So I’m watching that insanely annoying yet highly addictive show last night and something has been bugging me. When I first saw the show, I figured that the phone-a-friend lifeline people must somehow be isolated or monitored so that they wouldn’t see the question before being called. However, based on last night’s episode and other things that have happened on previous shows, I don’t think that’s how it is set up. I think the lifeline person is just at home waiting for the call.
So, what’s to stop a contestant from having their phone-a-friend lifeline sit in front of a computer with a T1 and at least trying to find the answer? If the contestant took a long time deciding (people have hemmed and hawed for 15 or more minutes; a lot is edited out for TV), it would be easy to find a lot of the answers on the Net. Or they could get 10 friends with a wide range of knowledge to sit in the room with the one “official” lifeline.
It seems to me it would be very easy to arrange this, so I can’t figure out why more people haven’t done so. Are they all just really honest? Do they have to sign something?
(P.S. I am somewhat confused about the difference between GQ and MPSIMS, so I apologize if I’m in the wrong place.)
My WAG: The game isn’t live. The show is taped and then we watch it in our living rooms at a later time. This prevents the friends from sitting at home looking up every answer as they come. When they do get the call, they are timed (I think it’s only 30 seconds to have the question read and answered), and I can’t see how anyone would have the time to look something up in that time.
You know, I saw an article not too long ago about this very same subject. The author sat in front of his PC while the show aired, and due to net congestion, most times the 30 seconds ran out before he could retrieve a good answer.
The game is taped at least one day before it airs. In fact, when that first guy won the million bucks, it had leaked to some news sources before the show aired.
They also edit for time. There was one guy who took almost 20 minutes (and all three lifelines) before picking an answer. On TV, it only took a few minutes.
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I doubt any serious research could be done in 15 seconds. If you could do it, you might not have enough time to answer. I doubt that would be a good method to cheat (it might not even be cheating, really…)
I think the best method to cheat would be to try and “read” Regis, as a poker player would. But Regis doesn’t seem that smart (look how often he mispronounces things), so this may not get you far. It’s a definite advantage, though, if you can see if Regis thinks you are wrong or right.
Well DUH! I guess I just forgot about the show being taped. Sometimes the things that fly way over my head just amaze me. This is my very first New Topic, and I have revealed myself as a dunce.
Okay, so it wouldn’t work to have the lifeline trying to get the answer off the Net. But last night, for instance, one guy called his lifeline and the person didn’t know the answer, so the contestant said something like, “How about anyone else there? Does anyone else know??”
So is it allowed to have numerous people in the room? Or did this guy just put his foot into his mouth big time?
(I hope the answer isn’t incredibly obvious or I’m really going to feel ridiculous.)
‘, "How about anyone else there? Does
anyone else know??’
First, the person said that he had a group of people in California waiting & that was his group. Just picture them all arguing about the answer & you can see the 15 seconds aren’t enough.
The show is often done 2 weeks in advance. A guy who won a million bucks said they had to keep the secret for two weeks as per some agreement with the show.
Watch the question pattern. The first four don’t repeat a letter, so if its: A, C, D, the next answer is B. Kinda the same for the next four, but I gave up paying attention to it.
missbunny, don’t feel bad. I’ll confess that the reason I was able to give you such a lightning fast answer was because my husband and I were watching the show one night and I asked him the same thing. He looked at me like I was a complete idiot.
Everyone, even those brunette people, have a blonde moment at some point.
You could try the James Bond approach. Have a miniture transmitter to broadcast everything that is being said to your research crew. There is no time limit on answering, so stall and discuss each answer. Your research crew beeps you back A-D [or 1-4]. You should use a lifeline or two to make it look real.
I had also thought that someone could bribe Regis to use hand signals or coded words, but 1) I’m not sure he can see the answer before the contestant has decided; and 2) the contestant couldn’t possibly compete with all the money Regis is already raking in from ABC.
Although if Regis knew the answer anyway, this plan would work, but since Regis can’t seem to pronounce anything right, I’m not sure I would trust him to get it right.
Ok, well as I see it there’re a bunch of things you could do.
Put the host/judge panel on your lifeline list…that wouldn’t really be cheating.
Put your friend, with a laptop and online encyclopedia, in the audience. Make sure he has a megaphone.
3.) Last of all, be smart. The question’s there are inanely simple. I’m 13, I could answer all of them.
~Dan
Regis doesn’t know the answer beforehand. So reading clues from him wouldn’t work. He only finds out the answer on his screen when the contestant says Final Answer.
As a non-practicing librarian, let me just say that you are all underestimating how much you can do in 30 seconds.
If your are familiar with your resources and how to create a good queary then you have a pretty good chance at getting WWTBAM type questions. The harder part would be making sure that the whole world didn’t get to hear your typing.
It is probably the wrong tact to rely on web searching. I would have a nice selection of local reference tools running and ready to go: OED, a decent encyclopedia program, an almanac, etc.
In a related question, I have always wondered if the phone-a-friend isn’t home, what do they do? The show is taped before it is aired and since there are 10 possible contestants every show, and the phone-a-friends don’t know if their friend will even make it to be a contestant, what if they volunteered to be a phone-a-friend and then weren’t home when the time came?
In this world, you must be oh-so smart, or oh-so pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.
The phone a friend thing I dont think you could cheat on. However, I do think I found a way to maybe gain a slight advantage.
First - Have you ever wondered how useless the 50/50 lifeline is? They always take away the ones you just know aren’t the right ones.
Next - Most of the time when a person uses the 50/50 lifeline, they will name off the two that they know arent it… they say something like, well I think its either a or d, but I’m not sure.
I have noticed that whenever someone says something like this, they ALWAYS remove the two that the person already ruled out, thus making 50/50 worthless.
Now to my point - Bluff. When you use 50/50, say that you are certain it isnt one of the ones you think it might be (may need to read that again). In other words, say like, “Im sure its not a or b, but lets try 50/50”, but you are really thinking, its not c or b for sure, and its either a or d.
How does this help? - If they eliminate a, choose d. If they dont eliminate a, choose it.
Not certain this would work all of the time, and im not certain if they pre-choose the 50/50 eliminated answers, but it seems as though it is picked on the spot. I always see the 50/50 taken away from the ones that the person already ruled out.
I don’t know. I just wanted to be the first to respond.