Meredith spills new lifelines

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sunflower · #26 Post by **sunflower** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:09 pm

gsabc wrote:If so, what's the official name of our favorite show now?

"Who Wants to Banter Alongside Meredith"

That way it's still WWTBAM!!

TheConfessor · #27 Post by **TheConfessor** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:21 pm

gsabc wrote:I have a vague recollection that the laws they put into place after the quiz show scandals, or maybe just network/TV regs, say that when you change the game play/rules, you have to change the name of the show. Am I remembering correctly? If so, what's the official name of our favorite show now?

The same vague memory says that one such change precipitated the removal of the question mark at the end of the show title. That was apparently sufficient to constitute a name change.

Offhand, I can't think of any game show that never changed its rules during its run. Actually, there was one called "The Rich List," but it lasted only one episode. So I don't think you are remembering correctly. Or you may be remembering correctly something that isn't true.

Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Greed, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Grand Slam, 5th Grader, Deal or No Deal, etc., have all had rules changes.

themanintheseersuckersuit · #28 Post by **themanintheseersuckersuit** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:27 pm

Jeopardy does not publish a set of official rules.

TheConfessor · #29 Post by **TheConfessor** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:41 pm

themanintheseersuckersuit wrote:Jeopardy does not publish a set of official rules.

Most show don't. But they all have rules, and the rules sometimes change.

Snaxx · #30 Post by **Snaxx** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:50 pm

LastMinuteRequest wrote:I also heard a rumor they might be revisiting the new changes over the August taping blackout.

Who knows, maybe the new clocked questions are too intimidating?

I would not be surprised if the clock is changed or removed if there is high early lifeline use and llamas. Under the additional stress, more contestants will misread questions, or make snap decisions to use lifelines on something that could be figured out easily. One thing they could do is apply a 1-2 minute time limit up to 25K then relax it greatly above 25K.

In the first Syndi season they had a long streak of contestants not get out of the first tier with all lifelines intact, and a high number of llamas. They revised question difficulty and shuffled airdates to avoid two solid months of lousy programming in the first season as they were trying to win an audience.

If there are like twelve llamas in two months, let's hold another llamarama!

.

takinover · #31 Post by **takinover** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:01 pm

I've been hoping for a clock even before I got on.

Bob Juch · #32 Post by **Bob Juch** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:24 pm

I've been thinking:

They should cut the time for the qualifying test is half to eliminate those who are indecisive.

Spokesman for MBFFB · #33 Post by **Spokesman for MBFFB** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:45 pm

Bob Juch wrote:‘Ask The Expert’.

MBFFB® says he can't wait for the first dumbass to call him and get the full brunt of his fury over the air. MBFFB® says it's a good thing the his Ask The Expert conversations will not be timed...

hermillion · #34 Post by **hermillion** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:13 pm

gsabc wrote: It wasn't luck that Nancy's group had just worked on music based on "American Gothic"?

Point of information: My "group" put on the show in question in March 1983, and I taped BAM in December 2002. Very nearly a 20 year span. We didn't work on music based on AG -- I simply posed as the character during the show's opening number.

Just one of those weird life coincidences.

AlphaDummy · #35 Post by **AlphaDummy** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:22 pm

hermillion wrote:
gsabc wrote: It wasn't luck that Nancy's group had just worked on music based on "American Gothic"?
Point of information: My "group" put on the show in question in March 1983, and I taped BAM in December 2002. Very nearly a 20 year span. We didn't work on music based on AG -- I simply posed as the character during the show's opening number.

Just one of those weird life coincidences.

You should have been up here this weekend, Nancy. Our community theater group put on "The Music Man", and my son was a member of the chorus. During "Iowa Stubborn", he and another cast member lugged an oversize picture frame across the stage and parked it in front of a couple whose pose you probably have already guessed. Everybody in the house was laughing; my laughter was most likely for a different reason than that for everybody else.

You would have been proud...

Ritterskoop · #36 Post by **Ritterskoop** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:50 am

gsabc wrote:
It wasn't luck that Nancy's group had just worked on music based on "American Gothic"?

It was not only luck.

