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Part I - The Prep

We were home from Europe for literally two hours, when my cell phone rang, and it was one of the producers from Who Wants to be a Millionaire inviting me to come out to Las Vegas that Friday and Monday to tape for the show. OK, just a few problems: we were both dead tired, that gave me a minimal amount of time to make travel arrangements to get out there, Carol Anne didn't know if she could get time off, I had to find a Plus 1 to go out to Vegas as well (you cannot tape if you don't have a Plus 1), and the biggest problem ... I already had a business trip planned for that Monday involving several stops in Georgia and Florida. And I didn't have any time to deal with any of this since I had just been away from work for two weeks and had lots of catching up to do. In addition, I was once called to be on Win Ben Stein's Money but had to turn them down because I was testifying as an expert at a trial, and they never did call back. Therefore, I didn't want to say I was unavailable. So my excitement was immediately tempered by high anxiety about dealing with all of those factors.

The first issue was to line up my Plus 1 on very short notice. Since I knew I was in the contestant pool, I had already put out some feelers among my trivia friends. My first choice has Pam Mueller (Harvard-educated lawyer, trivia queen extraordinaire, and someone who balanced me out both in age and gender). Alas, she was unavailable (why do lawyers have to be busy?). My second choice was Scott Blish (no offense, Scott!), a two-time winner of the online trivia league I'm in, and one of true elite among trivia minds in the country. Much to my relief, Scott was available and amenable. So, one big problem out of the way.

Now, how do I deal with the travel for myself. I might be coming back Saturday, I might have to go straight to Atlanta. It seemed like Southwest was the only option since I could make changes without incurring a ridiculous fee. Booking last minute fares is no picnic. Mine wasn't too too bad, but Carol Anne had to wait until after Monday to ask her bosses for the time off on Thursday and Friday, and by then, they had gotten much worse. She finally got herself booked on my flights (again, much to my relief) and at least the travel part was taken care of. I figured that if I had to stay over to tape on Monday, I would deal with rearranging my travel over the weekend. It was costing us a non-insignificant amount to get out there, and I wasn't guaranteed to win anything. At last we were all set to go out there, so those hurdles had been conquered (temporarily at least).

In my exchanges over the week with my producer, Chad (great guy), I told him that it was going to cause me lots of problems if I stayed over on Monday, but I was willing to do so. He said they would do what they could to get me on on Friday, but he couldn't guarantee anything. So my anxiety level was a little reduced, but not by a lot.

Next problem – they send me the wardrobe requirements, which are "Sunday best, no blue" on Monday. Crud. Everything nice that I have is blue! I try on a few of my outfits I haven’t worn in years and years, and all except one jacket I bought recently don’t fit. More panic. So we run out to Nordstrom Rack up the street that evening and find a reasonably good suit at a reasonable price. Next problem: getting it altered. I call up the dry cleaners down the block the next night, and they can do it. Rush over there, and then pick it up later, send Chad the pictures to get approval, and he gives the OK. Another problem solved. And of course, once we get to the Green Room, Scott and I are the only men dressed up. Sigh again.

We arranged our flights so we would get in to Las Vegas at a reasonable hour and get a good night's rest (one thing I definitely lacked for my Jeopardy appearance). Our flight to St. Louis was fine, but when we got to St. Louis, we saw that our connection to Las Vegas was delayed. By about two hours. As if that wasn't bad enough, some guy sitting next to us said something about how he heard the flight was going to be canceled (and it was the last one of the day to there). Anxiety level once again returns to extreme levels. And we kept getting Southwest notifications pushing back our departure time. Finally, I saw on FlightAware that our incoming flight was on its way, so we were relatively sure we were going to make it to Vegas. We ended up getting in around 10:00 PDT, which was 1:00 AM to us, got to the hotel, and quickly crashed.

