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Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? title card
Format	Game show
Starring	Regis Philbin (1999-2002) Meredith Vieira (2002-Present)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	955 (as of September 14, 2007)
Production
Running time	30-60 minutes (1999-2002) 30 minutes (2002-Present)
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC (1999-2002) SYN (2002-Present)
Original run	August 16, 1999 – Present
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

In the United States, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (also known simply as Millionaire) is a television game show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 (originally lump sum; now annuitized) for correctly answering 15 successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The show is based on and follows the same general format of the original version of the show from the United Kingdom, and is now part of the international Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? franchise.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire debuted in the United States on August 16, 1999 on the ABC television network, and was hosted by Regis Philbin. The first contestant was David Korotkin, who won $1,000.

The network version, whose episodes were originally shown just a day after their taping in New York, became explosively popular in 1999, and at its peak was airing in prime time four nights a week on ABC. The show was popular enough to find rival networks creating or reincarnating game shows of their own, and created a brief renaissance of sorts for United States based game shows (e.g. Greed, Twenty One, etc.) as well as a flurry of American versions of UK originals, such as Weakest Link.

ABC used Who Wants to be a Millionaire in so many prime time slots that when the show's popularity faded by the fall of 2001, it was left with a dearth of original programs on June 27, 2002. ABC's overall Nielsen Ratings suffered as a result of the show's decline in popularity. Michael Eisner, then CEO of The Walt Disney Company (ABC's parent), was formerly a page at Jeopardy! and The Price Is Right and thought that the show would be successful like many daytime television shows do. But he realized too late that a "hot" show like Millionaire would tire more quickly in prime time than in daytime. [1]

Millionaire's place as a daytime show was granted when ABC's sister company, Buena Vista Television, revived the show as a daily syndicated offering with Meredith Vieira in 2002. This version, also taped in New York, began airing its sixth season episodes on September 10, 2007, and has earned Vieira an Emmy for best game show host.

Contents 1 Specific U.S. format 1.1 Rule changes 2 Popularity 3 Spin-offs 3.1 Celebrity versions 3.2 Syndication 3.3 Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire 3.4 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It! 4 Notable contestants 4.1 Major prize winners on ABC 4.2 Major prize winners in syndication 4.3 First Question Wrong on ABC 4.4 First Question Wrong on Syndication 5 Parodies and pop culture references 5.1 Television 5.2 Comics 5.3 Other 6 External links

Before the million dollar question, past millionaires sit in the audience and get interviewed by the presenter to give advice on the best way to face the final question. If the person wins the million dollars, confetti comes down from the studio ceiling. At the bottom of the screen; the person's name comes up on the screen labeled "millionaire." Sometimes the host does a small follow-up with the contestant and guest, if applicable. Afterwards, the game continues normally if there is time left, except with confetti remaining on the floor.

The show has had various special editions such as: Celebrity Edition (where winnings go to a charity), Champions Edition (where big winners come back and split their winnings with a charity), and Family Edition where, for example, a father may be with his son who face the questions together. Also notable is an edition aired in February 2001 in which H&R Block calculated the taxes of winnings so the contestants could earn their stated winnings after taxes, called Tax-Free Edition. In the final 2 seasons, there was also a Couples Edition where, married couples play in the Hot Seat together. In recent years, special contestant episodes such as Play to Pay for Your Wedding Edition (featuring engaged couples), College Edition (featuring undergraduate college students), Teacher Edition (featuring schoolteachers), and Walk In & Win Edition (featuring audience members who haven't taken the audition test) have aired annually. The first season featured a Twins Edition (featuring twin contestants), which played similar to the Couples Edition and Play To Pay For Your Wedding Edition.

Themed question shows featuring questions concerning professional football (Super Bowl Edition), celebrity gossip (Celebrity Scoop Edition), and the movies (Netflix Million Dollar Movie Edition; Academy Awards Edition) have aired on occasion as well.

