Gordon Pepper
reality editor

'Gordon - I got the tickets for opening night. Get ready to party!'

That came from Jason Block, $125,000 winner on the original "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". The tickets that he was referring to was the tickets to be in the audience for the premiere taping of "Who Wants to Be a SUPER Millionaire". In order to get the tickets, you had to go to ABC's website, place an order, and then hope that you were randomly picked to obtain the tickets, which to any serious Millionaire fan would be the equivalent of getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Facory.

Jason Block was lucky enough to get the first night's tickets - but I have always considered Jason to be one of the luckiest people I've ever met. In addition to his win in Millionaire, Jason has won a number of 'randomly drawn people' contests - one of the latest ones being the Grand Prize of the Coors Light Super Bowl XXXVIII Sweepstakes. He got to go to all of the press parties down in Houston - and he got prime seats at the big game. His biggest regret: he didn't get to see Janet's boob pop out, as you really couldn't see much of the halftime show. In fact, it wasn't until he got back to his hotel AFTER the game that he (and most people at the stadium) realized the type of spectacle that they actually saw. I guess he wasn't kept abreast of the situation.

So it came to me as no surprise that he got the tickets - but I was very happy that he invited me. I met Jason at the Game Show Congress in 2003 in Vegas, and since that point, we have kept correspondence with each other. I also met a number of winners from Millionaire (Ed Toutant, Kevin Olmstead, Tim
Sternberg, Phyllis Harris and James Dinan, to name a few) at the convention and I was hoping that I would run into at least a few of them at the taping.

According to the ticket, we were supposed to be on the line at 4:15. Since Jason and I knew that just because you had a ticket, you were not guaranteed to go in, and since we thought that there would be a bunch of eager Millionaire people to get there early, we decided to meet at 3:00, hit a Starbucks, and
then get on line. I got to the ABC studios via taxi at 3pm - and there was already a 50 person line. The old Millionaire set held a little less than 200 people - and we heard that they would make the set a little bigger to add more people - but I didn't know how much bigger and I did not want to take a chance, so
I got on the line immediately.

In Line and Refreshing...

Right behind me were two very nice women by the name of Linda and Connie. We spoke all about Millionaire, and the moments that we all enjoyed - ranging from John Carpenter million dollar win to Rosie O'Donnell's $500,000 win. Right behind them was a guy who, like myself, tried to get on via the phone game. The phone game consists of 5 questions - each question has a list of 4 choices that you have to put n order (For example - put these animals in alphabetical order - Cat, Dog, Fish, Frog). The only way to get on the show is to get all 5 questions right. If you do that, then your name gets put in a daily pool - and
10 people will be drawn at random from that pool to be put in the 'Ring Of Fire' - which is the slang term for the 10 wannabe players surrounding the 'Hot Seat' - which is the slang term for where the actual player sits. Here's the catch - you can only qualify once to be placed in the contestant pool. If the daily pool with your name in it comes up - and you are NOT selected, then you are out for this sweep and you can't try again until the next promo week. Unlike myself, who kept missing the 5th question (grrrr) the guy did get in - but the pool that his name was in was for Saturday's taping - so he is out of the running for this week.

After around 20 minutes, I was getting nervous - because Jason, who had the tickets, did not show up yet. Connie and Linda saved my spot for me while I looked for him at Starbucks - and I ran into him on the way there. I told him about the line situation and we agreed that eating at Starbucks just wasn't going
to happen. We get back on the line, where we thanked the women and someone recognized Jason. They wind up talking and we all reflected on past Millionaire moments - as well as what we thought all of the changes were going to be.

While we were talking, we noticed a familiar face - and the first of the Millionaire alumni that we were going to meet - Ed Toutant! Ed was one of the Millionaire winners - and he picked up 1.8 Million during the 'Growing Jackpot' era. Accompanying him was his friend Bradley Cohen, who has also been on a few
game shows in his own right, including Jeopardy!. Ed was looking forward to going back into the studio - a place where he hasn't been since November, 2001. The last time that he was there was not the time that he won the million - he was there for Brad's wedding and he stopped on by. Jason and Ed equated this experience to a 'Homecoming' of sorts, as Jason thought that as he reunited with various crewmembers and people from the show, it really did feel like coming home.

An Encounter with Jipters

The reuniting continued, as Jason also ran into friends that he had made online called 'Jipters'. The 'Jipters', who are a couple of hundred strong, are Millionaire fans who created their own message board. Some of their members won a decent amount of money, including 'Snaxx', who's real name is John Corbett and who fattened his bank account with $32,000. Corbett and another women, Nancy Leo-Slate, reunited with Jason as Nancy explained to me the origin of the name - on their message board, someone complained on how they were gypped from appearing on the show thanks to the phone game - but instead of spelling it gypped, they spelt it 'Jipted'. Since a lot of those people shared the same sentiments, they decided to call themselves the 'Jipted' - and voila, a name was born. Since that point, a number of people in the group went from Jipted to chosen. In addition, people from other shows have joined the group, including 'Ulises' - but you know him better as Dan Avila, a man who made his own fame on another show.