Part 2 - The Show

Friday morning, it was off to the studio to be there by 8:30. We got all of our various briefings through the morning, signed our various papers, and then got to ... wait in the Green Room with the other contestants and their Plus 1s. Finally, we were led out to stage for our practice and various instructions on what we were supposed to do when we were onstage. They still had two contestants held over from the previous day, so they were going to go first. Chad told me they were aware of my situation, and do what they could to acommodate me. Then they took one woman out, and a while later, they called Scott and me out. Very, very encouraging sign I was going to go that day. We got our makeup and hair (such as it is) done, and I got mic'ed up for a short interview, and then ... back to the Green Room to wait some more. We could hear the applause and music, but not much more from there.

In the Green Room, they played episodes from previous seasons. For some reason, I felt like I was missing question after question, so I was getting increasingly despondent that I was going to do terribly once I got up there. Crap, I couldn't name three presidents in a row whose first names start with the same letter! Yet, Scott and others in the room were blurting out answers left and right. Another sigh. Finally, I got called out of the Green Room to get mic'ed up again to go on. We're in the Ready Room (now a trailer), and wait around for a while until we're told .... ooh, sorry, they've decided to do lunch before you go on. And there's a celebrity (I later learned was the Backstreet Boys) to tape as well, but they're going after me. Sigh. Back to the Green Room and grab one of the sandwiches they'd brought in earlier. Lunch is over, back to the trailer, we'll mic you up again, you're going on now ... oh, wait, they're going to do the celebrities first after all. AAAAUGH! So we're hanging out in the trailer for a while more, and (finally, after quite a while) THIS IS IT!!!! At that point, I was just really relieved that I wasn't going to be there on Monday.

I get on stage, they introduce me to Chris Harrison (he is exceptionally nice in person, just as he comes across on the show), show Scott to his seat in the audience, and it's show time. The lights, the music, the audience, the applause ... all a bit overwhelming. Chris asks a few questions, and of course I have a few wisecracks I'd planned out. I did notice they cut one out -- Chris was saying how the dollars and difficulty increase, and I asked if I could start at the top. Which Chris quickly shot down.

One joke that I chickened out of -- on the first question, I was going to give an obviously wrong answer, and then when Chris asked if that was my final decision, I was going to use my best condescending dad voice to say, "Oh, Christopher, no" and then give the right answer. But I was concerned that something might go wrong. The other shtick I was going to do was refuse to say "Final Answer" and use every possible euphemism for it (which is allowed). But I scared myself off that as well.

So, the first question comes up. I take my time, read it carefully, get it right, and off we go! They were all pretty easy and obvious for me up to that critical $5,000 threshold. Once I got that critical $5,000 question right, I relaxed a little knowing that at least the travel expenses were now covered (not the bar tab as I said, and not that I'd ever spend that much on alcohol). The $7,000 question on the background of the Mona Lisa almost threw me -- Carol Anne says I later told her that I think I was thinking of Whistler's Mother instead of the Mona Lisa when I was envisioning the painting, so I was a little lucky there. The $20,000 question on Saudi Arabia I knew cold, but figured I'd work through it nonetheless (as they encourage you to do). Then the $30,000 question about a rapper. Uh oh, I was afraid of this. When it came up, I thought it was going to be about the Black Panthers (which I probably would have known), but no, it was a rap artist question. Ugh. I was actually leaning toward Tupac because I knew about the revolutionary South American leader called Tupac Amaru, and figured a revolutionary group would name one of their kids after a revolutionary. Nevertheless, with the dollar amounts getting higher, it was time to ask the audience before they got useless (this was right up there alley). Hmmm ... two answers came up with high numbers, and one was barely a majority. But since my gut was telling me Tupac and the audience (barely) agreed with that I decided to go for it. Whew! Correct again!

I have to say that a geography question and a finance question, well, I just couldn't ask for anything more in my wheelhouse. I get the $50,000 right (now I am GUARANTEED of leaving with $50,000), and I was elated. They did cut out the part where I was talking about having a billionaire friend who made a fortune that day. When I got it right, I did my little victory lap, which did seem to both surprise and amuse Chris. During the break, he did ask me how my friend had become a mult-billionaire, and I told him he runs a hedge fund. He nodded in understanding.

