Something's just a little too peachy-keen about Regis' new show.

Imagine this. You've been selected, "Price Is Right"-style, to sit in front of a studio audience and the world and answer trivia questions, handed to you by Regis Philbin. Each question is worth twice as much as the last, with the ultimate, 15th question netting one million dollars. You're sweating. The audience, in the studio and at home, is on the edge of their seats. Time is ticking. You hold your breath. And then...

Yes, it could have been that exciting. If this was America in 1949. I had the big misfortune of watching Robert Redford's Quiz Show a scant month before tuning in to ABC's new melodramatic game show, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" The show features regular Joe's and Jane's who called the special hotline, qualified to be on the show, and then ran the gauntlet of questions to the big payoff. I've been intrigued by the show during its first week, which is saying a lot for a game show, since I have a hard time sitting through a whole episode of anything but "Jeopardy." The amount of money at stake inherently makes the show interesting I suppose. Regis even called it unprecedented for television. Considering the Publisher's Clearing House Super Bowl Giveaway, I doubt the word "unprecedented" quite fits, but if Regis says it's so, who am I to question?

The show, imported from Britain (if you couldn't tell already by the lame title), has the potential to be exciting, a national event even. However .... (deep breath) .... the lights make it look like a bad magician's first cable special, the music is a direct rip-off from the nightmare level of Quake, Regis has a tendency to yell and scream at the contestants whenever a corny joke appears in the answer list, the contestants are predominately male (lending credence to the "men are stupid money-grubbing pigs" theory), the show is sponsored by AT&T (grrr), the call to be a contestant costs $1.50 (like ABC/Disney needs the money), every answer is followed by a double-check from Regis of "final answer?" which is as annoying as being asked "are you sure?" when you tell someone how to spell your name, and it's on EVERY SINGLE BLOODY NIGHT.

But wait, there's more.

I mentioned that I saw "Quiz Show" only a month before the premiere of "WWTBAM?" This may be tainting my normally rosy-colored TV goggles, but I have a strong Munster-cheese-scented suspicion that this whole thing is rigged. I don't claim to have any proof, but the characters, the questions, and the oh-so-bizarre timing of the so-called "life lines" has me thinking that we've got a modern day Quiz Show on our hands. Not that I care, mind you. The '90's are so defiantly cynical that we've gone past the point of caring about lies, so that a blatant rip-off of a lie would be the perfect way to send off the millenium, but why ABC? Why Disney? Why that loveable weisenheimer Regis? They seem to be subtly adding in credibility at every turn, smiling and benevolently reassuring the suckers watching that's it's all real. It's all so tense... the tension itself is the real giveaway. Why create dramatic pauses and double-checks on questions like "What's the fastest land animal: mouse, dog, cheetah, or Volkswagon Bug?" Even the contestants obligingly hesitate at ones like that. Something's fishy, and this time it's not just Philbin's hosiery.

Like all game shows, this is a good one to watch to exercise your sense of superiority. The lumbering pace of the questions provides ample time to yell and scream the correct answer at the TV, so that when the poor manipulated sap on the podium finally spits out the right choice, you can slide smugly back into the couch and wish that money were yours.

And like all pre-fall-season programming, it works for the simple reason that there's nothing else at all on the tube. Let's just hope that once the new shows hit, this British turkey will be kicked back across the pond faster than you can say "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"

Who indeed?

Date: August 31, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by Chris J. Magyar