Today on Millionaire [SPOILERS]

[Coupon Boy]

Today Double Run markets got quite a treat. On the first run, we had our very own triviawayne playing the game, and in second run markets game show veteran Josh Woo was playing.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, both suffered the same fate: bombing out with $5,000.

Josh bombed out on the $10k question about which feature of the statue of liberty being 7'7', and Wayne bombed out on his $30k question about Mehndi ceremonies at Indian weddings.

[triviawayne]

That was one rough stack of questions...

You can see during the $20k sports question where I became a bit of a deer in headlights. I was just thinking, "WTF is going on with these questions, nothing typical about them at all."

If it weren't for the history of the Stanley Cup, it would've been much easier to nail down when the NHL began.

If that $30k question didn't have the part about "and sometimes men", I would've jumped on the tattoo answer. Those are some very intricate and beautiful tattoos, and I've never seen that on a man, plus with Indian culture I just couldn't picture a man getting a tattoo that is common for a woman.

[K.P.]

Definitely a loaded stack there, Wayne. You did great with them.

Walk me through your AtA strategy again if you would. You had "Chef" ruled out, right? And you fibbed and said you were leaning towards it so that the guessers in the audience would follow your lead?

[bazodee]

Awesome presence on stage Wayne!

It was a miserably challenging stack of questions but you demonstrated how much you understand the strategy of the game with the brilliant head fake on the ATA.

[ghostjmf]

As I'll rebabble if your game is ever posted, I knew a mikvah is a ceremonial bath for Orthodox Jewish women, not only new brides. I'd never heard of such a custom for Indian brides &/or grooms, though I have seen lots of footage of people bathing in the Ganges for spiritual reasons.

I also have seen lots of women from various Mediterranean & south Asian cultures w/ henna drawings, but not men. I was going for henna but would have thrown 50/50 at it. You of course didn't have that left.

On your also-tough pasta Q, I got the right answer only by elimination of the other 3, & because manicotti *look* like sleeves. I was surprised Ed T. didn't know orecchiette are supposed to be ears, but no-one knows everything (or watches too many cooking shows).

[triviawayne]

Definitely a loaded stack there, Wayne. You did great with them.

Walk me through your AtA strategy again if you would. You had "Chef" ruled out, right? And you fibbed and said you were leaning towards it so that the guessers in the audience would follow your lead?

and now you know how a cowboy drives a herd of cattle in one direction.

Before anything came up, I was thinking he was a musician of some type, I have heard of him. Then dancer came up as a choice, and I was already asked a music question, and I knew he was an artist, so it made me doubt myself.

I diverted almost half the audience (who clearly didn't know the answer) to chef, then with the rest of the audience, about 85% of those went to composer, so I knew it was the correct answer.

[triviawayne]

As I'll rebabble if your game is ever posted, I knew a mikvah is a ceremonial bath for Orthodox Jewish women, not only new brides. I'd never heard of such a custom for Indian brides &/or grooms, though I have seen lots of footage of people bathing in the Ganges for spiritual reasons.

I also have seen lots of women from various Mediterranean & south Asian cultures w/ henna drawings, but not men. I was going for henna but would have thrown 50/50 at it. You of course didn't have that left.

On your also-tough pasta Q, I got the right answer only by elimination of the other 3, & because manicotti *look* like sleeves. I was surprised Ed T. didn't know orecchiette are supposed to be ears, but no-one knows everything (or watches too many cooking shows).

I never heard of capellini, and never ate manicotti. Millionaire has a certain style of writing, usually at this level they will throw answers that just aren't possible. Normally you would see something like vespa being a choice (yeah, not even a pasta). The key to this question, and I missed it being the key to the lock, was the word "stuffed". Manicotti was the only stuffable pasta in the group. I knew manicotti to be a stuffed pasta, but with me not remembering at that time what orchette looks like, and having never heard of capellini, I was a little screwed.

And that spiritual bathing in the Ganges is why I went for my answer, I've never seen a man with that style of tattoo.

The good thing is I can come away with knowing there was no path to assure me getting to $50,000. Who knows what that question in this stack would've been, and with different lifeline usage, I don't think anything different would've happened.

That $30,000 question was much more like a typical $100,000 question.

[earendel]

I knew who Philip Glass was because of the Round 2 question I had that got me onto Millionaire. One of the 5 questions on the 2nd round was "Put these composers in order of their birth starting with the earliest: 1) Bert Bacharach; 2) Marvin Hamlisch; 3) Philip Glass; 4) Scott Joplin

Spoiler

I keyed in 4123, then later found out it was 4132. Fortunately 4/5 was enough for me to get The Call that day.

As for the pasta question, I knew it only because of a NYT Sunday Crossword a few weeks ago; I probably wouldn't have known it had I been in Wayne's place.

[ghostjmf]

While I was watching the show I completely passed over the word "stuffed". It astonished me now to hear it was there. It *is* the clue. If you love manicotti.

Which are usually stuffed w/ ricotta. With a good red sauce on top, usually. And are delicious, but that's no help now.

[triviawayne]

While I was watching the show I completely passed over the word "stuffed". It astonished me now to hear it was there. It *is* the clue. If you love manicotti.

