamble?
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Hard to feel bad for the winner.
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He was the only one to even attempt the question and didn't stand to lose a whole lot if he missed it
He also got one of the easiest question of the ten. Talk about right place, right time.
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I had to look up his name. Tom Colletta. Maybe not an amazing player, but a memorable moment where Regis was building up tension after Colletta had given a final answer.
Eventually Colletta blurted out, "I'm a fat man Regis, my heart can't take it!" After the laughter died down, Regis countered with, "I'm just trying to help you sweat off a few pounds!"
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He was the only one to even attempt the question and didn't stand to lose a whole lot if he missed it
He also got one of the easiest question of the ten. Talk about right place, right time.
To be excruciatingly fair to Sam, he also knew the answer to the final question of the event. (You can hear it under the applause and cheers as Meredith is building to the reveal.) That said, trivia is about putting yourself in position to answer the question and I imagine that being a bartender means he would pick up lots.
On another note if Alan Carver had not decided to re-enact Thelma and Louise and instead stuck on $50,000 he would have posted a sprint time of 32 seconds for eleven questions and maybe he would have known all of the queries asked. (As #6 on the leaderboard he would have bumped off Sam.) There was no reason to try pop the confetti before the first ad break--get into the sweeps event and leaven the risk for the big prize.
One of the great things about Millionaire is that in the old days it was all about merit and the luck of the draw. If you were good you stood a chance to get into the Ring of Fire. No audition tests or sob stories, but Regis was able to draw out all the personality I wanted from the contestants. It immediately set the show apart from everything else on the ar save for The Price is Right and I think to its benefit. Lots of contestants were memorable because there was nobody else there to share the spotlight so you would get people who were eminently root-for-able.
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I don't have any numbers to back this up and for all I know I'm totally wrong, but to me, David Honea's "creel" question is what turned the show from a surprise summer hit by default into a phenomenon that would forever change the landscape of the genre and TV in general. The way he collapsed in his chair when he won $32K is one of the most gripping moments a game show has ever produced.
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Part of me feels Robby(sp?) Roseman, who I believe was the show's first zero-aire, might be worth mention.
My first thought as well, if only because "llama" entered the game show vocabulary. Over on alt.tv.game-shows, there was a long-running debate over whether "llamaing (out)" meant missing the first question, or missing any of the first five and winning nothing. (I am in the "it has to be the first question" camp.)
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I agree with all the contestants that have been mentioned so far, and will add one more from the other side of the pond.
Fiona Wheeler was the first UK contestant who showed the potential of the format. Super emotional, funny, great run.
https://youtu.be/0Xk-bc2C4Zk (https://youtu.be/0Xk-bc2C4Zk)
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I had to look up his name. Tom Colletta. Maybe not an amazing player, but a memorable moment where Regis was building up tension after Colletta had given a final answer.
Eventually Colletta blurted out, "I'm a fat man Regis, my heart can't take it!" After the laughter died down, Regis countered with, "I'm just trying to help you sweat off a few pounds!"
As a fat man myself, I related very well to Tom. :)
That was one of my favorite moments.
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Going back to Travis' point about the syndicated era's way of selectibg contesti:
That was the one thing that always annoyed me about the process because it's not easy to try and sell yourself to the PAs. I don't believe passing the test should be the be-all end-all as to whether you get on the show, but once you got through phase one, you basically have to have stories to tell. And I stress that multiple, because they're not gonna read everything you filled out. No game show contestant coordinators are gonna do that. And not everyone is going to be as freeflowing with the conversation as others.
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I had to look up his name. Tom Colletta. Maybe not an amazing player, but a memorable moment where Regis was building up tension after Colletta had given a final answer.
Eventually Colletta blurted out, "I'm a fat man Regis, my heart can't take it!" After the laughter died down, Regis countered with, "I'm just trying to help you sweat off a few pounds!"
Guy lived near me. Used to see him by the shopping mall all the time playing the arcade games at the laundromat, food store, etc.
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Other than me... :D
Jason Block
Frank Tangredi - "A food question, I knew it'd come in handy someday!"
Stan Fluoride -- from San Francisco, wise-crack, crashed at $250K
Rosie O'Donnell - her PAF appearance, and her $500K win
--Charlie
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My suggestion is Michael Shutterly. He was the first person in the world to see the $1 Million question and he EARNED it with his stack. John Carpenter got an easier stack because the networks were competing to see who could give away a $1 Million first. Michael's $500K question asked him what was the real name of John Paul I, and that was a proper 1/2 million dollar question.
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My initial thought was Doug Van Gundy. His euphoric reaction was the first real clue for me, dopey as it sounds, that this was life-changing money. If there were a second place, I'd have said (the late) Bob-O from Super Millionaire, because he was a perfect character to convey the same reality about the newer, richer game.