The prime time show began as a half-hour show aired over several consecutive nights, but was made into a multi-weekly hour-long show when it was added permanently to the schedule in January 2000, allowing more Fastest Finger contestants to reach the Hot Seat in each episode. In special events it may be extended from half an hour to an hour. Episodes of the syndicated show run 30 minutes in length every weekday.

By January 2001, the U.S. edition of the show struggled from not having a $1 million winner for over five months, so producers instituted a one-time "skins game" type bonus of $10,000 per episode retroactive from the last episode the top prize was awarded. The bonus started at $1,710,000 and increasing by $10,000 in the next hour show that was not won. With this bonus instituted, the top prize grew to $2 million (over 100 shows), making the first attempt at the million dollar question (by Gary Gambino in February 2001) actually worth twice its value. Eventually, the bonus grew to $2.18 million, when Kevin Olmstead won the eventual prize on April 10, 2001. However, two such prizes were awarded due to an error in a question during the time the bonus was in place, when Ed Toutant won the top prize and the bonus was at $860,000 on January 31, 2001. When he continued in an episode not aired until September 7, 2001, he also answered all 15 of his questions correctly, and was given $1 million and the $860,000 bonus. It has not been reinstituted since.

In 2001, contestants (from previous primetime episodes) who missed a question in the first tier and left with no winnings were invited back for a special edition of "Millionaire". This was repeated in 2003 for contestants from the first season of the syndicated program.

In the 2004-2005 season of the syndicated program, the format of the game was changed in the United States edition. The $32,000 lock-in was decreased to $25,000, and the prize pattern changed to $50,000 (down from $64,000); $100,000 (down from $125,000); $250,000; $500,000 (11-payment annuity) and $1 million (21 payments. A contestant winning either of the top two levels receives an initial payment of $125,000 followed by a yearly annuity.) This is meant to encourage contestants to continue playing, as well as save money. These rule changes (especially the annuities) met to much criticisms from longtime fans who thought that the decrease was a disadvantage to contestants, providing a greater risk at the highest levels, which may prevent a player from wanting to risk their money.

Also, after reaching the $25,000 level, contestants are given a new lifeline, Switch the Question (also known as a Flip), which appeared in the UK program in a number of celebrity editions, and most recently in its 300th episode in 2002, which was broadcast live to mark that landmark. The idea seemed to have been taken from the UK show The People Versus, also produced by Celador. It allows them to dismiss the current question, see the answer, and to play a new one worth the same dollar amount. However, they will not have any lifelines used on the discarded question returned to them.

Finally, the Ask the Audience lifeline was expanded. Instead of just the studio audience giving answers, users of the AOL Instant Messenger (sometimes referred to as AIM) could participate too. If they had asked the screenname MillionaireIM to allow his or her participation, then they would receive an instant message if a contestant used his or her Ask the Audience lifeline. The message would contain the question and four possible answers, and they would send their answer back. This was the first time in history that the public had been able to interact with a game show while it was being taped. When the tape was shown, the results of the poll would first show the studio audience's response, then the IM users' response. The AIM side of the lifeline failed to work at times. In these instances, the game show's policy was to allow the contestant to only rely on the studio audience's response. The AOL Instant Messenger Ask the Audience lifeline has been suspended as of the fifth season of the syndicated version of the show following the withdrawal of sponsorship of the program by AOL.

The show initially drew in up to 30 million viewers a day three times a week, an unheard-of number in modern network television. In the 1999-2000 season, it averaged #1 in the ratings against all other television shows. The next year (2000-2001), it also frequently placed within the top three or top five programs; finishing at #3 in the ratings[2]. However, the show's ratings began to fall during the 2000-2001 season, and by the start of the 2001-2002 season, the ratings were only a fraction of what they had been one year ago. ABC's reliance on Millionaire's popularity led to the network's falling quickly from its former spot as the nation's most-watched network.

The show was immensely popular in that one could qualify for the show by competing in a telephone contest with hopefuls across the country by dialing a toll free number and answering three questions by putting things or events in order by using your telephone keypad. The 10,000-20,000 people who answered all three questions correctly were entered into a random drawing in which approximately 300 people would compete for 10 spots on the show using the same phone quiz method.

