i have been listening to this show recently. i live in sf but get this show at night.
the weird thing is that mike cook asks 5 questions, and most people get the questions wrong. the next caller is asked the same questions.
anyway, hours go by and the same questions go unanswered. my question is this:
do these people in sd not have the internet? if you browsed the net, you could easily diving the answers.
i THINK the show is live, from what i can tell. is there some sort of agreed-upon convent that all listeners will not look up the questions on the internet?
have i been fooled into thinking that this show is live, when in reality it is not?
I’m going to tell you something very profound right now:
People are stupid.
I listen to the Steve & DC show and they do the five-questions thing from time to time, too. You’ll hear caller after caller getting the answers wrong, often times repeating the same mistakes callers before them made.
I know of no unspoken covenant that participants won’t use the internet. It’s just that the callers probably haven’t thought about it.
Yep, I remember watching on Who Wants to be a Millionaire when one of the contestant’s phone-a-friend tried to do an internet search. Even though they screwed up, Regis seemed so stunned that anybody had even thought to do that. I found that funny because earlier in the show he made a comment about the phone-a-friend usually using a reference book to look up answers. In conclusion and to reiterate what Rastahomie said: People are stupid.
Regis would be stunned to learn the Internet is normally accessed via a computer. I once saw a contestant have to explain to him what ramen noodles are. However, the creators of the show more or less precluded the use of reference books or the Internet by limiting the call to 30 seconds, including asking the question. Obviously, this limit isn’t to keep the show flowing, because outside the call, the contestant is given a painfully long time in whiich to answer the question.
So to sum up:
People are stupid.
Regis is a complete f***ing idiot.
You probably expect me to say, “Hi Opal” here, right? Well, I’m not going to.
The creators of “Millionaire” are somewhat on the ball.
Many, many contestants have used internet-based PAF’s, and Regis is so aware of that he’s stated on-air before that the practice is acceptable. Google, and other less-used engines, are plenty fast enough to use in the 30-second limit. For the case you’re referring to (and I know both the contestant and the PAF casually, btw), the contestant wasted time trying to spell out the search keywords himself instead of letting the PAF think a little.
There is also no limit at all on the time a contestant can spend in the studio on a question. The record is up to almost an hour on a single question, nearly all of which was cut. The pace shown on-air has little relation to the pace in the studio, due to the magic of editing.
Oh, and how are the folks claiming that “People are stupid” doing on their own attempts to get on the Millionaire show and get rich by showing themselves to be exceptions? If the San Diego radio quiz is so easy for someone with Internet access, why hasn’t anyone with the “intelligence” to post on this board won it?
I say “people are stupid” when I hear exchanges like this on the morning radio quiz:
DJ: What animal belongs to the genus canis?
CALLER #1: Uh, cat?
DJ: No, that’s not the answer we’re looking for.
CALLER #2: Cat!
DJ: Nope, sorry.
CALLER #3: Uh, lizard?
DJ: No. The question is, what animal belongs to the genus canis?
CALLER #4: Cat!
DJ: No, and the first two people who said “cat” weren’t right either.
CALLER #4: Uh, can you play some Shania Twain?
That, my friend, is why I say “people are stupid.”
OK, if you’d said “Some people” or “A lot of people” are stupid, I’d certainly agree. “People” is still too broad, though, your excellent example notwithstanding.