I was watching this last night, and it seemed like the guy that Johnny Bench called wasn’t sure, then suddenly blurted out the answer. The question “every single Chevy Corvette been produced at the same plant in which state?” The guy he called thought it was Kentucky, then wasn’t sure, then right at the end he said “BOWLING GREEN KENTUCKY!” right as he got cut off. Of course he could have simply remembered, but it got me thinking: here at work, anyone could call me with that question and I would have the answer using Google and our firewall within 30 seconds.
So, is there someone from the show at the house of every “phone a friend” guy, making sure he doesn’t have Internet access? For that matter, can the guy use Encarta, or Bookshelf, or put it on speaker and ask everyone in the room?
(I checked the Rules from the website, but all they said was that the 5 selected phone a friend people cannot use cellphones).
I saw an episode where the contestant did feed his phone friend keywords to punch in to a search engine, and it was remarked upon by the contestant and Regis, casually as if no rule was broken. The guy didn’t punch them into the search engine fast enough and the contestant missed the question.
Internet use is entirely legal on the show, since it can’t really be enforced. So is having an entire room of people available with a speakerphone, even though only 1 person can be the official phone-a-friend there, but that method is slower.
It just came back to me: The question that I referenced above was “What was Carol Brady’s maiden name on the Brady Bunch.” A little more difficult to get than the location of the Corvette plant perhaps. Maybe I’ll go try it on Google.
I tried this and all you get are hits on pages commenting on how often people are searching for this very information since the broadcast. Hardly indicative of what it would have been like during the actual show.
When typing “Carol Brady maiden name Brady Bunch” into Google, only 5 of the first 10 results have to do with WWTBAM? and this question. The other 5 are actual Brady info pages.
I was a contestant on WWTBAM (I never made it to the hot seat), so I can tell you first hand: NOBODY is monitoring your phone-a-friends. ABC had NO way of knowing if my phone-a-friends were alone, or if they had reference materials, or if they were logged onto their computers. They really had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
So, if your phone-a-friend has a dictionary or encyclopedia or almanac on his lap, that’s not cheating. If your friend has several other friends sitting around with him, ready to help him out, that’s not cheating, either. And if your friend is sitting at a computer, hoping to run a few keywords through Google, that’s not cheating either. If your friend gives you the right answer, ABC isn’t going to deny you the money, just because they suspect that your friend was using the Internet.
But bear in mind, 30 seconds is NOT a very long time. If your friend doesn’t know the answer off the top of his head, he’s highly unlikely to be able to find the right answer, in a book or on-line, in the time he’s given. In fact, we’ve all seen numerous episodes in which time ran out while a phone-a-friend was obviously leafing through a reference book, or trying to do a Web search. MOST of the time, it’s a bad idea to try that… but if the question is a real stumper, the kind hardly anybody is likely to know, phoning a friend with a fast search engine MAY be your best bet.
Thanks astorian - I was hoping someone would know that was actually on the show.
That makes me wonder if the people who write the questions intentionally make them difficult to find through a search engine. Certainly the Johnny Bench question was easy, but probably b/c the celebrity questions are easier. (or so I thought while watching). Maybe they have a QA dept that tries to see if they can find the answer in 30 seconds using the Web…