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Live From New York
Feelin’ Like a Million Dollars
Trying out for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Last time I was in Los Angeles, I stopped in at the Improv to check out the local comedy talent. The most memorable line of the evening was delivered by a stoner comic from San Francisco who explained how he managed to smuggle his stash of drugs on his flight into town.
“I brought it in my bloodstream.”
That came back to me the other night after my audition for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The written test is so top-secret that a crew of interns was dispatched to snatch the copies out of our hands as soon as time elapsed. Yet I managed to secure a contraband copy with relative ease. I tucked it into a safe-deposit box in my memory bank.
I don’t have the heart to be a spoiler and publicize material the producers prefer to protect. They treated me with the utmost cordiality and there is hardly an arguable right-to-know that should trump their wishes. Okay, okay, I’ll share a little something… but just one question to give the flavor.
In a recent survey, most Americans thought Joan of Arc was the wife of which Biblical character?
(a) Adam
(b) Noah
(c) Moses
(d) David
This is cleverly constructed, making room for good sense to fill the gaps in specialized knowledge. While the survey itself was news to me, I could still arrive at the correct result through conjecture. It would be an arch sort of joke if you cracked at a cocktail party or a book signing, “Did Noah marry Joan of Ark in a romantic ceremony on the deck? Did they meet in Bible class or at the zoo?” Turns out a lot of folks don’t see the humor.
Speaking of the Ark, there were two of every type at the audition. I was very impressed, touched really, by the range of people contesting to be contestants. This crowd “looked like America” in a way the Clinton cabinet never could. While standing outside the studio awaiting admission, a small group of us became fast friends. (Incidentally, a small synagogue sits stubbornly across the street from ABC on West 66th Street in New York, occupying about ten million dollars worth of Manhattan space. It reminded me of Brothers Keepers, the wonderful book by Donald Westlake about the monastery on Park Avenue about to be taken over by developers.)
We wound up being seated together. Each table sat six and they filled most of the tables in the large cafeteria. I shared with a thirtyish gentleman who taught 6th-grade in Pennsylvania, an 18-year-old boy whose mother drove him from New Jersey, a beautifully appointed dowager from the East Side (who would kill me for saddling her with that noun), a fortyish housewife from Delaware, and an ebullient black woman, fresh from work still wearing her nurse’s uniform.
The written exam included thirty questions to be completed in a span of ten minutes, allotting twenty seconds apiece. I was done in six minutes, achieving a twelve-second average which bodes well if I make it to the show, where the first several questions allow just fifteen seconds each for a response.
Having flown from Miami to New York City for this peccadillo, I would have been crushed if I failed at this preliminary stage. Imagine telling my kids their old papa washed out before he was halfway through the door. Thankfully I was one of the fifteen or so who passed and proceeded to a five-minute interview with a producer.
“What would you do with the money?” she asked in a delightfully energetic tone. I knew I had to be at my chirpiest or I would be marked as a dullard. Although the show’s title implies that only seekers of millionaire status need apply, most contestants feel obliged to tell the audience they are only there to buy poor Granny her false teeth. “There she is now in the front row, too embarrassed to smile.” I came down somewhere in the middle, poised between Cupid and cupidity. A cash infusion into my personal economy, I asserted, would free me to practice my art more creatively.
Well, I made it this far and thoroughly enjoyed the process. If my effort stalls, all I am out is plane fare and a few precious hours of my life. None of those strike me as wasteful, having been invested in an experience both adventurous and instructive. Now it is off for home to await the yea-or-nay postcard, slated to arrive in two to three weeks. Stay tuned.
About the Author
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he speaks at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Miami on June 8, 2012.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (19) | Leave a comment
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Ned| 5.26.10 @ 10:15AM
"What would you do with the money?"
You should have said you intend to give it all to President Barack Obama to help him save the world. This probably would have guaranteed you a spot or at least a bump to the next level.
Better yet, say you would donate half of it to a windmill project in your town and use the other half to buy a Chevy Volt.
astorian| 5.26.10 @ 10:19AM
Way back when, I was a contestant in prime time. Up front: I was never the fastest during the Fast Fingers round, I never made it to the Hot Seat, I never got to answer any questions ,and I never won a cent.
Back then, there was no interview- contestants took part in tests over the phone, and answered question solely by pushing buttons. The wannabe contestants who answered the most questions in the fastest time got on the show.
Nobody at ABC knew what we looked like, nobody knew our ethnicity, nobody knew if we had telegenic faces or winning personalities. That's why, in the early days, a huge majority of the contestants were nerdy, middle-aged, middle-class white guys (like myself).
In fact, I happened to appear on the show the night they had their first-ever black contestant (a very smart, very nice guy named Rodney). When we contestants were ushered into the studio to begin the game, we saw there was a black comedian entertaining the audience. And that comedian MUST have just been doing a bunch of jokes about how all the contestants were white, because he was doing a dance of joy when he saw Rodney!