Episodes of the ABC version have been rerun on GSN since September 2003 (except August 1999 & 2002 shows). Prime time Who Wants to be a Millionaire is still the highest-rated regularly-scheduled program on GSN. GSN is temporarily shifting Millionaire to late nights on Monday and Tuesday nights, it's scheduled to be back at 6pm weekdays starting in September.

The show began to dabble in celebrity versions of the game in mid-2000, at the height of its popularity. The first version featured stars such as Drew Carey, Rosie O'Donnell, and Dana Carvey; later celebrity players included Sean "Puffy" Combs, Ray Romano, Vanessa L. Williams, Gene Simmons, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, Norm MacDonald, and future Millionaire host Meredith Vieira. The show was a huge hit in the ratings, and since they were playing for charity, and for fear that celebrities would be too embarrassed to miss an early question, all players were allowed to receive help from their fellow players to attain the $32,000 level, resulting in some humorous exchanges when a celebrity player got stumped. A classic example of this occurred in an episode where a celebrity contestant could not identify the color of a bottle of Sprite, which prompted Kermit The Frog, who was there just for support, to amusingly ask him, "What color am I? (referring to the fact that he and Sprite bottles are both green)," after which the player answered the question correctly. ABC began to rely heavily on celebrity episodes - for most of the 2001-02 season, fully half of the series were celebrity or other "special editions", a move which coincided with the show's drop from the top of the ratings.

It was announced in 2005 that the syndicated show would bring back celebrities for a special edition to air in November 2005, but those episodes never materialized.

In 2002, Disney's Buena Vista Television started selling a new version of the show for daily syndication, with a new host, Meredith Vieira. It was initially proposed and developed under the assumption that the prime time show would still be airing on ABC, but the prime time show was cancelled a few months before the syndicated show premiered. The syndicated version doesn't include the Fastest Finger competition; contestants are brought out individually during each half-hour show after passing contestant auditions, which are similar to most game show auditions.

As of September 2004, questions 10, 11, and 12 have decreased to $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000, in order for the show to add an additional lifeline, Switch the Question, once a player reaches the $25,000 level.

Because of Vieira's commitments with her new job at NBC News, Tom Bergeron, Al Roker (who also happens to work alongside Meredith Vieira on Today), and Tim Vincent each guest-hosted a week's worth of shows during the 2006-07 season. [3]

During a week of episodes in November 2007, to celebrate the syndicated version's 1,000th episode, all contestants that week started with $1,000, and only had to answer ten questions to win the $1 Million. Also, 20 home viewers each day during that week won $1,000 each.

Main article: Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire

In February 2004, Regis Philbin returned to ABC for five episodes of Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire (aka Super Millionaire), which offered a $10,000,000 top prize; the series returned for seven additional episodes in May. The $10,000,000 prize offered by Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire is the largest prize offered by any game show worldwide, although unlike in the original program, the top prize is not paid in one lump sum but paid over 20 years.

Two new lifelines were added in Super Millionaire: Three Wise Men and Double Dip. However, those could only be used after a contestant reached the $100,000 mark. Three Wise Men consisted of the contestant asking their question to a panel of experts, one of whom would always be a previous big winner. The panel would then have 30 seconds to come up with the answer. The panel was kept in darkness until the player made it up to $100,000. The Double Dip lifeline was a chance to guess at a question twice (meaning that if the player got a wrong answer in his first attempt, he had another chance to find the right one). Once a player chose to Double Dip, he could not back out of answering the question. An incorrect guess on the first try did not cost the player any money, but if he got it wrong again, he'd go back to the $100,000 level.

Main article: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It!