Then comes the $100,000 question (which is essentially a free guess), and I still have two lifelines left. Alright! A space question! Another wheelhouse! Uh, wait, I've never heard of this and I have No. Damn. Clue. Except I think I can eliminate one of the answers, but only one. OK, time to bring Scott down. Please say you know this! Please, please! Scott gets there, and he doesn't know it. He comes down, and basically has the answer nailed, but then we start discussing it. We bat it around for a while, and I decide I have to use my last lifeline, the 50/50. It eliminates one of the answers we were considering, but didn't help much (as you can hear the audience sighing). We bat it around some more, and then Chris prods me to give an answer. It was literally a coin flip at that point (and I wish I still had my lucky coin that I lost a few years ago -- it would have been pretty funny to pull it out and use it to make my decision). And I went the wrong way. Unfortunately, we focused more on their answer choices than the reality of space flight at that point in time. Truth be told, they have a lot of wacky questions at that level, but this one was totally fair to ask. The next morning, I'm lying in bed running it all over again in my head, and I realize if I had just said "I wonder if it was on purpose or not?" thinking they may have gotten in there by accident, I would have absolutely gone with fruit flies and gotten it right. I had the wrong idea; they sent them up on purpose, but it would have gotten me to the right answer for the wrong reason. So no $100,000 for me.

I was elated at winning as much as I did, and everyone on the crew on the way out said how great I was out there. And Carol Anne told me how her neighbors in the audience were impressed. So I felt really good and left there really happy. In the following days, I started ruing missing the question more and more, but it's something I can live with, as opposed to how poorly I felt about how I did on Jeopardy when I was on. I felt vindicated in a lot of ways. Winning more was oh so close, but I really can't complain.

The taping was in August, and you're not supposed to tell anyone how you did (and I didn't!), so the wait from then until May was excruciating. But then we had a lovely viewing party (thanks to Carole Anne) this Saturday and got to watch with a bunch of our friends and everyone enjoyed. And that sums up my Who Wants to be a Millionaire experience.

Good stuff, thanks for putting this out for people to read.

While it's fun for us to read this, it's even better for you to get everything down on paper while it's fresh so you can always refer to it months and years down the road. So if there's more you think or want to put down, do so. Not for us, for you. Or have a private compilation that you can peruse when you want.

And don't fret about not getting the coin flip correct. So long as you did the best you could, you did all you could do. And you've got 5 figures in green to prove it.

Congrats on your success. I'm not watching the show much, but it seems like even reaching the $100K mark doesn't seem to happen often as much as it used to. So that alone is something to congratulate.

As for your $100K question, I can't say at all that I'd have gotten it right, but seeing the answer afterwards, I think I may have heard of it before somewhere.

So here's something grating me -- they call them 'winnings'. I feel like they're 'earnings'. Being able to answer questions on a quiz show is the result of work over many years. Just look at Holzhauer ... is that random? And besides, they get taxed as earnings as well. For some reason it's been bugging me a bit, but I am not complaining about the average friend saying that, mind you.

Golf wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2019 11:31 pm While it's fun for us to read this, it's even better for you to get everything down on paper while it's fresh so you can always refer to it months and years down the road. So if there's more you think or want to put down, do so. Not for us, for you. Or have a private compilation that you can peruse when you want.

Yes, it was more for me. Most of it was written contemporaneously, but I added a few things since I've been able to actually watch it.

alietr wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 8:57 am So here's something grating me -- they call them 'winnings'. I feel like they're 'earnings'. Being able to answer questions on a quiz show is the result of work over many years. Just look at Holzhauer ... is that random? And besides, they get taxed as earnings as well. For some reason it's been bugging me a bit, but I am not complaining about the average friend saying that, mind you.

Unless I'm unaware of some dramatic recent change, they do not get taxed as earnings, but if you really want to pay Medicare tax on them, go ahead and declare them as earnings.

gnash wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 9:49 am

alietr wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 8:57 am So here's something grating me -- they call them 'winnings'. I feel like they're 'earnings'. Being able to answer questions on a quiz show is the result of work over many years. Just look at Holzhauer ... is that random? And besides, they get taxed as earnings as well. For some reason it's been bugging me a bit, but I am not complaining about the average friend saying that, mind you.

