Monday, January 17, 2000
'Millionaire' show in class by itself
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PASADENA, Calif. — Let's face it, Regis Philbin is one in a million. His ABC game show is one in a million too.
All you have to do is watch the new copycats — NBC's Twenty One or CBS' Winning Lines — to see that ABC's Who Wants to be a Millionaire is far superior.
Millionaire offers the best drama, presentation, intimacy, questions, family-appeal and host.
“The real star of this show, frankly, is the show,” says Mr. Philbin, 66, speaking to the Television Critics Association meeting here about the smash hit (8 p.m. Tuesday and 9 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, Channels 9, 2).
The music, lights, camera close-ups and risk of contestants losing big money make Millionaire unique, he says. Especially the big money.
“For years being a millionaire in this country was what everybody wanted to become, and here's a chance to do it on television in one night. And it's very exciting,” Reege says.
The other networks just don't get it. If you don't believe me, watch the competition:
— Winning Lines (8 p.m. Saturday, Channels 12, 7) is a mind-numbing mishmosh of numbers. There's not much of a game, as 49 contestants are quickly trimmed to six, and five of those six are dispatched minutes later, by answering numerical-related trivia questions. The finalist then must answer questions from words which scroll across viewers' screens.
Usually congenial Dick Clark seems very stiff reading the questions. He looks like he's aged 20 years since New Year's Eve.
— NBC's Twenty One (8 p.m. Sunday and Wednesdays, Channels 5,22) is a pale imitation of the 1950's quiz show, with such simplistic questions as “What former quarterback joined the Monday Night Football booth in 1998?”
Two players compete in sound-proof booths, so they can't hear each other's answers, while answering trivia questions ranging in difficulty from one to 11 points. The first player to 21 points wins.
The sound-proof booths preclude any intimacy with host Maury Povich, who lacks Mr. Philbin's charm and wit. And the cheesy bundles of $100,000 in cash on a silver platter, and hostesses in black evening dresses, look like a Comedy Central parody.
Fred Silverman, Twenty One executive producer, admits the game has been made easier for viewers to play along at home. The original Twenty One (1956-58) was canceled in the quiz show scandals, when contestants cheated to answer tough questions.
“We looked at those (old) tapes and they really were boring,” Mr. Silverman says. “(Questions) were just too difficult. You'd really have to be a Ph.D. to answer those questions.”
Mr. Povich recalls one Twenty One contestant asked “to name all of Henry VIII's wives in order, and how they died.” So now he asks Twenty One contestants to name the older actor engaged to Catherine Zeta-Jones. (Michael Douglas) And NBC wonders why more people watch Millionaire?
Mr. Philbin defends the escalating difficulty of questions on his show, in which a person can win $1 million by correctly answering 15 questions.
“If this thing is so easy to win, why don't we have more winners?” he says. “And that's my final answer.”
So far, only 31-year-old John Carpenter of Hamden, Conn., has won the grand prize. The biggest winner has been ABC. To use Mr. Philbin's favorite phrase, Millionaire ratings are “out of control.” Last Wednesday's Millionaire was viewed by more people than any other show on TV this season, ABC says.
“Millionaire has changed everything. It's probably the most significant . . . programming on the air in the last several years,” says Garth Ancier, NBC Entertainment president. “There's nothing like (it) in the modern history of television.”
Says CBS Entertainment President Les Moonves, one of the few Hollywood executives critical of the game show revival: “It's a trend that, frankly, we hopes goes away quickly. But it doesn't look like it's going to.”
Millionaire can do more damage than just blowing holes in competitors' lineups, Mr. Moonves says.
“Every half hour of a game show that's on the air means 100 people in Hollywood are out of work, and by that I mean (series) writers, producers and directors,” he says. “I don't necessarily think it's good for television.”
Unlike the syndicated Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (7-8 p.m., Channel 9), Millionaire has universal appeal to all ages, even grade-school children.
“You can get the entire famly around a television set the way it was when these game shows were popular in the '50s,” Mr. Povich says.
And unlike Jeopardy!, a Millionaire winner must answer every question. That's what makes Millionaire simply beautiful: One person in the hot seat, sweating it out.
“The other networks have completely misread the success of Millionaire by thinking it's just a game show,” says Michael Davies , Millionaire executive producer. “Our show works on nights when we give away hardly any money.”
And when contestants blow it, Mr. Philbin empathizes with them.
“I feel just terrible when they lose,” he says. “It's a heartbreak, really, literally for me to have to tell them . . . I hate it. I love it when they win, and I want more winners.”
Isn't he the best? Is that your final answer?
TV Critic John Kiesewetter is reporting from the winter press tour.
