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I remember contestant coordinators or someone else with the show at one of my auditions say in the Regis days, there was really no limit on how long they would let a contestant spend on thinking about any question, and there was one person that took over two hours.

Can anyone confirm that, and do you know who it was and what the question was?

triviawayne wrote:I remember contestant coordinators or someone else with the show at one of my auditions say in the Regis days, there was really no limit on how long they would let a contestant spend on thinking about any question, and there was one person that took over two hours.

Can anyone confirm that, and do you know who it was and what the question was?

I think it was Kati Knudsen. During the Regis days, she took an enormous amount of time to answer back-to-back questions. I can't remember the specifics, but I believe the show put up a graphic during her appearance that said something to the effect of "A long time later" and then "An even longer time later." One source (I don't know how reliable) says Regis said she took 53 minutes to answer her $500,000 question (she was incorrect). --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

triviawayne wrote:I remember contestant coordinators or someone else with the show at one of my auditions say in the Regis days, there was really no limit on how long they would let a contestant spend on thinking about any question, and there was one person that took over two hours.

Can anyone confirm that, and do you know who it was and what the question was?

I think it was Kati Knudsen. During the Regis days, she took an enormous amount of time to answer back-to-back questions. I can't remember the specifics, but I believe the show put up a graphic during her appearance that said something to the effect of "A long time later" and then "An even longer time later." One source (I don't know how reliable) says Regis said she took 53 minutes to answer her $500,000 question (she was incorrect). --Bob

That's what I recall.

Bob Juch wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

triviawayne wrote:I remember contestant coordinators or someone else with the show at one of my auditions say in the Regis days, there was really no limit on how long they would let a contestant spend on thinking about any question, and there was one person that took over two hours.

Can anyone confirm that, and do you know who it was and what the question was?

I think it was Kati Knudsen. During the Regis days, she took an enormous amount of time to answer back-to-back questions. I can't remember the specifics, but I believe the show put up a graphic during her appearance that said something to the effect of "A long time later" and then "An even longer time later." One source (I don't know how reliable) says Regis said she took 53 minutes to answer her $500,000 question (she was incorrect). --Bob

That's what I recall.

I think Kati's limit on one of her questions was about 45 minutes or so... her final two questions, as i recall, took nearly an hour and a half (sjcornman provided us the lowdown on her infamous taping). But there was one contestant, whose name has long escaped me, who appeared about a month after Kati who took 52 minutes of real life time a single question... which was believed to be the known record.

lb13

With all this information I was probably told the contestants entire game took over two hours and I misremembered it being for a single question.

littlebeast13 wrote:

I think Kati's limit on one of her questions was about 45 minutes or so... her final two questions, as i recall, took nearly an hour and a half (sjcornman provided us the lowdown on her infamous taping). But there was one contestant, whose name has long escaped me, who appeared about a month after Kati who took 52 minutes of real life time a single question... which was believed to be the known record.

lb13

The contestant who spent 52 minutes on the $500,000 question and got it wrong was Nick Meyer. I can answer this authoritatively because I was there. Nick followed me into the Hot Seat.

The question was "Which of the following actresses was in the original Broadway company of Hair. The choices were Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, and somebody else.

Spoiler

He answered Midler; it was Keaton.

On the air, they didn't show things like Regis pleading with him to walk away or saying "While we wait, we can get Tangredi out here to sing the rest of The Sound of Music. (I was appearing in the show at the time and did a little bit of it while I was in the Hot Seat.) What you did see on the air was the audience applauding as soon as Regis announced that he got the question wrong.

And what you definitely didn't see on the air was my visit to the men's room afterward. Regis and one of the producers were at the urinals and Regis was saying, "What the hell was that guy doing out there?" Then he saw me and said, "We could have used you out there, Tangredi!"

I went up to Nick afterward and asked him how he was feeling. He said, "I feel stupid." Even though he brought it on himself, I still felt bad for him. He was absolutely humiliated.

Topper on the story: Nick became a tournament Scrabble player (briefly) and we actually played in a tournament. We did not talk about the incident.