Sam, if the contestant in your example was playing with similar amounts of money every day of her life I would certainly agree with you.
But she isn’t. This is a once in a lifetime situation and you can’t really take her to task for not playing the odds in the manner you describe. The scenario playing out in her head would be the risk of picking the 750K, getting a subsequent lower offer and losing 115K in the process (285K down to 170K).
Understandable really.
Oh, in the only other episode I watched of 1 vs 100:
Something like: If a car is parallel parked, which of these things is perpendicular to the curb?
Driver’s side door
Passenger’s side door
Back end.
The funny thing is that she talked herself through the right answer. Something like “Well, if you’re parallel parked, that means that the driver’s side door and passenger’s side door are parallel to the curb, so it can’t be them… but… um… hmmmm… I’m gonna go with passenger’s side door”
There might’ve been some of the helps/life line thingies in there, I can’t remember. I just remembered she reasoned herself into the right answer, and then inexplicably picked the wrong one.
I think a sizable portion - around half - of the people left in the mob got that wrong, but I’m not certain on that.
The thing that amused me is… even if you’re not sure between parallel and pendicular which is which, if you understand that they refer to something to do with relative facings, which she clearly did, you could easily infer that since either car door is facing the same way, logically neither could be the correct answer, because one can’t have a different relative facing to the curb than the other. So, without even understand the question completely, you can solve it logically.
Not the dumbest moment, definitely, but it popped into my head from recent memory.
“I’ll take colors that end in -urple for $200 Alex. … What is light urple?”
Also from the Weakest Link
Name a “B” that crosses a stretch of water
Answer: A Bulldozer.
Technically true I guess if it’s crossing over using a BRIDGE
There was a guy on 1 vs 100 (who was trying to get into law school, og help us) who was asked which set of 3 coins is in order of smallest to largest circumference.
a. dime, penny, nickle
b. quarter, dime, nickle
c. nickel, dime, quarter
He had to use a lifeline or whatever they call it to get it right. The only guy who didn’t answer A was foreign.
OK, this person was a mere child, but SHEESH ALREADY!
I still remember back in the 80s, one of those kids’ game shows with contestants from various schools. The kids were about twelve, I suppose…
HOST: When I want to take a trip, I go by plane, or train, or…?
KID: Car?
HOST: Let’s try again… Ahem
When I want to take a TRIP,
I go by plane or train or…?
KID: Bus?
I don’t get this.
shamefaced
nor me 
Is the answer supposed to be automobile? Because of the movie? Wasn’t that an adult movie?
Take LSD?
Erm… might lose a little in text.
It’s a rhyme, innit? Ship, innit?
I guess it’s meant to rhyme - i.e. “ship”.
I wouldn’t have got it either, unless I knew it was a rhyming round in advance.
From the Newlywed Game:
Host: Wives, what will your husband say is his favorite rodent?
Wife #1: What’s a rodent?
Larry’s Just a Minute Quiz, radio quiz show on Irish radio. Contestants ring in and get a minute to answer as many questions as they can. Highest score for the day wins some minor prize.
Q: What mythic bird is famed for rising from its own ashes
A: A duck
I was sitting playing cards in a gaming store at the time, the whole place cracked up, which is how the incident sticks in my mind.
Yeah, I kinda regret posting it now. It was much more obvious to hear it first-hand, and to know the style of the programme. It lost a whole metric buttload in the translation to text, twenty years later.
Haha. M-O-O-N, that spells idiot.
Exactly! So logically…
. . . if she weighs more than the ashes of a duck, she’s a witch?
Slight hijack.
On UK TV Deal or no Deal today a woman had 2 boxes left, £3000 and £250,000, the banker offered £45,000 which she turned down.
She won the 1/4 million, first one to do so on UK TV.
I would have taken the £45,000
The only possible explanation I can think is that for some reason, as soon as she saw elephant revleaed as the second choice, her mind “latched onto” it and she somehow never even noticed that the moon was a choice.
This “Price is Right” contestant should win some sort of award for indecision and failure to understand the rules. Even the saintly Bob Barker can barely contain his anger at the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6gT7JSLxis
I also remember watching “Jeopardy” a while back where one contestant (who would go on to win that day) guessed “Berlin” as the place Freud fled to in order to escape the Nazis. Hiding right under their noses, I guess.