Which are usually stuffed w/ ricotta. With a good red sauce on top, usually. And are delicious, but that's no help now.

It is the clue if you know the others aren't stuffed.

[K.P.]

While I was watching the show I completely passed over the word "stuffed". It astonished me now to hear it was there. It *is* the clue. If you love manicotti.

Which are usually stuffed w/ ricotta. With a good red sauce on top, usually. And are delicious, but that's no help now.

It is the clue if you know the others aren't stuffed.

Yeah, that's what they wanted you to know. If you know manicotti is stuffed and you know one of the others isn't, you can safely assume the other two are not as well.

[ghostjmf]

I took the bait & did the body-parts part of the ID; knew capellini is very thin spaghetti & name means "angel hair". knew orecchiette is little round thing that is supposed to look like an ear (the "ore" in Italian might be "auro" in English; will have to look it up), forget what other was but knew it too.

[triviawayne]

While I was watching the show I completely passed over the word "stuffed". It astonished me now to hear it was there. It *is* the clue. If you love manicotti.

Which are usually stuffed w/ ricotta. With a good red sauce on top, usually. And are delicious, but that's no help now.

It is the clue if you know the others aren't stuffed.

Yeah, that's what they wanted you to know. If you know manicotti is stuffed and you know one of the others isn't, you can safely assume the other two are not as well.

I knew a and b weren't stuffed, but no way was I going to assume that about c when I had no idea what that was.

[ghostjmf]

The one I was forgetting is the one Wayne knew instantly, farfalle, the bowtie pasta.

Looking it up, although we call it "bowtie" in English, in Italian its "butterflies". Not a body part (unless you're a butterfly).

[triviawayne]

The one I was forgetting is the one Wayne knew instantly, farfalle, the bowtie pasta.

Looking it up, although we call it "bowtie" in English, in Italian its "butterflies". Not a body part (unless you're a butterfly).

I may have also said butterfly and that got edited, but I can't say for sure.

There were a few things I didn't remember saying.

[TheConfessor]

No one is mentioning the elephant in the room. The producers had already decided in advance that Wayne would not be allowed to win, so they gave him a killer stack. The evidence is clear and Chris Harrison was holding the smoking gun. Go back to his opening speech to start the episode. Here's exactly what he said:
"Hey everybody, on today's show we've got some great contestants, great questions, and a great deal of money on the line. And it's all starting right now. This is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!"

So Chris stated up front that the episode would have multiple contestants, meaning that they intended to dispose of Wayne quickly and bring on at least one more contestant after he was gone. But to his credit, Wayne refused to cooperate. He scratched and clawed up the treacherous money ladder, and as he neared the top, one of the rungs snapped and caused him to fall. Was it Wayne's fault, or a rigged ladder? Hard to say, but Chris Harrison's opening words certainly were ominous. And yet, Wayne proved them wrong, and managed to stay on stage for the full episode. So I'd call that a win, and certainly a strong and memorable performance!

[Bob Juch]

No one is mentioning the elephant in the room. The producers had already decided in advance that Wayne would not be allowed to win, so they gave him a killer stack. The evidence is clear and Chris Harrison was holding the smoking gun. Go back to his opening speech to start the episode. Here's exactly what he said:
"Hey everybody, on today's show we've got some great contestants, great questions, and a great deal of money on the line. And it's all starting right now. This is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!"

So Chris stated up front that the episode would have multiple contestants, meaning that they intended to dispose of Wayne quickly and bring on at least one more contestant after he was gone. But to his credit, Wayne refused to cooperate. He scratched and clawed up the treacherous money ladder, and as he neared the top, one of the rungs snapped and caused him to fall. Was it Wayne's fault, or a rigged ladder? Hard to say, but Chris Harrison's opening words certainly were ominous. And yet, Wayne proved them wrong, and managed to stay on stage for the full episode. So I'd call that a win, and certainly a strong and memorable performance!

I see no smoking gun in Chris's hand. However, the 30K question was harder than most of the $1M questions.

[triviawayne]

No one is mentioning the elephant in the room. The producers had already decided in advance that Wayne would not be allowed to win, so they gave him a killer stack. The evidence is clear and Chris Harrison was holding the smoking gun. Go back to his opening speech to start the episode. Here's exactly what he said:
"Hey everybody, on today's show we've got some great contestants, great questions, and a great deal of money on the line. And it's all starting right now. This is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!"

So Chris stated up front that the episode would have multiple contestants, meaning that they intended to dispose of Wayne quickly and bring on at least one more contestant after he was gone. But to his credit, Wayne refused to cooperate. He scratched and clawed up the treacherous money ladder, and as he neared the top, one of the rungs snapped and caused him to fall. Was it Wayne's fault, or a rigged ladder? Hard to say, but Chris Harrison's opening words certainly were ominous. And yet, Wayne proved them wrong, and managed to stay on stage for the full episode. So I'd call that a win, and certainly a strong and memorable performance!

I see no smoking gun in Chris's hand. However, the 30K question was harder than most of the $1M questions.

I rate that as a typical $100,000 question, especially with that set of answers.