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Codex89 Profile
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Moon Monk

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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


I wanted to open this topic for a while now, but either forgot or didn't had the time to do it. It's one my favourite quiz shows on TV (along with the Million Pound Drop).

It does not happen often, but I think our (German) version is the best one. We still use the original version with 15 questions, but you choose between two set of rules. Either the ordinary version with the original 3 lifelines or a risk mode with 4 lifelines. However, if you play in risk mode, the second safe haven (after the 10th question) will be removed.

The new (4th) lifeline is just called "additional lifeline" and is similar to "Ask the Audience". Our host asks the audience and everyone who thinks that he knows the answer can stand up. The contestant can only pick one member of the audience and ask him (or her) for his answer. If the answer is correct, this person also gets some money (500 €). In addition to that the "Phone-A-Friend"-lifeline is extended. You can not only call one of your 3 friends, but also a randomly selected citizen. You are allowed to specify this person (e.g. living in Berlin, or a female person).

Most people play in risk mode, because it makes it very easy to answer at least 10 or even 11 questions. The show is still quite successful and ratings even rised for this season. The host, Günther Jauch, is also the most popular host on German television and he makes the show fun to watch. He also loves to confuse his contestants.

There are two celebrity specials a year, which are great, too. During a football celebrity special, Horst Schlämmer (actually a fictional character) was a contestants and after (I think) 7 questions he swaped his chair with the host and continued to ask the questions. That was great. A few weeks a later, a woman won the faster finger round and sat on the wrong chair. The host made fun of her, said that she failed the first question (which they usually cut) and called her Ms Schlämmer. But it took her some time to figure out that she is on the wrong chair. Günther didn't want to swap chairs and made her asking the first few questions.

The clock version (which the UK uses for their new season) wouldn't work in Germany. Günther Jauch needs time to talk to their contestants and the funniest moments would have never happened if there was a clock in Germany.

The US invented the clock version, but changed it for their new season. Actually, they revamped the whole show. They removed the hot seat and play the game in two rounds. Round one is the new Millionaire. You have 10 questions and a ordinary money tree. But the twist is that they shuffle the questions and the money tree. So it can happen that the easiest question is worth the most. You also bank the money in this round.

The second round (4 questions) is the classic millionaire with questions getting more difficult and no banked money. You have 3 lifelines for the whole game: one "Ask the Audience" and two "Skip the Question".

If you watch this episode it might become a bit clearer:


To be honest, I don't like it. But I read that ratings were up a little bit for this seasons, so they must done something right.

Australia also changed their rules and call their show "Millionaire Hot Seat". Six contestants play at once. One of them takes a seat in the hot seat and answer the questions as usual (with a clock). He can't walk away, can't use use lifelines but he can pass the question once. Not answering the questions within the time limit is a pass or a wrong answer (if you already passed a question). Answering wrong means elimination from the game and the removal of the heighest remaining money amount. If you are the player who reachs the end of the tree, you win that money. If you are the last player remaining (without answering the last question), you get 1000 Dollar.

You can watch this version on YouTube as well, here is the first part of one episode:



And back to the German version. It's on TV right now and the contestant used the additional lifeline for her 14th question (500,000€). She promised the guy who helped her 12,500€ (the same amount she wanted to give her "Phone a Friend"-friend). That was pretty cool.

And a fun fact: the Austrian version is produced in the German studio, because a Austrian studio would be too expensive for the ORF. And the first few episodes of the German and Austrian version were produced in the Dutch studio. emoticon

I think it's my longest post in ages emoticon

Edited by Codex89, 11/Oct/10, 7:18 pm
11/Oct/10, 6:58 pm Link to this post    PM Codex89 ICQ
 
bluebird1014 Profile
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


It's probably the longest post on the whole forum!

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11/Oct/10, 7:52 pm Link to this post    PM bluebird1014
 
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


Wait for my inevitable Fort Boyard Retrospective when FB France inevitably gets pulled. It'll be a novella.

Also I think the Italian version does a nice twist in which you only get one safe point, but at the start of the game, you can choose where it goes.

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11/Oct/10, 10:58 pm Link to this post    PM Oni91
 
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


The US keeps changing all the time, it's just too confusing.

The UK version was the first, and never needed to change anything other than the number of questions for 12 years, they knew it was fine as is, so long as some people watched it; it didn't matter that ratings were not massive anymore, so I'm disappointed that they brought in the clock in that respect.

But at the same time, now that the first UK clock season is almost over, it feels like the clock has always been there after just 1 season, it has bedded in well.

Quote:

Codex89 wrote:

The clock version (which the UK uses for their new season) wouldn't work in Germany. Günther Jauch needs time to talk to their contestants and the funniest moments would have never happened if there was a clock in Germany.




Surely he talks to them in between questions? That's what Chris Tarrant does. You can still have a laugh, there. Surely the funny bits don't only occur in gameplay there. I think the UK version were reluctant to put the clock in for that reason, but they take it away when they get to what I call the 'level 3' questions (£75,000-£1 million), and it goes back to "classic Millionaire" after that, only with a 4th lifeline, Switch the Question. Previously it was called Flip, and it was also used only on celebrity specials, AND one other lifeline had to be sacrificed if you wanted to play it, so theoretically you could have had 4 questions for 1 prize amount. They wanted to get rid of contestants taking upwards of 15 minutes to answer a question or take the money, usually the latter, as a result of going completely blank under pressure and almost unable to even speak. This happened a lot in the early days, when contestants in this unfamiliar scenario were left frightened by the potential loss of money, and the demands of the host to make a decision, afraid to do or say anything lest they lose it all. It was great telly, but took up too much time on screen.

