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Tuesday, March 18, 2003
by Tod, contributing writer

I'm a game show fan. Have been all my life ever since I toddled up to the TV set and watched Concentration with Hugh Downs on NBC in the '50s.

I've watched them from the audience, I've been a contestant, and I even worked on staff at several shows. I met my wife when we were both contestants on a game show in 1978, and our two sons are big game show fans, too.

When we got Disneyland Annual Passports in November 2001, our younger son started going to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire — Play It! at Disney's California Adventure park. He encouraged his mother and me to join him at the show, but after one or two turns in the audience and the frustration of not even getting in the top 10, we stopped going. He didn't quit, though, and one evening while we were sitting on Main Street waiting for him to join us, he came up and told us about this kid who got in the Hot Seat, and, “I got the 125,000-point question wrong but I need an adult to come over and sign for my prizes so can you come over there with me?”

Suddenly, we realized: It was actually possible to get in the Hot Seat!

I started going to Millionaire regularly with my wife and younger son. (My older son prefers to go to the Animation Building.) The first time I got in the Hot Seat, I was asked where Dorothy went to Oz from, and I blurted out “Arkansas-final-answer” even though I knew quite well that it was Kansas — I washed out at 300 points, not even getting a hat.

“Toto, I don't think we're in Arkansas anymore...” Tod bombs out on his first try at Who Wants to be a Millionaire. In this scene, Dorothy talks to the Tin Man in the Great Movie Ride attraction at Disney-MGM Studios. Photo by Brian Bennett.

The next player who got in the Hot Seat was somebody I knew (“It's his wife!” Elise, the show host, marveled), and she managed to get up to the 250,000-point question before they pole-axed her with a question about where Prince William is going to college, as if anybody knows or cares. She got the shirt.

In all the times the three of us had made it to the Hot Seat, I was Tail-End Charlie. I never even got a shirt. My wife and son both managed to get a 1000-point hat every time they got in the Hot Seat, and several 32,000-point polo shirts as well. I, on the other hand, had the bad luck to get stuck with 32,000-point questions such as, “Which of these songs is not on the newest Britney Spears album?” and “If you're 'bloviating' what are you doing?” and had no idea what they were and got sent home with a 1000-point hat. No shirt.

My streak of bad luck changed on Friday, February 7, when my son and I went to Millionaire again. We were both eligible, and I got picked for the Hot Seat at the 1:00 show. I sat in the Hot Seat and the host asked me, “How are you?” and I said “Apprehensive.” And I was. I really wanted to get the shirt this time.

“Is anybody here with you?” He asked.

“Yes. My son, over there in the Ring of Fire.”

Among my early questions were:

• Identify a “turnstile”
• Tell which chess piece could jump over other chess pieces – “The horsemen of old could jump over warriors, so it's the knight.”
• Tell which auto company made the Camry – Toyota.
• Translate 2200 hours into a.m./p.m. time – “Midnight is 24 hundred hours, so go back two and it's 10 pm.”
• Divine which of the following animals is not a marsupial: kangaroo, possum, something I don't remember, and grasshopper – “A grasshopper is an insect.”
• Identify Rollie Fingers – Luckily, I'm a baseball fan. Even more luckily, I had met him once. It may not have made an impression on him, but it came in handy for me.

All the while, I'm making it a point to take it seriously. I'm not showing off by throwing out too much information, and above all I am not letting on that I have ever been in the Hot Seat before. I do not look at the big video screen to my right to see my face the size of a tractor tire. I always, always keep my eye on the clock. And I never blurt out, “Final answer”: I wait 'til I'm asked.

Fortunately, the contestant who was in the Hot Seat right before me came back in, and the host showed off his prizes at one of the breaks. Fine with me. Let the other guy have the limelight. If the host had asked me what my favorite attraction was in DCA I would have probably blanked and said, “Space Mountain.” I was focused.

It got tougher after that. I had to identify the author of the book The Corrections. Fortunately, I remembered that he had told Oprah that he wasn't interested in her book club endorsement. The wrong names that were offered were all very ethnic, and when I gave the answer “Jonathan Franzen” I was able to banter with the host when he complained that if the names were wrong anyway why couldn't they be easier to pronounce, like Harold Robbins and Stephen King.

Also: “How much butter is in one standard stick?” I had it down to “1 cup” and “½ cup” so I took the 50:50 hoping one of those two would drop out. Neither one did. I remembered that a stick of butter is 1/4 pound and that's four ounces and that didn't sound like a whole cup to me so I took a good healthy guess and said, “half a cup.”

That was right.

Do you know who Margaret Chase Smith was? Tod did, and won this 500,000 point pin. Photo by Tod.

Which of these four signs is an air sign? Leo, Cancer, Capricorn, or Libra. I did some thinking here. First, I asked if I could call an astrologer, got the laugh, and started thinking out loud. “An air sign would be light, so it wouldn't be Leo... or Cancer.” I then remembered, to myself — silently — the cover from the Firesign Theatre album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, where the four members of the troupe were shown as their astrological signs. I saw in my mind's eye one of the guys with goat horns and I remembered that the reason they called themselves the “Firesign Theatre” was because they were all fire signs and that let Capricorn out, so I said, “and it isn't Capricorn so that leaves Libra” and I pronounced it “lie-bra” with lie rhyming with die, because an old friend of mine from college who was an astrology snob pronounced it “lie-bra” so I did, too.

That was right.

