Curious Attractiveness
A few years ago, back when I thought that American "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" would be as scary, nail-biting, difficult and exciting as the original British "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," Sabrina Sextina and I watched the celebrity version on the phone together one night.
Now, for those of you who have only seem the American version, let me tell you about the British version. It took FOREVER for someone to win 64,000 pounds and it was treated as an important event and reported in the papers. I saw a full season of it, and by the time I had left England no one had yet won the million. Chris Tarrant, the host, is the one who created (as far as I know) and perfected the catchy line "is that your final answer" except that he didn't spit it out at every opportunity like Regis Philbin does. He used it to freak out the contestants. This worked because the questions were really, really hard. Frighteningly hard. For example, a typical question looked like this:
Q: What is a stive?
a) a fishing implement
b) a cobbler's grinding tool
c) a sharp weapon
d) a collection of dust
Yeah, what? A stive? Huh? That was generally my response and I am excellent at these things. On the American version I saw an approximation of the following question:
Q: Who appeared on the Mickey Mouse club?
a) Amerie
b) Hilary Duff
c) Christina Aguilera
d) Jessica Simpson
Oooh! Was is Xtina or Jessica! Close call...but since I wasn't in a coma in the recent early millenium years, I know that our darling Xtina got her big break on the Mickey Mouse club. Scary question! I immediately called the hotline to become a contestant knowing full well that I would breeze right to the million with these questions. Normally, I would never appear on a game show, but this seemed like a no-lose situation. Naturally, my dreams were dashed. Canadians were not permitted to enter.
On the British version, people rarely got to 1000 pounds. On the American version, it seemed like a given.
Anyway, back to celebrity Millionaire. Appearing on the show that night were two generally unattractive guys: Drew Carey and Norm McDonald. Most contestants needed questions even easier than the Mickey Mouse one exemplified above, but, these two received different questions. Drew Carey won the fastest finger near the beginning of the show and went on before our old SNL favourite, Norm. At first, he got super easy questions, but he answered them so unhesitatingly that they slowly introduced more difficult questions until he finally lost in the hundreds of thousands. Now, Drew Carey comes across like an overweight, nerdy, smart-aleck interested in strippers. Once we realized that he was pretty smart, he started to seem unique and misunderstood. In short, sexier. Not SEXY. But, sexier. Norm McDonald was a different story. He became HOT.
Norm acted like an idiot throughout the show, totally screwing up the fastest finger question every time. After everyone else had gone and he was the only one left, they gave him the following fastest finger question (since he insisted on doing it):
Q: Put the following letters in order:
a) O
b) R
c) N
d) M
Surprise, surprise. NORM got it right! At first, Regis treated him like an idiot. But, Norm answered each question without hesitatingly. He didn't even use any of the "aids" (phone a friend, 50-50, ask the audience). Suspiciously, the questions started to approximate the questions of British caliber. Still, Norm answered each one as if the response were obvious. His hotness slowly increased in Laurelle and Sabrina's eyes! As he got to the hundreds of thousands, Regis started to badger him into using the aids. He used them simply as a formality. He never needed them. People, he got to the million. The question was something ridiculous like at which club did some president or other politician prefer to golf. Crazily, Norm gave an immediate answer at which point Regis bullied him for at least five minutes before he finally gave up and decided to take the money rather than gamble for the million. Really, Norm answered yes to a diatribe unimaginatively filled with "Is that yer final ansah?"millions of times. Finally, the one time that Norm says, no, maybe it's not my final answer, the lights come up and they reveal that, awwww, he was right, but nice playing with you. Cheaters. And that money was for charity.
So, to sum up. ABC = cheaters. Norm/Drew = sexier than before. Smartness = hot.
Why did this little anecdote pop into my mind? Well, I was up late grading and the Drew Carey Show came on TV. Of course, the TV was on mute so I didn't have to listen to the arbitrary use of laugh track. I just let my mind wander away and here it landed.
Now, for those of you who have only seem the American version, let me tell you about the British version. It took FOREVER for someone to win 64,000 pounds and it was treated as an important event and reported in the papers. I saw a full season of it, and by the time I had left England no one had yet won the million. Chris Tarrant, the host, is the one who created (as far as I know) and perfected the catchy line "is that your final answer" except that he didn't spit it out at every opportunity like Regis Philbin does. He used it to freak out the contestants. This worked because the questions were really, really hard. Frighteningly hard. For example, a typical question looked like this:
Q: What is a stive?
a) a fishing implement
b) a cobbler's grinding tool
c) a sharp weapon
d) a collection of dust
Yeah, what? A stive? Huh? That was generally my response and I am excellent at these things. On the American version I saw an approximation of the following question:
Q: Who appeared on the Mickey Mouse club?
a) Amerie
b) Hilary Duff
c) Christina Aguilera
d) Jessica Simpson
Oooh! Was is Xtina or Jessica! Close call...but since I wasn't in a coma in the recent early millenium years, I know that our darling Xtina got her big break on the Mickey Mouse club. Scary question! I immediately called the hotline to become a contestant knowing full well that I would breeze right to the million with these questions. Normally, I would never appear on a game show, but this seemed like a no-lose situation. Naturally, my dreams were dashed. Canadians were not permitted to enter.
On the British version, people rarely got to 1000 pounds. On the American version, it seemed like a given.
Anyway, back to celebrity Millionaire. Appearing on the show that night were two generally unattractive guys: Drew Carey and Norm McDonald. Most contestants needed questions even easier than the Mickey Mouse one exemplified above, but, these two received different questions. Drew Carey won the fastest finger near the beginning of the show and went on before our old SNL favourite, Norm. At first, he got super easy questions, but he answered them so unhesitatingly that they slowly introduced more difficult questions until he finally lost in the hundreds of thousands. Now, Drew Carey comes across like an overweight, nerdy, smart-aleck interested in strippers. Once we realized that he was pretty smart, he started to seem unique and misunderstood. In short, sexier. Not SEXY. But, sexier. Norm McDonald was a different story. He became HOT.
Norm acted like an idiot throughout the show, totally screwing up the fastest finger question every time. After everyone else had gone and he was the only one left, they gave him the following fastest finger question (since he insisted on doing it):
Q: Put the following letters in order:
a) O
b) R
c) N
d) M
Surprise, surprise. NORM got it right! At first, Regis treated him like an idiot. But, Norm answered each question without hesitatingly. He didn't even use any of the "aids" (phone a friend, 50-50, ask the audience). Suspiciously, the questions started to approximate the questions of British caliber. Still, Norm answered each one as if the response were obvious. His hotness slowly increased in Laurelle and Sabrina's eyes! As he got to the hundreds of thousands, Regis started to badger him into using the aids. He used them simply as a formality. He never needed them. People, he got to the million. The question was something ridiculous like at which club did some president or other politician prefer to golf. Crazily, Norm gave an immediate answer at which point Regis bullied him for at least five minutes before he finally gave up and decided to take the money rather than gamble for the million. Really, Norm answered yes to a diatribe unimaginatively filled with "Is that yer final ansah?"millions of times. Finally, the one time that Norm says, no, maybe it's not my final answer, the lights come up and they reveal that, awwww, he was right, but nice playing with you. Cheaters. And that money was for charity.
So, to sum up. ABC = cheaters. Norm/Drew = sexier than before. Smartness = hot.
Why did this little anecdote pop into my mind? Well, I was up late grading and the Drew Carey Show came on TV. Of course, the TV was on mute so I didn't have to listen to the arbitrary use of laugh track. I just let my mind wander away and here it landed.
posted by Laurelle St. Laurent at 1:22 a.m.
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