Transcript 11/16/2012 - Scott Green (hss501)

[BBTranscriptTeam]

Scott Green (BB hss501)
Chicago, IL
professional magician

Scott was sweating on yesterday's show and brought a handkerchief with him. He produces it magically from his hand, then tucks it away and makes it vanish. The last three questions in Scott's stack were worth the three big amounts. Scott has $31,600 in his bank and the question he faces is worth $25,000. He has no lifelines remaining.

Topic Tree (randomized)
Presumed Existence
Holy Spit Take
Go Team
Made By Hand
Punk Protest
Picture Perfect
Don't Mock Me
Good Reads
Medical Conditions
Higher Learning

Question #10 (Presumed Existence)
Before it was colonized, 17th century cartographers used the Latin term for "southern" to name what continent?
A - Africa
B - Australia
C - America
D - Asia

Scott thinks for a moment then says, "Oh!

Spoiler

The aurora borealis are the northern lights and aurora australis are the southern

lights

. He adds a few more thoughts on the subject and gives his final answer.

Spoiler

Answer: B (Australia)
Value: $25,000
Bank: $56,600

Meredith notes that Scott used all his lifelines on the first three questions but he has rallied and reached round 2. Meredith tells Scott that the $56,600 in his bank is all his. Scott laughs and says, "And hers," referring to his wife Michelle who is in the relationship seat. Michelle is pregnant with their first child.

CLASSIC MILLIONAIRE

$100K - After years of debate, in 1837 the U.S. House of Representatives officially banned members from doing what during sessions?
A - smoking tobacco
B - bringing pets
C - drinking alcohol
D - wearing hats

Scott chuckles. "That's about the time that one representative got caned on the House floor." He was hoping that that might be one of the answers. Scott thinks he knows what he's going to do but since he'll never get to the top of this mountain again he wants to take his time. Meredith asks if he's leaning a certain way. Scott replies he's thinking about taking the money. Of the four answers he's leaning toward

Spoiler

smoking tobacco

and is trying to envision any picture or story from a history book. He decides to walk away.

Spoiler

D (wearing hats)

[MarleysGh0st]

$100K - After years of debate, in 1837 the U.S. House of Representatives officially banned members from doing what during sessions?
A - smoking tobacco
B - bringing pets
C - drinking alcohol
D - wearing hats

Scott chuckles. "That's about the time that one representative got caned on the House floor." He was hoping that that might be one of the answers. Scott thinks he knows what he's going to do but since he'll never get to the top of this mountain again he wants to take his time. Meredith asks if he's leaning a certain way. Scott replies he's thinking about taking the money. Of the four answers he's leaning toward

Spoiler

smoking tobacco

and is trying to envision any picture or story from a history book. He decides to walk away.

Spoiler

D (wearing hats)

I'll take WWOQs for $100K, Alex.

My hunch was running towards "drinking alcohol," thinking back to scenes of the Continental Congress from the play 1776, with Stephen Hopkins constantly calling for "more rum". At some point, Congress had to decide that was a bad idea, so it might have been 1837.

But they were busy debating wearing hats, huh? How do such important points get left out of the history books?

[hanzz]

I commented to Scott that I wonder if this was some factoid that caught the attention of the question writers when that one rep was escorted off the House floor a few months back for wearing a hoody in a show of solidarity for Trayvon Martin. There was some discussion as to whether the reason he was escorted off was because of the demonstration or because of the odd no-hats-in-session rule. That said, I definitely didn't think of all this before the question came up, and just WAG'd smoking.

[hss501]

I was actually a little closer to the correct answer than it seemed, although as it was all internal monologue, there was no way to get that across on the show. I figured the correct answer was going to have to be interesting, and smoking tobacco struck me as possible because the hook would be, isn't it incredible Congress banned smoking a century before anyone else did? For some reason I had ruled out pets and alcohol, and had decided ultimately that tobacco felt to much like a distractor - that was an answer choice you'd have to have if you were writing this question. That line of thinking hinted a little bit at hats, which I neither ruled out as possibly correct nor decided not to answer.

Ultimately, after the emotions of the previous 30 minutes or so, when I got the $25,000 question I turned real miserly. I had worked so hard to get to round two, I wasn't going to risk that money - MY money - on anything but a lock answer. And after thinking about this, and losing some sleep about not knowing something that should have been in my trivia wheelhouse (when the question came up on TV, my mom said, "Oh! Scott'll know this"), ultimately I think I just wish I had known the answer, and nothing more.