The Irish version didn't last very long, but let me tell you about it a bit. It was hosted by the veteran Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne, and played for 1 million punts before changing to €1 million for its final season. No-one ever got to the million question in either currency. 250,000 in both was the best result. Only 1 celebrity special was made, but it was hilarious! Ronan Keating appeared on it, and a few years later did the UK version as well. I don't know if that is a record, but it's certainly unusual for celebrity contestants to do two different countries versions, rather than 'ordinary' contestants taking part in multiple versions, which as happened before. I still have the board game and PS1 game of the Irish version. Board: My grandad won the million. PS1: No-one won, but I got the million question wrong in it before!

How's that, Codex?
12/Oct/10, 12:42 am Link to this post PM rsmcc
 
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Moon Monk

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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


In theory it could be possible that one of our celebrites played in both, the German and the Austrian version. But I in reality it didn't happen. I checked the lists of both shows and Ronan Keating is probably really the only celebrity who took part in 2 version. However, we had one celebrity who took part in the German celebrity specials three times (once as his fictional character Horst Schlämmer).

Our host also talks to them during the questions, not just between the questions. For example, when you have an intresting story to tell or if you are totally confused.

Have a look at this video. The question is "Margaret Chan is the director of..." "A: WHAT, B:WHO, C:WHEN, D:WHY)

I think it's a good example, because the question is more English than German, so you can easily understand it. She wanted to use a lifline, but he didn't want her to do so. So he tried to help her with this question. The audience is laughing, because he wants her to read W-H-A-T instead WHAT, but she didn't get it. He nearly answers the question himself. We have a lot of these moments in our version and wouldn't have them if we had a 30 seconds clock.

Quote:

Oni91 wrote:

Wait for my inevitable Fort Boyard Retrospective when FB France inevitably gets pulled. It'll be a novella.



I'm looking forward to that. emoticon
12/Oct/10, 5:43 pm Link to this post    PM Codex89 ICQ
 
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


I think my second roleplay post was longer.

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12/Oct/10, 6:10 pm Link to this post    PM Madman6556 Yahoo
 
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


Now I see what you mean. You get that in any version, then, but countries have put a clock in regardless, looking to churn out more contestants, so... progress marches on, I suppose. Oh, and have the German celebrity shows used Fastest Finger? The lone Irish one did, which was fun. There was a question that none of them got right, but for some reason, it only appeared in the trailer for the show, it was cut out of the actual show.

Edited by rsmcc, 12/Oct/10, 10:53 pm
12/Oct/10, 10:51 pm Link to this post PM rsmcc
 
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


I've not actually watched Millionaire in years. I always found it just dragged on too long and, years ago at least, there was never any fun to make it more interesting. Not that I can remember anyway! It was all a bit dark (in both senses really!). The German one looks more fun though. Especially in that video!

The only time when the UK version was fun was when you could play along on your remote, when interactive stuff like that was all brand new. That was only available on ITV Digital though, and we didn't have that. My aunt did though, and I remember we went round there a lot at weekends, and I always got to play along. We found a way to cheat too: put the show on another TV too, but have that on analogue. Because the digital signal was a few seconds behind you could wait to find out the correct answer on the analogue TV, and really quickly press it on the interactive digital TV just in time emoticon
You had to be really, really fast to manage it.

The new American version is really weird. I don't get the point of messing up the questions. And standing up at a table looks ever stranger!
I still want to see some clips of the shows John Henson hosted!

I tried to find a video of when they copied Millionaire on Haromoni, but couldn't emoticon
I think Takeshi was on the Japanese version, and lost the final question. There's a video around somewhere.

Found it! Actually, I've discovered something pretty amazing:

Takeshi was on THREE times! First time he got to the final question, and got it wrong:



After he loses, he asks to play again, but with three Phone a Friends, as he says 50:50 and Ask the Audience are useless. The host agrees and he plays again on the same show emoticon:



He lost that on the 14th question. But then, came back the next year (2009, I think) and played again... AND WON! Finally!:




That really is amazing. He reached the top three times emoticon
13/Oct/10, 2:22 pm Link to this post    PM DuffDan
 
Codex89 Profile
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Moon Monk

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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


I know that he was there once, I think we even discussed it here before. But being three times and making it to the last question every time is really impressive. And winning the Million is awesome, too. Well done, Takeshi emoticon

You probably know this video already, but this guy is the first US winner and he was awesome, too.

You can find his whole run on YouTube, this is just the Million Dollar Question.

Quote:

DuffDan wrote:
The German one looks more fun though. Especially in that video!


As I said, we had a lot of those moments. He is not always standing up and doing something, but it's still funny. emoticon


That's the one with the woman who took place in the wrong chair. You won't understand much, but you can still see that at the beginning she didn't realize, that she was sitting in the wrong chair.
13/Oct/10, 5:37 pm Link to this post    PM Codex89 ICQ
 
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Re: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire


Japanese Super Millionaire was awesome. 10 questions, no milestones, no lifelines. First 5 have 4 answers, final 5 are 50:50s.

Oh, and if you go for question 9 and get it right, you HAVE to play question 10.

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13/Oct/10, 10:04 pm Link to this post    PM Oni91
 


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