Nancy leads a life with multiple interests, and she pays attention. How many other members of her group went out of their way to learn what she did about that painting?

It is not luck when you deliberately lead a diverse life, and you also pay attention. That is skill.

silverscreenselect · #37 Post by **silverscreenselect** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:51 am

TheConfessor wrote:Some of the best questions that have been on the show, like the most common given name of US Presidents, or how long it takes for light to get from the Sun to Earth, would be too complicated to figure out in 15 or 30 seconds.

While these questions are too tough to figure out in 15-30 seconds, they are also the type of trivia questions that some people have heard before and therefore have a big advantage on. I've known the answer to the sunlight question since elementary school.

The time limit is more likely to trick people into giving that plausibly quick wrong answer, either by not reading the question or all the answers fully or thinking the question through, or going for bigger money when they probably wouldn't if they had more time to think about it. If you notice at the Vegas casinos, when a player is "steaming," the dealers always up the pace of the game so that the player will continue to bet big amounts of money before coming to his senses. The same theory applies here. Excitement and someone goes for 250K (especially if they have a hunch about the answer) when they wouldn't if they had the time to think about it.

Weyoun · #38 Post by **Weyoun** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:22 am

Anyone know how the experts are chosen? I am assuming former winners. But how many are close to NYC?

trevor_macfee · #39 Post by **trevor_macfee** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:55 am

gsabc wrote:
It wasn't luck that Nancy's group had just worked on music based on "American Gothic"?

That is probably one of the most - well, let's be generous - unfortunately worded comments I've seen on this message board.

To attribute to "luck" Nancy's million-dollar victory is to negate her ability to come through under tremendous pressure, and to access a little fact she had stored away that was tangential to the activity at which she gained that fact. As was stated so well earlier in the thread, if it wasn't for Nancy's wide range of interests and experiences, she never would've gained that fact in the first place.

I think an apology may be appropriate here.

MarleysGh0st · #40 Post by **MarleysGh0st** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:56 am

Weyoun wrote:Anyone know how the experts are chosen? I am assuming former winners. But how many are close to NYC?

We've heard from some former contestants who've been contacted about this; TPTB are planning to use webcams for the experts, so that they don't have to travel to the studio.

NellyLunatic1980 · #41 Post by **NellyLunatic1980** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:01 am

Weyoun wrote:Anyone know how the experts are chosen? I am assuming former winners. But how many are close to NYC?

John Carpenter is the only millionaire who lives close to NYC.

Carpenter = Connecticut
Blonsky = Florida
Trela = California
House = Georgia
Hunt = Tennessee
Goodman = Maryland
Olmstead = Michigan
Cullen = California
Toutant = Texas
Smith = California
Christy = Oklahoma
Essig = Ohio

MarleysGh0st · #42 Post by **MarleysGh0st** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:04 am

NellyLunatic1980 wrote:Smith = California

I bet we never see Kevin Smith on the show again.

Here's Fanny! · #43 Post by **Here's Fanny!** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:10 am

trevor_macfee wrote:
gsabc wrote:
It wasn't luck that Nancy's group had just worked on music based on "American Gothic"?
That is probably one of the most - well, let's be generous - unfortunately worded comments I've seen on this message board.

To attribute to "luck" Nancy's million-dollar victory is to negate her ability to come through under tremendous pressure, and to access a little fact she had stored away that was tangential to the activity at which she gained that fact. As was stated so well earlier in the thread, if it wasn't for Nancy's wide range of interests and experiences, she never would've gained that fact in the first place.

I think an apology may be appropriate here.

Depends on what you mean by luck. One of my favourite sayings is "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity". What's negative about that?

Had the statement been "It wasn't just dumb luck....?" then it might have been different.

Taking the statement into the context for which it was used as an example, I don't see it being used as a slight. A time limit won't matter if somebody is lucky and gets a high dollar question that they absolutely know. It appears gs was just mistaken in thinking that the event in question was quite recent, in which case I'd call it serendipity more than luck.

gsabc · #44 Post by **gsabc** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:26 am

trevor_macfee wrote:
gsabc wrote:
It wasn't luck that Nancy's group had just worked on music based on "American Gothic"?
That is probably one of the most - well, let's be generous - unfortunately worded comments I've seen on this message board.