Needless to say, as people were coming that Jason or Ed knew, we let them in with us in the line - which is a good thing because by the time the 'Jipted' arrived, the line stretched around the corner of the street. Around 5 minutes after they got there, one of the production people handed out green pieces of paper with numbers on them. Although everyone on the line had Millionaire tickets, it was these green pieces of paper that you needed to get into the studio. Everyone in our group got one - and we made sure that Linda and Connie, who were nice enough to let us sneak a mini-convoy in front of them, got in as well.

At 5:15 pm - almost 2 and a half hours after I got on line, we were allowed into the building to be seated for the show. As we went into the studio - and security was much tighter there than when people were allowed in for the syndicated version. In addition to the mandatory metal detectors and the 'no bags
allowed' policy, there was now a mandatory coat check - something that I didn't experience when I went to the tapings of a few syndicated shows.

When we got into the studio, we noticed a bunch of changes to the set. The most noticeable one was an extra row of seats to the top row on the arena-like set. They also added red and blue colored lights to the lighting panels and steps - and they added a layer of smoke to accentuate the lights. Ed noticed that
during the warm ups, they were using a 'steady cam', which is a full movie camera used to rotate around the set, which was used a few times in the show - specifically when the contestant got to the $100,000 mark.

While we were waiting for the show to start, we noticed that there were some tweaks that still needed to be worked out. Some of the technicians were working on one of the monitors in front of us. This monitor belonged to one of the contestants in the Ring of Fire, and Ed noticed that they also changed out the layout. For starters, the buttons that were used are much bigger that what earlier contestants used to qualify - and instead of using their fingers, they could be pressed using your hand - which should make the times much faster. In addition, the question choices were laid out all the way across the line according to the button. While that sounds like it would make sense, it wasn't like that for the old system - where the fastest finger choices were in a 2 by 2 square, instead of laid out in a line. Even though the monitor didn't affect the buttons, which is the important part of the setup, we all joked that whoever was going to be sitting there would be screwed - and sure enough, he didn't get on.

Here was the test question for Fastest Finger - put these shows in order in premiere dates, starting with the earliest - A. 3's Company, B. 24, C. Moonlighting, D. Party of 5. Jason, Ed, and I played along, and we'd be playing along all night (the right answers were A, C, D, B). Ed was seated on my left and Jason was seated on my right. How sweet is that?

At around 5:45 pm, the opening person, Paul Mercurio, came on to warm us up. After he gave his spiel on what a happy audience we need to be, he introduced us to the ten contestants who would be playing the game this evening. He also introduced us to Regis, who came out to this - 'Say hello to the man who's
going to save ABC again!'. At that point, the crowd exploded as Regis Philbin, the host of Super Millionaire, walked out. He apologized to the audience that his voice wasn't as strong as usual, as he was suffering from food poisoning, adding that he threw up 4 or 5 times during the past 24 hours. He said that he felt like his vocal chords were ripped out, but he's a fighter and the show must go on. That brought out more cheers from the audience, who were clearly ready to go.

Return of the King

Regis then went out to talk to the contestants - and another man, who was British and was sporting a very short hair cut, talked to the contestants from the other side. That person is Michael Davies, the producer of Super Millionaire.

There were many technical runthroughs, using various runthrough questions throughout the evening. Ed, Jason and myself were continuously checking with each other for answers, and this ritual lasted through the whole performance.

So at 6:15 pm, we start with the filming...and it starts off with a thud, as we get the first of many technical delays for the evening. Regis, suffering through the evening with the effects of food poisoning taking a toll on his voice, was being a pro about it - but he still had a number of classic lines about some of the technical snafus, including the first time that the graphics malfunctioned - 'For 10 million, you'd think that they'd get themselves some new computers.' - and that had the audience laughing out loud.

The next major snafu occurred during the first Fastest Finger question, when the graphics on the monitors were working, but the graphics on the on screen and the sound effects weren't. It caused such a commotion that Michael Davies came out and talked to the contestants about it. Ed and I noticed that one of the contestants at the Ring of Fire, a young Asian man, was energetically talking to Davies about keeping the question - and he was quite pleased when he found out that the technical screw-up did not play a factor in the playing of the question, and hence the results will stand. When the taping resumed, we quickly found out why - the Asian's name was Todd Kim, and he wound up being the first person to get  to the hot seat - and win $500,000.