The night I was on, a former standup comedian named Rudy got to the Hot Seat and won $250,000. The 14th question was:
What major Hollywood filmmaker directed Michael Jackson's "Bad" video?
Rudy didn't knwo, so he phoned a friend- Will Durst, a famous political comedian who used to do commentary on "60 Minutes." Durst was 100% positive that the answer was John Landis, and Rudy went with his friend's answer.
I was right there, and I KNEW he was wrong. Landis had directed the "Thriller" video! It was Martin Scorsese who directed the "Bad" video. I had gotten to know Rudy and I liked him. I wanted with all my heart to scream "NOOOOOO!"
Instead, I watched as he dropped from the 500 grand he THOUGHT he'd won to $32,000.
The crazy thing is, most of Rudy's fellow contestants, including me, were consoling him after the game. Only when I got back to the hotel did I think, "Why am I trying to cheer HIM up??? HE won 32 grand and I won nothing! HE should be consoling ME!"
But at that moment, he didn't feel like a guy who won $32,000- he felt like a guy who'd just LOST $468,000.
Things have changed since then. Now there's an interview and a personality test, so a stiff nerd like me probably wouldn't get on the show now.
Oh well, I had mychance and choked!
Jay D. Homnick| 5.26.10 @ 10:53AM
Wow, Astorian, that is a fabulous story. Thanks for taking the time.
MarleysGh0st| 5.26.10 @ 1:49PM
Jay, after your first interview, did you get invited to stay for a second, videotaped interview? If you didn't, I'm afraid your chances of being selected for the show are essentially nil.
DT| 5.26.10 @ 2:40PM
I too ventured forth to take the millionaire test Oct 2005. I passed and moved on to stage 2 the supposed 'interview stage' where I was judged unexceptable for reasons I will never know. It was pleasant riding back to Maryland on the Ocela Amtrac train with sweet dreams of pending wealth and early retirement. The rejection postcard dutifly arrived 2 weeks later - what a deflator!
Wes| 5.26.10 @ 4:26PM
Jay, Good luck! I did this several years ago and your story brought back good and bittersweet memories. After watching a taping and going to the cafeteria, I realized I had forgotten my reading glasses! I feared doom, but holding the questions at arms length which I'm sure drew the attention of the proctors, I managed to pass anyway, with five others. The interviewers were two chirpy vivacious young ladies, and a morose individual named Darren. I got Darren. I'd advise anyone lucky enough to get this far, to practice for the the interview before you get there. Be a little goofy and maybe wear something a little weird. Needless to say I din't make it. Hope you do!
Frank Natoli| 5.26.10 @ 4:46PM
As Astorian notes, the show did originally perform its first stage filtration by candidates answering questions via touch tone telephones. But an analysis by ABC of why almost all of those contestants were white males revealed something Astorian does not mention.
ABC found that white males did NOT succeed INITIALLY at a much higher rate than other callers. What differentiated the wheat from the chaff was the willingness of the white males to try again, and again, and again, until they succeeded.
This is an important life lesson. Raw intelligence doesn't trump all other considerations. The motivation to persevere and succeed more often than not trumps all other considerations.
But that is not what ABC wanted to show. It was embarrassed by the wildly disproportionate representation of white males, and it did what it had to do to "fix" it: it set quotas by every politically correct category. Isn't that better?
Ammo Guy| 5.27.10 @ 9:43AM
This whole diverse contestant can backfire big time if the "diverse" guy gets into the hot seat and makes a fool of himself by either being asked such simple questions that the audience knows the fix is in or being asked tough questions and going down in flames in the first round. I am reminded of a story I heard some years back about a "diverse" school that wanted to make its students feel good about themselves - y'know the self-esteem thing, sigh. So the faculty put together a spelling bee of immense simplicity and awarded the "winner" the usual trophies, certificates of achievement, and other assorted folderol to make him (and the staff and the parents) feel good about themselves. Then, horrors, the winner asked when he was going to compete in the state competition and the spelling bee ringleader had to gently explain to the hapless winner that wasn't going to happen for obvious reasons - they didn't want him to make a fool of himself…and the school.
Claudia Monteverdi| 5.28.10 @ 10:48PM
NED got it right on the schnozz. He also set the tone for all the other comments..bright..witty and accurate. The one sad exception calls itself Vutequsa and it really has no weight since the writer is either a Prime Putz (that's known as alliteration Mr Miss Vutequsa) or perhaps even a Schmuck Cluck (simple germanic rhyme) or even worse but I dasn' t say , not wishing to degrade myself in the eyes of my maternal grandmother.
Will you win Jay ? well some of the commenters who have had experience at this joint suggest you won't. I am more optimistic. I had a vision in which my own personal angel offered to cash you in for a big fat million for only 12.5 %..she is an equal op angel and will be glad to visit you in a back room of your synagoga but remember "Mum's the Word" !
Rooting for you I remain,
Your's whatever,
Claudia
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