[mrkelley23]

Scott, I haven't watched Millionaire in a long time, but because I happened to be home when it came on, and because I had read you were going to be on, I flipped it on. Congratulations for succeeding on a VERY difficult stack of questions, using your lifelines aggressively and wisely, and getting one old-time viewer back to the fold, however temporarily.

I know there are a lot of people who regret something or other they did or thought in the Hot Seat, but I honestly can't come up with anything you could have done. Well done!

[SportsFan68]

I'm outta there, but I'll play along for fun.

$100K - After years of debate, in 1837 the U.S. House of Representatives officially banned members from doing what during sessions?
A - smoking tobacco
B - bringing pets
C - drinking alcohol
D - wearing hats

Scott chuckles. "That's about the time that one representative got caned on the House floor." He was hoping that that might be one of the answers. Scott thinks he knows what he's going to do but since he'll never get to the top of this mountain again he wants to take his time. Meredith asks if he's leaning a certain way. Scott replies he's thinking about taking the money. Of the four answers he's leaning toward

Spoiler

smoking tobacco

and is trying to envision any picture or story from a history book. He decides to walk away.

Spoiler

D (wearing hats)

I'm outta there again.

GREAT job, Scott!

[hss501]

Thanks for the support. I do regret not thinking more clearly about Bootsy Collins and saving a jump, although as my wife keeps reminding me, I may well have burned it on one of the other questions (although looking back, I'm not sure which one - there were a few I took my sweet time on, but none for which I wasn't ultimately reasonably sure of the answer.) I also regret not knowing my $100K question straight up, but there was less I could have done about that on the set.

I got a lot of feedback about how much people enjoyed seeing me play the game, or how hard my stack was, or how well I handled it. It's weird to hear because my experience was sort of the opposite. I didn't find my stack all that hard because I knew eight of the answers in round one, and I managed to jump over less than the average amount one would jump when using both jumps in the first round. And I handled it the same way anyone else would have: after seven questions I had the absolute minimum possible, $6,600, and I was never going to walk with just $3,300. So after getting Burnie, which was worth $10,000, I finally had something to protect, sort of, but I knew the next two answers cold and never really had to put anything on the line. In fact, I spent the 15 minutes or so between games thinking about how relived I was to have enough money ($15,800 if I walked) to buy the SUV I wanted that I really wasn't going to risk it for anything less than a slam dunk. And then came the Australia question, which must have been level six or seven based on the reaction it got from non-trivia types, and was the easiest question of my stack and the one of which I was most certain of my answer.

As to likability - okay, maybe I came off likable on Friday's show, but that was almost by mistake. What you saw was a cocky guy who got humbled early, and was genuinely grateful for the ability to come all the way back and finish off the round.

[earendel]

Scott Green (BB hss501)
Chicago, IL
professional magician

Scott was sweating on yesterday's show and brought a handkerchief with him. He produces it magically from his hand, then tucks it away and makes it vanish. The last three questions in Scott's stack were worth the three big amounts. Scott has $31,600 in his bank and the question he faces is worth $25,000. He has no lifelines remaining.

Too bad you couldn't make the $25,000 appear earlier in the stack, to take the pressure off. Hard to believe that you basically had to earn your money the old fashioned way.

Question #10 (Presumed Existence)
Before it was colonized, 17th century cartographers used the Latin term for "southern" to name what continent?
A - Africa
B - Australia
C - America
D - Asia

Scott thinks for a moment then says, "Oh!

Spoiler

The aurora borealis are the northern lights and aurora australis are the southern lights

. He adds a few more thoughts on the subject and gives his final answer.

Spoiler

Answer: B (Australia)
Value: $25,000
Bank: $56,600

Well reasoned, Scott. That's how I got it.

$100K - After years of debate, in 1837 the U.S. House of Representatives officially banned members from doing what during sessions?
A - smoking tobacco
B - bringing pets
C - drinking alcohol
D - wearing hats

Scott chuckles. "That's about the time that one representative got caned on the House floor." He was hoping that that might be one of the answers. Scott thinks he knows what he's going to do but since he'll never get to the top of this mountain again he wants to take his time. Meredith asks if he's leaning a certain way. Scott replies he's thinking about taking the money. Of the four answers he's leaning toward

Spoiler

smoking tobacco

and is trying to envision any picture or story from a history book. He decides to walk away.

Spoiler

D (wearing hats)

I'd have thought it was "drinking alcohol" ("Friends don't let friends legislate drunk"). My only thought about headware would have been wigs. I'd JTQ this one.