The cover of the Firesign Theater's Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, which helped Tod correctly answer a question. Image courtesy of Amazon.com.

“Who is the first woman to serve in both the House of Representatives and the Senate?” I recognized the name Margaret Chase Smith from my childhood as being a woman Senator, which was a pretty rare thing in the '50s. I also knew Paula Hawkins was a Senator but much later and the other two names were not familiar at all, so I figured that if Margaret Chase Smith was elected to the Senate when I was a kid she had probably served in the House first. I said, “Margaret Chase Smith,” and when prompted, I said it was my final answer.

That was right.

It was time for the million-point question.

To diffuse the tension, again, the host ran through the prizes I would win: The hat. The polo shirt. (Yes!) The 14 collectable pins. The million-point medallion. The leather jacket. And a three-day cruise trip for four on a Disney Cruise ship in the Bahamas. I appreciated the break. I had joked that the heartbeat sound was in sync with my heartbeat during the Margaret Chase Smith question.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Let's do it.”

“Which of these four people did not appear in the 1970 original cast of the Broadway show Follies?”

I look at the question unbelievingly. I can actually do this. I am a big Stephen Sondheim fan. I look at the names. “Okay, I know that they had a lot of old Hollywood hands in that cast, and I know Gene Nelson was there, and Yvonne DeCarlo, and Alexis Smith. So I'll say that fourth person [I read it, but I don't remember the name now] wasn't in the cast.”

The host said I had two lifelines left— did I want to use one?

“No.”

I hear gasps from the audience.

I did not point out that the chances were pretty slim that the audience — or a passing stranger — would know this. The odds are they weren't even born in 1970.

“Is that your final answer?”

“Yes.”

A long, excruciating pause.

“Well...” he says quietly calmly. “You're going to the Bahamas.”

Applause!

Music, very loud!

Flashing lights!

Streams of confetti cascading down!

I reached up and grabbed for it, slowly, like a baby reaching for something pretty. A cast member walked up with a little sign that said “Million Point Winner.” The host called my son to the stage, congratulated us, enumerated the prizes again, and sent us on our way offstage. I remember picking up a piece of confetti and waving at the crowd, saying, “Thank you one and all!” on my way out.

Walking offstage, we were met by smiling, applauding cast members. One handed me a prize receipt to sign and we went to the backstage prize office, past the cast break room (more applause as I walked past the open door), into the prize office.

The prize office is a small utilitarian room with a wall unit along one wall holding a desktop workspace, a computer with printer, and a couple of cabinets — plus a large round table that is too big for the room. Also a water cooler, which I needed badly. My throat was parched. The prize coordinator congratulated me, and started handing me papers to sign.

“You take an XL? I sent for an XL jacket.”

“That should be fine. If it doesn't fit, we can try again,” I smiled. He laughed at that.

Another cast member walked in. “We were going to hold you over, but we decided to let you play,” he tells me with a smile as we shake hands.

“Thanks,” I say, sincerely.

A woman walks in with the jacket. I had previously told my son that if I won the million points, he could have the leather jacket. I changed my mind the moment I saw it. Buttery soft, rich black leather, embroidered with the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire — Play It! logo about a foot in diameter, with “I'm a million point winner” embroidered on the front.

I try it on. It fits perfectly. It feels great. It smells great.

The prize coordinator starts laying out the other goodies on the table: the 14 pins, the hat, the shirt (finally, the shirt! ), the medallion. I inspect them carefully, because I know once I walk out the door, they cannot be replaced. This irritates my son, who really wants to get back and play the 2:00 show.

Tod's winner medal. Photo by Tod.

“Don't worry. I'll get you in,” the cast member reassures him.

We're called back to the stage to pose for pictures with the host. While we were chatting, the host asks me one question I never have a good answer for: “Are there any areas that you don't know a lot about?” Like I can give you a list of things I don't know.

Back in the prize office, the coordinator helps me get the leather jacket in a merchandise bag and we bag all the stuff as my son, champing at the bit, waits impatiently to go back. The medallion is defective — the lanyard falls off when I pick it up — so they have to get me another. The cast member walks us into the soundstage through the back door and I sit in the low-rise section so he can find us again easily. The stage manager walks up and shakes my hand. “Congratulations,” he smiles. “I knew you could do it.” The sound engineer waves, gives me a thumbs up. And that's when the warm-up for the next show started.

A nice thing about winning is that moment of celebrity. People who had been in the show came up to me in the park for the next hour or so and congratulated me

And, best of all, I saw Elise, one of the hosts, on her way to lunch. She walked up to me, and shook my hand and congratulated me.

I didn't want to go back to the Millionaire stage that day — that would be showing off — but I had to. When I was putting my stuff in the car, my son got in the Hot Seat. And I had to sign for his prizes.

He didn't win the million.

Not yet.

Prince William attended the royally famous Eton College for his prep work, and is currently attending St. Andrews in Scotland for his undergraduate studies.

To bloviate: To speak or write verbosely and windily.

Tod is an active member of MousePlanet's MousePad discussion forum. He has been a frequent Disneyland guest since the park opened in 1955 and was a cast member briefly in the mid-1990s. Tod's impressive qualifications for being a game show contestant include:

• The Cross-Wits: contestant, 1976
• Jeopardy! 1-day champion, 1978
• Card Sharks: PA/Researcher 1980-1981
• Jeopardy! research staff, 1985-1990
• The Challengers: Research Director 1990-1991

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