SlightlyGoofy said:
Hi Rob
I was distracted and missed the first part of your appearance but I did catch your appearance on Millionaire. You looked much as I had thought you would and remembered the appearance from the original show. How long as it been since you were on? You were much calmer than I am.
The show originally aired on July 19, 2001. I was 35 at the time. As for being calm, I was far from it, at least initially. I didn't really calm down much until about the 16K question. A couple of the early questions, the 1K Matrix question and 2K Turkey trussing question really rattled me and that led to me burn a lifeline too early on the 4K White House burning question which I knew before the choices came up. You see, at that time, I hadn't seen "The Matrix" and I'd not heard of trussing a turkey, but I had seen the movie trailers and did know that truss meant tie so finally got enough courage to go with the most obvious answers.
Funny how everyone thinks I was calm though. After the show originally aired, people would come up to my wife and I and talk about how calm I was and how nervous she looked while sitting in the audience. LOL
SlightlyGoofy said:
LOL on the winning amounts. I play a computer version of the game and it has the old amounts. I do not have time to actually watch the show anymore. I have a retired husband and he watches hours and hours of it but I have painting, wallpapering, yardwork, housework, grandkids to watch and the tutoring I do along with many other duties. I am looking forward to retirement but fear it will only happen when they slam the casket shut.
Yes, the syndicated show now has different dollar amounts. The 32K has been replaced with 25K, the 64K is now 50K, and the 125K is now 100K. Otherwise, the amounts are the same. The other difference is that if you successfully answer the 25K question, you now get an additional lifeline. It allows you to switch any one question above that level. It most often gets burned on the 50K question. Oh, one other difference, the highest dollar amounts are now payed as annuities instead of a lump sum.
SlightlyGoofy said:
Surely they must have some sort of time limit as they could not be subjective in telling people to hurry up and answer as some would get more time than others and cry foul. Thinking too much can foul you up as much as answering too quickly IMO.
Yes, there is some time limit, but it is somewhat subjective based on what the contestant is doing. If it appears that they are thinking it out, particularly if they are talking through it, then they are allowed a bit more time I think then someone who is just sitting there with a blank expression. I think they allow at least 5 minutes before getting worked up though. In the old days, some contestants took over 45 minutes to give an answer. In my case, it just felt like I was taking that long. I'm certain from what others have told me that I answered quite quickly overall.
SlightlyGoofy said:
I am going to practice differently and instead of just doing it all on the computer I am going to start saying the answer and FA out loud so I can get into the cadence of the game. If I should be lucky enough to ever get on I will be sure to ask if you would be one of my lifelines. I will need all the help I can get.
Slightly Goofy/Linda
Speaking of Final Answer, despite the editing which sometimes doesn't show it, the contestant must say Final Answer after each and every question. On the lower level questions, you often don't see that on the show.
I hope next year WIAW proves much more fruitful for the people on the DIS. This year the random draw worked against most of them. I guess that is to be expected when they draw only 320 numbers out of 1000 or so in line.