To attribute to "luck" Nancy's million-dollar victory is to negate her ability to come through under tremendous pressure, and to access a little fact she had stored away that was tangential to the activity at which she gained that fact. As was stated so well earlier in the thread, if it wasn't for Nancy's wide range of interests and experiences, she never would've gained that fact in the first place.

I think an apology may be appropriate here.

I apologize to all who may have been offended, most especially Nancy.

But to me it's a matter of semantics. All of us have a wide range of interests and experiences, else we would not have sufficient trivia knowledge to play the game or even pass the audition test. It's "luck" when you run across the answer you need to a trivia question in the recent past, when you very possibly would not otherwise have known it.

IIRC one of the PTBAM players, and I think a BB, had a question on the Three Gorges Dam, and they had read about it just within the week prior to being on the show, maybe even studying for the show on the trip to NYC. He/She could have run across that fact a week after. Nancy's group could have done their show with American Gothic the next year. Another memory says a BB ran into the fact that tripped them up on the show within a day or two after their hot seat stint. That's what I'm calling "luck".

We tend to talk here about "the luck of the stack" in the negative, when a contestant is blown away by one or more questions that others might have known. Why doesn't it work the other way, where it's good luck of the stack for having questions in your BOK?

gsabc · #45 Post by **gsabc** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:32 am

Here's Fanny! wrote: It appears gs was just mistaken in thinking that the event in question was quite recent, in which case I'd call it serendipity more than luck.

And apparently I was. I thought Nancy's group's production had been their most recent one. I agree with the term "serendipity'.

Here's Fanny! · #46 Post by **Here's Fanny!** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:34 am

Given gs' explanation, he doesn't think of it the same way I do. What he calls luck, I'd call serendipity.

I actually thought of a better example to explain what I was trying to say when I saw his reply, so this has nothing to do with anything other than my previous message.

Was she lucky she knew the answer? No. She knew the answer because she had the inclination to read up on something in which she was interested when she had no thought of any benefit other than personal enrichment.

Was she lucky she got that question? Yes. It could have just as easily been the person before or after her who got that stack.

So preparation (just wanting to know about something) meets opportunity (having an instance present itself where that personal enrichment garners some jack). Yay, luck!

secondchance · #47 Post by **secondchance** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:58 am

I think Fanny & Gordon explained their points quite succinctly. Though the event took place 2 decades ago, Nancy obviously possesses the type of intelligence and recall that afforded her passing the test to appear on the show to begin with.

That such good fortune visited such a nice lady, one who devotes much of her life to the enrichment and betterment of the children of our society, the question could then even fall to whether it is possible that fate or destiny may somehow be involved when this kind of "luck" comes to someone as deserving as she.

At the end of the day, what's serendipitous is that of all the contestants who have ever appeared on the show, she may well have been the only one who's actually come across this factoid in their lifetime. What's lucky is that she's the one to whom the question was posed. And at the million dollar level, to boot.

I doubt that Nancy took any offense to the comment.

starfish1113 · #48 Post by **starfish1113** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:09 am

MarleysGh0st wrote:
NellyLunatic1980 wrote:Smith = California
I bet we never see Kevin Smith on the show again.

Why?

MarleysGh0st · #49 Post by **MarleysGh0st** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:33 pm

starfish1113 wrote:
MarleysGh0st wrote:
NellyLunatic1980 wrote:Smith = California
I bet we never see Kevin Smith on the show again.
Why?

Despite being the first SyndieBAM Millionaire, I don't think he exhibits the energy and telepresence TPTB want in their contestants--or in their experts. Perhaps he's just a shy person and doesn't want to participate in any further WWTBAM activities, but you might recall that he never appeared as one of the 3 Wise Men on SuperMillionaire, when many other big winners did.

goongas · #50 Post by **goongas** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:41 pm

Ask the Expert is going to be done using Skype (Internet video call).

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Meredith spills new lifelines

Re: Meredith spills new lifelines