I Want to Be a Millionaire

I swear, I am not the kind of person who travels 500 miles to try out for a game show. Really, you’ve got to believe me on this. I don’t like crowds, I don’t like making small talk with strangers, and I usually don’t even like game shows.

I mean, Jeopardy is OK, but Wheel of Fortune and Hollywood Squares are like a video root canal. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I even have seen a few snatches of The Price is Right lately, and aside from the ever-more-android-like movements of the 107-year-old Bob Barker, the main thing that has changed is that the contestants increasingly resemble homeless people, except the homeless probably dress better.

But Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is different. It’s prime time. Regis Philbin is a snappy dresser and seems to be a likable guy. The set design is cool, filled with shadows and lasers, and the music is spooky and suspenseful. Millionaire is easily the most popular game show in the history of television. Since beginning in Britain in 1998, it has spread worldwide. It’s aired in 40 more-or-less identically formatted versions in 56 countries—from India, where it is watched by more than 100 million people a night, to Russia, where, in some sort of inadvertent expression of national character, the audience gleefully tries to give the wrong answer to hapless contestants who use the “ask the audience” lifeline.

Since the show began airing in the U.S. in August 1999, it has become an American cultural phenomenon. Even as ABC risked oversaturation by scheduling it four times a week, the show continues to be among the top-rated programs on television. And I wanted to be a part of it. I told my wife Sharon what I wanted to do; her response was a good-natured “You’ve lost your mind.” At least I think it was good-natured.

Poise and sense of humor

So I was in a hotel lobby in New Orleans, waiting for the chance for a Millionaire audition. I was lined up with about 110 other potential contestants, and we were all waiting for the junior staffer who appeared to be in charge down here, a young woman in black satiny pants who had a striking resemblance to the pre-surgery Carny Wilson, to tell us what to do next.

It had been only eight days earlier when I sat down by the phone to try to get a slot at this tryout. The show began accepting audition calls at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 9. I began repeatedly dialing the number. I’d get a busy signal, hit flash, redial; get a busy signal, hit flash, redial. After something like 125 attempts, the phone finally rang on the other end.

A recorded Mr. Announcer-type voice walked me through the registration process. I had to pick a city—auditions were going on the next weekend in New Orleans and Chicago; I chose New Orleans. A breathy female recorded voice then assigned a seven-digit PIN, and Mr. Announcer came back to caution that without this identifying number, I wouldn’t be able to enter the audition. He also said that the audition would consist of a timed test of knowledge, followed by an interview and practice game during which we would-be millionaires would be judged on the basis of “poise, sense of humor, and TV presence.”

Dear God in heaven, I thought. It’s more like Who Wants to Be Miss America?

Toward the end of the call, Mr. Announcer revealed the Top Secret location: the Doubletree Hotel on Canal Street, with my session to begin at 2 p.m. It was suggested that I get there an hour ahead of time. So I’d booked a flight and a room at a cheap chain joint near the airport, and here I was. Here we all were. We lined up near the elevators in the small and sort of shopworn lobby, and naturally fell to talking while we waited. The people immediately in front of me, a couple in their 50s, were from Austin. Somebody said that geography was a weak area for her, but that she had been studying some maps.

“If I were to study one thing on a map, it would be the Great Lakes,” the man from Austin said. “That just comes up on the show over and over.” He seemed pretty intense about it.

A rumor spread that there was a guy in the hotel bar intently reading a couple of paperback reference books, getting in some last-minute cramming. We shook our heads at how far-gone somebody can get. We may have traveled hundreds of miles to try out for a game show, but we weren’t, you know, fanatics.

Near miss by phone

This audition was not the first time I had tried to get on Millionaire. The producers keep tweaking the qualification format, but for most of the show’s run, the only way to qualify was by phone. There is a first round of three questions that you play over the phone, and then a few people who pass that round are chosen at random and called back later for a second round of five phone questions. Fewer still who make it past this round are then randomly chosen for the show.