Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

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morbeedo
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

My Plus One didn’t know Oscar the Grouch
Spoiler
Really curious what Ask the Audience would have returned on that one. With the 50/50, what answers would have remained? Bert and Oscar the Grouch? I said I was leaning towards Bert but I had zero confidence. Zero. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks that I should have saved a few lifelines. But I could have easily missed on a 50/50 guess. There was no logical path to the answer. Is it true that the same actor voices Bert and Ernie? And are they really gay? So many questions! All I could do was smile and shake my head.

My game was pure adrenaline laced with exhaustion and fear. Like I said at $3K, it’s easy! until it’s not

I had to spend 5 minutes at work explaining the FIRST QUESTION to someone. Yes, it was tricky, and even I was thrown, but without even seeing the question, you pick the answer that’s not like the others: Dale Earnhardt, Jr! (He still doesn’t understand the question). And someone else said, “my husband and I both thought you were out on the first question!”

Wait, what?!?

I watched part two in the office with work people and when it was all over and I had just walked with $30K, someone said, how much did you win? Almost lost my mind. So many stupid questions from the peanut gallery leading up to the airing

Sometimes Chris reads the question in a way that makes it hard to follow, emphasizing the wrong words. I don’t even think I knew what the Marlon Brando quote meant in that moment. My experience standing there, gripping the podium, staring at the 20,000 pt. sans serif letters on the screen, mind racing, was to scan the question for key information and then fill in the rest. On John Bardeen, panic set in before I could very deliberately go answer by answer, has anyone won this award more than once?

What a whirlwind! The celebrity judges pushed my taping til the very end of the day. Anne from Kansas was playing Rock Paper Scissors and the producer came to the Air Stream and said, looks like we’re going to bump you til tomorrow, which really sounded like the best idea at that late hour. Then, Anne bombed out on the Jack Ruby question and they practically shoved me out on stage. With all the bumping, I wonder if any potential contestants found out on the last tape day of the season that they were never getting out on that stage?

I had little time to study for the show, or even settle on a strategy, but I did write down Nobel winners as a study topic. Alas, never got to it

Overall, a great experience but damn, it was 106 in Vegas in the summer

Thanks for all the support. I was really afraid my episode would be boring and I’d come off looking like an idiot! But it all turned out ok!

And $30K is a nice chunk of change! Thank you, North Dakota! You came into my life in Final Jeopardy on that other game show! I’m going to spend every penny on frivolities and extravagances! New home computer, sewing machine and clown theater classes!

And who knows? Maybe I’ll find a way to start a line of cat furniture!
Last edited by morbeedo on Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:58 am, edited 8 times in total.
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JayK33
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by JayK33 »

Congrats on a good game!
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dinghammer
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by dinghammer »

Congrats! That seemed like a bit of a YEKIOYD stack, and at least you knew one of them outright. I hope you can at least get a [imagine I thought of a really great cat-based pun on the Eames Chair here] for your cats.

For the Caroll Spinney question,
Spoiler
at first I thought it was 100% YEKIOYD, but after thinking about it for a while, I think there were some ways to narrow down the answers. But there are some issues with those ways.

First, if you know how Big Bird is operated (Spinney's right hand controlling the head/beak, and his left hand in the left hand), you can imagine that the other muppet is operated in a similar way, which eliminates Bert and Grover (arms operated by rods). So which of Oscar or Cookie Monster has one hand that moves a lot more than the other? I thought it would be Oscar, but based on the first video I found of each of them with a quick search, they seem to have about the same amount of hand mobility -- lots. That might have been a bad sample, though.

Second is the Frank Oz issue. I was pretty sure both Grover and Cookie Monster were mostly performed by Frank Oz, which left Oscar and Bert unknown, and combined with the first narrowing method, that leaves Oscar as the answer. It turns out Oz also did Bert, which leaves only Oscar.