A version of this game named Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It! was formerly an attraction at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida and at Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, California. The game was very similar to the television version. On each question, the audience, using a keypad attached to the back of the seat in front, chose A, B, C, or D. When a contestant chose to stop playing, the next contestant was picked from the audience member who answered the most questions correctly and most quickly. This version was not played for cash. For every question answered correctly, the contestant received a pin, and after reaching the "safe havens", a baseball cap and polo shirt. The top prize was a three-night cruise for four aboard the Disney Cruise Line.

• John Carpenter, November 19, 1999
• Dan Blonsky, January 18, 2000
• Joe Trela, March 23, 2000
• Bob House, June 13, 2000
• Kim Hunt, July 6, 2000
• David Goodman, July 11, 2000
• (Dr.) Kevin Olmstead ($2.18 Million), April 10, 2001
• Bernie Cullen, April 15, 2001
• Ed Toutant ($1.86 Million), September 7, 2001

In addition, Robert Bob-O Essig won $1,000,000 on Super Millionaire on 23 February 2004, but did not win the top prize of $10 million.

On a celebrity version, Norm Macdonald walked away with $500,000 for charity but would have correctly answered the final question.

• Kevin Smith (First winner of the syndicated version), 18 February 2003
• Nancy Christy (First and only woman, to date, to win the million dollars in the U.S. version), 8 May 2003

On an episode of the syndicated version, Ogi Ogas walked away with $500,000 and also knew the correct answer to the final question. Ogas later appeared the GSN game show Grand Slam as one of the sixteen smartest game show winners and made it to the final round, only to lose to Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings.

On November 1, 2007, Lyn Payne won $500,000 on the syndicated version, but if she had played the answer suggested by the audience, she would have lost ($475,000). Lyn comments that if it were anything other than the final question, she would have played it.

• Robbie Roseman (first contestant to get the first question wrong)
• Brian Fodera (second contestant to get the first question wrong), January 20, 2000. He returned to the show on May 20, 2001 for a special Zero Dollar Winner edition and ended up leaving with $16,000.

• Chase Sampson
• Paul Weir Galm

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• On The Simpsons episode Day of the Jackanapes, a show similar to this was "Me Wantee". The game contestant was Moe Szyslak, who withdraws after winning $500,000. The host of the show, Virgil St. Claire (who was not meant to be Regis Philbin) parodies the "Is that your final answer?" catchphrase by instead saying "Is that your ultimate response?"
• Saturday Night Live has done many parodies of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire when the game show was first popular. Some of them include: a Third World version called "Who Wants To Eat?" where contestants from impoverished nations compete for food (on the Christina Ricci/Beck episode), a sketch where a contestant (played by Will Ferrell) goes on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and quits after getting the $100 question right (on the Freddie Prinze, Jr./Macy Gray episode), and a cold opening sketch featuring a celebrity edition of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" where the program gets interrupted by insulting messages to the Disney Corporation from Time Warner, itself parodizing Time Warner Cable's dispute with Disney regarding its carriage of ABC's owned and operated stations (on the John Goodman/Neil Young episode).
• MADtv had its share of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire parodies as well. In one three-part sketch, one person just couldn't get the first question. Another sketch had Regis himself doing a promo for a celebrity edition for celebrities. Another was a parody entitled "Who Wants To Be The President" with Regis Philbin himself hosting again. The players were people currently running for president in 2000 (Al Gore - who makes it to the Winners Circle, Jesse Ventura, and Alan Keyes.) The last parody was a parody of "Super Millionaire" entitled "Who Wants To Be A Super Duper Millionaire" with Mike Tyson playing.
• A skit called So You Wanna Win Five Dollars on the The Amanda Show, consisted of a contestant, who was not very bright, being asked three simple questions with four choices, with the final question being worth five dollars. Three choices normally did not have to do with anything with the question (i.e. Q: "What is electricity measured in? Choices: A-volts, B-watts, C-saliva, D-crumpets). The contestants were normally various characters from other sketches on The Amanda Show.
• On an episode of American Idol in season five, Ryan Seacrest asked Simon Cowell "is that your final answer?" when Simon mistakenly said that he liked Katharine McPhee's performance of "Hound Dog" by Elvis Presley, when he really didn't.
• On an episode of Spin City, Paul Lassiter (Richard Kind) was on the show and won the million dollars by guessing the final question. He originally used his final lifeline to call Mike (Michael J. Fox), who hung up before he asked the question. Regis Philbin played himself.
• The improv show Whose Line is it Anyway? (which coincidentally was also aired by ABC) frequently spoofed the game show in a skit called "The Millionaire Show".
• On an episode of Deal or No Deal, Regis Philbin appeared after host Howie Mandel told a contestant he would need a "final answer" for his question, "Deal or No Deal?". A surprised contestant watched as Mandel & Philbin tried to out-do one another with their own catchphrases.^{[citation needed]}
• A public safety video about railroad safety by Operation Lifesaver entitled Final Answer parodied Millionaire by having three contestants answer questions about level crossing safety in the same manner.
• On the Arthur episode "Bitzi's Beau," Arthur and Buster watch a game show on which the contestant is asked, "Is that your final answer?"
• In the Nickelodeon TV series Jimmy Neutron special episode Win, Lose, and Kaboom, there is a tie-breaking game show with seats and lights arranged like they are in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