Unless I'm unaware of some dramatic recent change, they do not get taxed as earnings, but if you really want to pay Medicare tax on them, go ahead and declare them as earnings.

Learn something every day.

Your sharing about your Millionaire experience was a good read and well done, Thank you for posting for all of us to see.

To quote Dr. Seuss from Horton Hatches the Egg, "And it should be, it should be, it SHOULD be like that!" for you to get a nice pay day along with a successful game show appearance after all you have done for creating and maintaining the wonderful community we have here.

I really enjoyed reading this! I had considered trying for Millionaire (before my cognitive decline), but never did so. It is surprising to learn that they give such short notice. Many people would have had to turn down the offer because they just couldn't make all the necessary arrangements so quickly. Jeopardy! gave me a month's notice, which I think is appropriate.

It's good to know that Chris Harrison is a nice guy. An acquaintance of mine who knew him from his years at Oklahoma City University told me that Chris was "something that rhymes with gas-hole" (no kidding, that's how we talk in Oklahoma).

alietr wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 8:57 am So here's something grating me -- they call them 'winnings'. I feel like they're 'earnings'. Being able to answer questions on a quiz show is the result of work over many years. Just look at Holzhauer ... is that random? And besides, they get taxed as earnings as well. For some reason it's been bugging me a bit, but I am not complaining about the average friend saying that, mind you.

For many here they are earnings. For most they are winnings. That's why I get so frustrated with most contestants, they've been given the chance of a lifetime and won't lift a finger to actually work at it with this type of money at stake.

Personally, I never cared how it was referred to. I simply wanted and needed the money. The notoriety and being able to give the metaphorical finger to a bunch of people out there was a nice bonus however.

You've got $50,000, you can refer to it however you want. It's yours. And however some random refers to it won't change the fact that you have it.

Congrats, Andy!

The "no blue" rule also eliminated 90% of my wardrobe

Where did you audition for the show?

morbeedo wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 12:16 pm Congrats, Andy!

The "no blue" rule also eliminated 90% of my wardrobe

Where did you audition for the show?

I submitted a video. I put on a fedora and did a pretty goofy sendup of being "The Most Interesting Contestant in the World". I didn't have high hopes that they would pay much attention, but I also threw in a reminder about them having previously almost having me on back in Stamford. I guess it worked!

Golf wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 11:58 am The notoriety and being able to give the metaphorical finger to a bunch of people out there was a nice bonus however.

Where can I find your episode?

pinkfreud wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 11:42 am I really enjoyed reading this! I had considered trying for Millionaire (before my cognitive decline), but never did so. It is surprising to learn that they give such short notice. Many people would have had to turn down the offer because they just couldn't make all the necessary arrangements so quickly. Jeopardy! gave me a month's notice, which I think is appropriate.

It's good to know that Chris Harrison is a nice guy. An acquaintance of mine who knew him from his years at Oklahoma City University told me that Chris was "something that rhymes with gas-hole" (no kidding, that's how we talk in Oklahoma).

not to mention last minute arifare in this country is ridiculously high...need to get high up there to make it worthwhile..otherwise it could end up being a loss after taxes

alietr wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2019 8:58 pm Part I - The Prep

We were home from Europe for literally two hours, when my cell phone rang, and it was one of the producers from Who Wants to be a Millionaire inviting me to come out to Las Vegas that Friday and Monday to tape for the show. OK, just a few problems: we were both dead tired, that gave me a minimal amount of time to make travel arrangements to get out there, Carol Anne didn't know if she could get time off, I had to find a Plus 1 to go out to Vegas as well (you cannot tape if you don't have a Plus 1), and the biggest problem ... I already had a business trip planned for that Monday involving several stops in Georgia and Florida. And I didn't have any time to deal with any of this since I had just been away from work for two weeks and had lots of catching up to do. In addition, I was once called to be on Win Ben Stein's Money but had to turn them down because I was testifying as an expert at a trial, and they never did call back. Therefore, I didn't want to say I was unavailable. So my excitement was immediately tempered by high anxiety about dealing with all of those factors.