Now, the major issue with both these methods is obvious: if you know that much about how the various muppets are operated and/or which ones Frank Oz performed, you're probably also going to know which one Caroll Spinney was without having to narrow anything down. I knew it before the options were revealed, but I failed to transfer that knowledge through the TV (and time). Sorry.
Good future-luck on Jeopardy! in a year!
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morbeedo
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

Wish we could resurrect John Bardeen and get him working on that whole screaming at the television thing

Dinghammer - bravo. that’s some serious esoterica. I love it! The whole Muppets / Sesame Street thing is a black hole for me, so I don’t feel bad about it, but I almost told Chris you’re a sick SOB for asking me that. I’ve read Proust- in French!! and I’ve lived in Africa!

Wish they had thrown me the question, which city is 12 hours ahead of NYC in Standard Time, for $50K, but hey, I didn’t leave with $5K

I haven’t met any of you people IRL but I’m happy to know you all. Non-trivial people can’t talk about the game the way you can. They just don’t get it
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by twelvefootboy »

morbeedo wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:43 am Wish we could resurrect John Bardeen and get him working on that whole screaming at the television thing

Dinghammer - bravo. that’s some serious esoterica.
Plural form of esotericum?? We have a Latin meme going here. I don't even want to go there for the plural form of erotica :lol:
I haven’t met any of you people IRL but I’m happy to know you all. Non-trivial people can’t talk about the game the way you can. They just don’t get it
I get this comment, even as a semi-trivialist. My friends think I could be on the show, but I barely scrape above the bottom on the test and probably have $15K Coryats. Never mind the black holes in pop culture and weaknesses in geography ;).

Post a pic of your cat house. Don't forget Uncle Sam for a good 30% of your windfall. Thanks for putting it out there and sharing the ride!
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alietr
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

twelvefootboy wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 10:41 am Post a pic of your cat house.
Hey! This is a family discussion board. There will be no pictures of cat houses on here!
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by classicroadster »

Well done Morbeedo! Tough set of questions especially after watching Davids set right after yours.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Woof »

Well done indeed, morbeedo. I would have done exactly what you did on the $50K. Your description of your experience reminds me of a comment made by Bob Harris in his book. People watching the show have no idea how tense and pressure-packed the onstage experience might be. What looks simple and easy from the comfort of your living room might feel quite different under the lights onstage, so it makes sense to try to simulate the onstage experience at home to help prepare yourself psychologically. I was called up to stage as a Plus One only because my friend Stan, after mentioning what he thought the answer was to the $10K question, heard an audible gasp from the audience that shook his confidence. He called me up basically to calm himself back down and get my reassurance that his choice was correct. As it happened, I wouldn't have been able to give him any additional insight on the $30K question, so no blood no foul, but these are the sort of decisions that happen under the harsh stage lights.
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morbeedo
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

TIL: TH in a Sanskrit transliteration is never pronounced like the TH in “the,” but rather like the Ts in “light.” The correct pronunciation of the word “hatha” for example is “ha-ta,” not “ha-tha.”

Kudos to Chris for doing his homework
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Linear Gnome »

Excellent job, morbeedo! You played great and came across great. (And I agree that your stack was much harder than David's.)

I hope the $30K was some consolation for your current limbo status. It's easy for me to say, but I predict that you'll appear on that other show in due course.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

This is the video for today's 11/16 episode with the contestant randomly selected to play again. The thumbnail is a spoiler for the person selected though not any question or answers.
Spoiler
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MinnesotaMyron »

MarkBarrett wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:58 pm This is the video for today's 11/16 episode with the contestant randomly selected to play again. The thumbnail is a spoiler for the person selected though not any question or answers.
Spoiler
That's who I would have guessed was coming back. I was a little surprised
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That the promo spot somehow didn't have video available for one kid. What's up with that?
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by seaborgium »

MinnesotaMyron wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:34 pm
MarkBarrett wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:58 pm This is the video for today's 11/16 episode with the contestant randomly selected to play again. The thumbnail is a spoiler for the person selected though not any question or answers.
Spoiler
That's who I would have guessed was coming back. I was a little surprised
Spoiler
That the promo spot somehow didn't have video available for one kid. What's up with that?
I'm guessing "MillionaireWanted38" with its uploads of full weeks of episodes is not an official channel.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