-Jason
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My suggestion is Michael Shutterly. He was the first person in the world to see the $1 Million question and he EARNED it with his stack. John Carpenter got an easier stack because the networks were competing to see who could give away a $1 Million first. Michael's $500K question asked him what was the real name of John Paul I, and that was a proper 1/2 million dollar question.
With respect to you and to Michael himself, I'm going to disagree. He certainly earned the half a mil answering tough questions, but I wonder if he cost himself the million by throwing away his Phone a Friend just to get his mom on the show. It's certainly an admirable thing to do, if expensive.
More to the point, I can't call him memorable other than the fact that he was The First. He really stayed in his shell, despite Regis's desperate attempts just to pull SOMETHING out of him.
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My suggestion is Michael Shutterly. He was the first person in the world to see the $1 Million question and he EARNED it with his stack. John Carpenter got an easier stack because the networks were competing to see who could give away a $1 Million first. Michael's $500K question asked him what was the real name of John Paul I, and that was a proper 1/2 million dollar question.
I don't disagree that John had a pretty simple stack (yeah yeah yeah, only easy if you know it), but when he won, the show was still doing the two-week sweeps runs, and Greed was barely on the air. The networks didn't start falling over themselves until a few months later.
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More to the point, I can't call him memorable other than the fact that he was The First. He really stayed in his shell, despite Regis's desperate attempts just to pull SOMETHING out of him.
To that end, the reason why the show resorted to contestant auditions was because so much of the contestant pool was homogeneous. A lot of middle-aged middle-management guys wearing glasses who, at their best, were dad-joking their way through every stack. Most of them had no charisma and the only way they were getting on TV is by virtue of a blind test of knowledge that the show originally used. For every Doug Van Gundy or Neil Larrimore, you had 20 John Cuthbertsons and Dan Dageys. (And no, I don't expect anyone to recognize those last two names.)
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More to the point, I can't call him memorable other than the fact that he was The First. He really stayed in his shell, despite Regis's desperate attempts just to pull SOMETHING out of him.
To that end, the reason why the show resorted to contestant auditions was because so much of the contestant pool was homogeneous. A lot of middle-aged middle-management guys wearing glasses who, at their best, were dad-joking their way through every stack. Most of them had no charisma and the only way they were getting on TV is by virtue of a blind test of knowledge that the show originally used. For every Doug Van Gundy or Neil Larrimore, you had 20 John Cuthbertsons and Dan Dageys. (And no, I don't expect anyone to recognize those last two names.)
John was a UTOC semifinalist, no?
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More to the point, I can't call him memorable other than the fact that he was The First. He really stayed in his shell, despite Regis's desperate attempts just to pull SOMETHING out of him.
To that end, the reason why the show resorted to contestant auditions was because so much of the contestant pool was homogeneous. A lot of middle-aged middle-management guys wearing glasses who, at their best, were dad-joking their way through every stack. Most of them had no charisma and the only way they were getting on TV is by virtue of a blind test of knowledge that the show originally used. For every Doug Van Gundy or Neil Larrimore, you had 20 John Cuthbertsons and Dan Dageys. (And no, I don't expect anyone to recognize those last two names.)
John was a UTOC semifinalist, no?
"He was the highest money winner of the 1993-94 season. An investment analyst from San Diego, California..."
J-Archive has him in the UTOC semis against Brad Freakin' Rutter. Also lists $32,000 won on Millionaire 1999-11-07, as well as having won Ben Stein's Money.
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To that end, the reason why the show resorted to contestant auditions was because so much of the contestant pool was homogeneous. A lot of middle-aged middle-management guys wearing glasses who, at their best, were dad-joking their way through every stack. Most of them had no charisma and the only way they were getting on TV is by virtue of a blind test of knowledge that the show originally used. For every Doug Van Gundy or Neil Larrimore, you had 20 John Cuthbertsons and Dan Dageys. (And no, I don't expect anyone to recognize those last two names.)
Dan Dagey won $32,000 and was a customer service representative. Meh. (Thanks Millionaire Fandom Wiki, for knowing stuff so I don't have to.
I recall a conversation like this--perhaps it was with you, maybe it was with STYDFan/CarShark--but the dichotomy is there. The milquetoast folks were the ones winning the money. So if you want big winners you go with the people who can do the job.
I don't think I could have stood a parade of Dougs and Neils--it was nice to have a friendly and upbeat guy there to break up the monotony but I could relate more to the--let's say charisma challenged. I wasn't going to get on Jeopardy but I could at least dream that it could be me at center stage. When it became "have five stories at the ready and impress the PA who drew the short straw" it became a different situation.