Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

I think you’re talking bunkum. It would sit uneasy for someone like Keppel to take a million pounds and to not give her mate some who without which she wouldn’t have got to £125,000 and been able to win the million. Also according to drama (so take with a pinch of salt) Spooners group take 25% of the total winnings and she stated she gave her friend a portion of the £125,000 she won her. Also if you listen to call, it sounds like they’re good friends. The other thing is according to the Daily Mail article Spooners group would sign off phone a friend calls by saying they are 90% certain when they know the answer for sure.

From what Keppel said on that Weakest Link performance, I can imagine she actually thought about and decided how much to give her what to base it on after the event.

No need for the first sentence. I'm merely pointing out an interesting bit of phrasing. I don't know how many times I need to say what amounts to 'I'm not making any accusations, I just found it interesting', but I'll say it one more time since you seem to have missed it.

Interestingly, I watched the (real) clip of Spooner on the UK version of the show and quite aside from having hidden the fact he'd previously been on the Australian version, it was mentioned a fair few times, with Chris commenting things like 'you got up to question [whatever] in Australia, let's see if you can match it now'. In the drama, he knowingly says 'they don't check' when asked about having been on different countries' versions of the show as if he'd hidden that fact from producers. He was in reality very open about it and they were fine with him having been on Australia's version when he was on the UK edition. I'm aware that this is just one of many little bits of artistic license used in 'Quiz' and am not taking any of it as absolute fact.

The very fact of bringing it up carried with it the hint that she was cheating/using Spooner's group too. Why else is it interesting phrasing?

Not to mention it got a lot of publicity in The Sun, the show's first sponsor.


I think the Mirror sponsored 'Talking Telephone Numbers' when it started out - another Celador show! Perhaps their underrated creation was 'Winning Lines', had the look and feel of Millionaire and the Wonderwall was a brilliant end game.

Was The People Versus by Celador as well?

Yes. Initially it was billed as ‘from the makers of Who Wants to be a Millionaire’.

The People Versus had promise, but I think part of why it didn’t take off was that it was initially people answering questions on their specialist subject rather than general knowledge, thus removing a lot of the play-at-home appeal that Millionaire had. They changed this for the Kay Adams series I seem to remember.

It was also incredibly sloooooooow, the slowest game show ever made. In the first episode they notoriously asked a grand total of seven questions, none of which were answered incorrectly, and as all the money the contestants won in each round was safe there was no jeopardy at all. It wasn't just the format that was the problem, mind, because much of the slowness came about because the programme was clearly in love with its own execution, so there were loads of shots of the set (before every round the camera spun around the studio, for no reason at all) and the contestants were all brought on incredibly slowly and there was a massive rigmarole before answering every question, all so they could show off how nice everything looked. They were so excited by how stylish it all was they totally forgot about the game.

Celador had made the pilot with their own money before getting any broadcaster involved, so it was made on their own terms, hence it was a right self-indulgent mess. It made Red or Black look a success. There's a great piece on UkGameshows explaining how utterly tedious it all was - http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/The_People_Versus

And then of course the second series was a million times faster, but it was also hugely embarrassing because they'd gone from contestants winning thousands of pounds to a few hundred quid, and from primetime several times a week to a teatime show flung opposite The Weakest Link. A total disaster.

Yes, you can be the most intelligent person in the world but know nothing about pop culture. Or any subject for that matter. Intelligence doesn't equal knowledge.

"The Bong Game"? Seriously? Talk about running out of ideas!

The first ever episode of Millionaire is on YouTube. There's a few differences as you can see, notably no Fastest Finger First and the use of a telephone (very 1998)....

Would be good if someone had a recording of it from the original airing, with the contestant appeal rather than with Challenge's (badly) remade credits (though they did at least leave in the original endcaps I guess, even the "Carlton for IT* one, which they didn't have to, though whoever uploaded that video cut it out).