Spoiler Alert: Deeply personal, upsetting news and probably oversharing
Spoiler
I'm going to share something real, because we're all human and dealing with various degrees of pain, grief and distress, and it's related to my experience on Millionaire. I haven't spoken to my parents since July last year, because my mother is a pathological narcissist and emotional terrorist. I was never close with my father and he lives under my mother's death grip, so he's a lost cause but sick himself with clinical depression and now Parkinson's. They are in their very early 70s

I sent them the news about the show, because this sort of thing is a really big deal for some people. Well, my father watched the show and called to tell me how much he loved me and missed me and how well I did and how his life is a living hell and by the way, how last month he attempted suicide by overdosing on his medication and spent 3 weeks in the hospital plus another week under psychiatric hold, and "why didn't you call?"

Um. Because no one told me???

I did get a cryptic message from a family member around that time, "Call your mother. Don't ask why. Leave me out of it!", which wasn't very compelling

All you need to know is I'm doing fine. I spent the day in a shock, but I have people I can talk to about this stuff, namely my Plus One, one of the other eccentrics in my family who's known me my whole life

I'm sorry if this causes you distress, but I did warn you!
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by twelvefootboy »

Slightly off-topic, but this is the Millionaire board -
Morbeedo's 15 minutes of fame is the first show I've seen since the Regis days. This show may be more watchable than I remembered it, at least with the advantage of the DVD clicker. I will capture a few eps as backup trivia mind candy on my DVR. Now to the off-topic part:

Did I see that they have awarded $100 million in all their games? How does that stack up with Jeopardy? 7 thousand episodes x 20K/episode is about $140 million so I guess it's not as remarkable as I thought, but their burn rate must be at least 10X. The chintzy payout to 2nd and 3rd is still a huge disappointment to me because they are using contestants to subsidize the expenses they should bear. Can't they charge the denture labs, funeral homes, and ambulance chasers a little more so they can stop stiffing ordinary people? :lol:

Sorry if this info is out there, I'm just trolling for someone with a recent tally or estimate.

eta - morbeedo, i sent u a pm, but i don't know if it went as i still can't solve the pm paradigm. if u don't get it, at least say hi to your cats from my cats, the country cousins who sleep in a milk barn.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

Second chance:
Spoiler
Not to take anything away from Shiva, but holy cow, that stack was incredibly easy. Only the $100k even made me pause.
Michael, I'm so sorry to hear that. Family issues can really suck. I wish you call the best.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

alietr wrote: Sun Nov 18, 2018 7:27 pm Michael, I'm so sorry to hear that. Family issues can really suck. I wish you all the best.
Thanks so much for that. Let’s get back to the game discussion now. I really brought down the room, lol
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

Images only of the conclusion of Shiva Oswal returning to play on the 11/19 show:
Spoiler
Spoiler
Image
Next:
Spoiler
Image
Next:
Spoiler
Image
Next:
Spoiler
Comments: The audience is not likely to be so helpful for $250K and I could smell a New York subway rat coming. Halloween (is #5) was out in my mind. For the other three I suspected Super Bowl (is #2) was a trap. In my mind Thanksgiving Eve (is #4) sounded as likely to me as NYE (NYD is #3). That’s okay, Shiva will still be all right with his $50K plus previous winnings

Next:
Spoiler
Jamie Huston began play and is very entertaining. If he ever tried out for J! then shame on the contestant coordinators for not picking him. If has yet to try out for J! then he should do that when eligible.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by acthomas »

MarkBarrett wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 12:22 pm Next:
Spoiler
Image
This same question came up in the last couple of weeks on a trivia app -- HQ or Confetti, I forget which -- and many of us agreed, including me.
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Re: Millionaire 2018-19 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

My logic behind Shiva's $250,000 question.
Spoiler
New Year's Eve is practically celebrated until after midnight throughout all US time zones. The Super Bowl usually ends circa 11 P. M. EST. I wouldn't expect guests to be making deliveries after the game ends.
Douglas Squasoni
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