• The comic strip Drabble had Ralph Drabble as a contestant, who managed to use all three of his lifelines on the very first question - and still didn't know, so he quit with nothing rather than risk missing the first question!
• Web cartoon studio Camp Chaos included an episode of their Napster Bad! series that parodied Millionaire, in which Christina Aguilera was eliminated upon not knowing where the Cannes Film Festival was held, Whitney Houston collapsed while in the hot seat, and Dr. Dre withdrew from the contest after recording the Fastest Finger music to use as an illegal sample, leaving James Hetfield as the last contestant eligible to enter the hot seat. Hetfield failed to come up with a correct answer to the question of which band brought suit against Napster, even though Metallica was listed for all four options(he guessed "beer").

• The Disney Cruise Line currently features a show called "Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer?" where guests are chosen to answer five Disney-related questions for prizes such as pins and picture frames. The show is presented in a similar style as Millionaire, but with a more laid back, tongue in cheek approach.
• Bill Gates played a version of the show with Regis Philbin during the New York City Windows XP launch event.
• Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman refers to the show in his hit "Live Out Loud," comparing non-evangelizing Christians to Millionaire winners who hide the money and tell no one they've won: Imagine this / I get a phone call from Regis, / He says "Do you want to be a millionaire?" / They put me on the show and I win / With two lifelines to spare. / Picture this: / I act like nothing ever happened / And bury all the money in a coffee can; / Well, I've been given more than Regis ever gave away.
• In the Annual Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry that took place in Tucson, Arizona (Jan 8-14th 2006) Agilent Technologies' Chris Scanlon hosted a parody "Who Wants to be a Counts Per Second Millionaire?". The winner was Juris Meija from National Research Council Canada.(Agilent ICP-MS Journal, March 2006)
• Rage Against the Machine's video "Sleep Now In the Fire" includes a parody game show called "Who Wants to Be Filthy F***ing Rich?"
• An episode of the family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey entitled "BTV: Obedience" included a skit called Who Wants to Be Obedient? hosted by "Pat Filgis"
• One of the various radio infomercials for the evangelical Christian hotline 1-888-NEED-HIM featured a Millionaire parody called "So You Wanna Go to Heaven?" When confronted with the final question ("To get to heaven you must… A: Be really good; B: never do anything bad; C: Go to church every Sunday; D: Put your faith and trust in Jesus"), the contestant gives "A" as his final answer, even after the use of his 75/25 "helpline" makes it obvious that the right answer is "D."

• Official Site
  • Online Game
• Recaps of the shows since June 2004
• Recaps & statistics from the early episodes
• International WWTBAM Website: Music, Videos and Photos from all over the world versions of WWTBAM
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US - 1999-2002) at the Internet Movie Database
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US - current) at the Internet Movie Database
• Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire? (US) at the Internet Movie Database