The first issue was to line up my Plus 1 on very short notice. Since I knew I was in the contestant pool, I had already put out some feelers among my trivia friends. My first choice has Pam Mueller (Harvard-educated lawyer, trivia queen extraordinaire, and someone who balanced me out both in age and gender). Alas, she was unavailable (why do lawyers have to be busy?). My second choice was Scott Blish (no offense, Scott!), a two-time winner of the online trivia league I'm in, and one of true elite among trivia minds in the country. Much to my relief, Scott was available and amenable. So, one big problem out of the way.

Now, how do I deal with the travel for myself. I might be coming back Saturday, I might have to go straight to Atlanta. It seemed like Southwest was the only option since I could make changes without incurring a ridiculous fee. Booking last minute fares is no picnic. Mine wasn't too too bad, but Carol Anne had to wait until after Monday to ask her bosses for the time off on Thursday and Friday, and by then, they had gotten much worse. She finally got herself booked on my flights (again, much to my relief) and at least the travel part was taken care of. I figured that if I had to stay over to tape on Monday, I would deal with rearranging my travel over the weekend. It was costing us a non-insignificant amount to get out there, and I wasn't guaranteed to win anything. At last we were all set to go out there, so those hurdles had been conquered (temporarily at least).

In my exchanges over the week with my producer, Chad (great guy), I told him that it was going to cause me lots of problems if I stayed over on Monday, but I was willing to do so. He said they would do what they could to get me on on Friday, but he couldn't guarantee anything. So my anxiety level was a little reduced, but not by a lot.

Next problem – they send me the wardrobe requirements, which are "Sunday best, no blue" on Monday. Crud. Everything nice that I have is blue! I try on a few of my outfits I haven’t worn in years and years, and all except one jacket I bought recently don’t fit. More panic. So we run out to Nordstrom Rack up the street that evening and find a reasonably good suit at a reasonable price. Next problem: getting it altered. I call up the dry cleaners down the block the next night, and they can do it. Rush over there, and then pick it up later, send Chad the pictures to get approval, and he gives the OK. Another problem solved. And of course, once we get to the Green Room, Scott and I are the only men dressed up. Sigh again.

We arranged our flights so we would get in to Las Vegas at a reasonable hour and get a good night's rest (one thing I definitely lacked for my Jeopardy appearance). Our flight to St. Louis was fine, but when we got to St. Louis, we saw that our connection to Las Vegas was delayed. By about two hours. As if that wasn't bad enough, some guy sitting next to us said something about how he heard the flight was going to be canceled (and it was the last one of the day to there). Anxiety level once again returns to extreme levels. And we kept getting Southwest notifications pushing back our departure time. Finally, I saw on FlightAware that our incoming flight was on its way, so we were relatively sure we were going to make it to Vegas. We ended up getting in around 10:00 PDT, which was 1:00 AM to us, got to the hotel, and quickly crashed.

so would a cannibal corpse t-shirt be a no go?

Thank you for such an informative post about your experience. It was a pleasure to see you perform so well. If you were nervous it certainly did not show.

morbeedo wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 5:25 pm

Golf wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 11:58 am The notoriety and being able to give the metaphorical finger to a bunch of people out there was a nice bonus however.

Where can I find your episode?

alietr wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 7:36 pm

morbeedo wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 5:25 pm

Golf wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 11:58 am The notoriety and being able to give the metaphorical finger to a bunch of people out there was a nice bonus however.

Where can I find your episode?

Oh, I was asking about golf’s episode

Andy, I have your episode saved for posterity on my DVR!

morbeedo wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 8:27 pm

alietr wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 7:36 pm

morbeedo wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 5:25 pm

Golf wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 11:58 am The notoriety and being able to give the metaphorical finger to a bunch of people out there was a nice bonus however.

Where can I find your episode?

Oh, I was asking about golf’s episode

Andy, I have your episode saved for posterity on my DVR!

had to delete my millionaire cache on dvr....running out of room from trying to get the entire beverly hills 90210 series....pop finally went to hd so it is go time to record it...got about 1/2 of the 293 episodes