Kim may have wound up happy, but Regis kept getting grumpy - and kept us entertained with his quips during other errors. When the first loud reverb of the night came through, Regis said, "I think The Mole just shot the Bachelorette."' He also noticed that a camera in front of him was blocking the view of another camera, and the TV screen showed the picture of the camera in front of Regis, which made him mutter, 'That's the best shot of the night, right there.' He also got into it with one of the assistant producers, insisting that his Jacket was unbuttoned in one segment, but buttoned right when they got out of break. (If you have the show taped, you can check it out for yourself if he was correct). Although he kept the
audience entertained (and in most cases, more entertained that Paul Mecurio), the director, Marc Gentile, suggested that the name of the show should be changed to 'Who Wants to see Regis Blow a Gasket?'

The taping itself was VERY long - much longer than was expected. There were 6 segments to the show. We got to the half-way mark at 7:30 - a full 90 minutes into the taping - with only 24 minutes of that good enough to see the airwaves. How do you deal with a grumpy audience for that time? Give them merchandise! They started by tossing us 'Super Millionaire' T-Shirts, and the first one thrown in our direction gets caught by Ed Toutant. I eventually wind up getting one - but I was concerned that I was going to get crowned on the head for being quick enough to snatch a 6 dollar t-shirt. They also handed out sucking candies to keep the sugar level up - and when they ran out of shirts, they tossed out ABC caps to other lucky people - but I was not fortunate enough to grab one of those.

On the First Show...

Most of you have already seen the TV broadcast by now, so I will share with you a few thoughts that Ed, myself and Jason had. None of us could find the confetti, and we were wondering what indeed would happen if someone won the ten million. When Todd got to the $500,000 question on condoms, Regis lost
it and a significant bit of him and the audience cracking up were left on the editing floor. All of us were thrilled to see Nancy Christy as one of the wise people, as I met her at the GSC in Vegas while Jason and Ed have met her before.

As for the difficulty of the questions, none of us found them very difficult - we had them all correct up to the million dollar question without needing a Lifeline, and Ed would have gotten the million dollar question right as well. That held true when he asked the audience - 31% of us got the $100,000 question right, with all of us voting in a correct answer block. Todd should thank us, because without our votes, chances are that the right choice would not have come in first.

When Todd was about to approach the million dollar question, we realized that there was a shot that Ed Toutant's nearly 2 million dollar award would be surpassed. His reaction? "If it's going to be broken, I want to be there to see it." He genuinely wanted to see The Kimmer' (as nicknamed by Regis) do well - but he also knew through. first-hand experience how the people in the Ring of Fire were feeling, and him and Jason both agreed that the people in the Ring of Fire probably wanted to see Todd mess up as quickly as possible. Ed even brought up the point, from a devil's advocate position, that the friends of the ROF contestants who are in the audience (if there was a tough question, and if the contestant used the Ask the Audience Lifeline) should purposely answer the question wrong, so they could see the person in the Hot Seat possibly dethroned and could give their friend a chance to play. Now Ed, of course,
would never do this (as I said, we all helped Todd get the right answer), but it is a very interesting strategy to think about...

After Todd Kim left the chair, Ed had another theory. Todd wasn't wearing a tie - was it possible that the next person to get on would also not be wearing a tie, as they would have the advantage of not having anything constricting them or distracting them? The answer is no, since the second contestant, Bob 'Bobbo' Essig, had a tie, but all of us thought that it was a viable theory at the time. We answered all of his questions right (including when he used his Ask The Audience), and we got to see the first half of his stay on the show.

Aaaaaand Dinner.

At 9:20, over 3 hours after the taping started, the taping ended. That ended my night at the studio, but the evening wasn't over. After sticking around the set to watch Jason speak to some of the Millionaire crew, Jason, Ed and I met up with the Jipters that we encountered earlier on in the day and we went to eat at Fiorello's. The group was also delighted to know that one of the 'Wise' people, Nancy Christy, would be joining us! Also joining us would be Marc Dixon (who won $32,000), John Corbett ($32,000), Karen Harris (who's husband, the man with the famous pedicure on the syndicated show, was also a big $64,000 winner), Jessica Burr, Nancy Leo-Slater, Kay Harris, Ed, Jason and myself. In total, the ten people at the table won over two and a half million dollars on Millionaire!

Once Nancy showed up, she got a huge round of applause from everyone at the table - and we made everyone turn and stare. I also made people stare - but in the wrong way as I went to get up and spilled Nancy's win all over her! Sorry Nancy. Fortunately, she was gracious enough to not get mad and to
talk to me about 'Three Wise Men' experience. According to Nancy, the three of them go into a different entrance into the building than everyone else goes into - and they are led to a different room in the building affectionately called 'The Manger'. They do get to see what's going on in the show - until they get to the $100,000 question - and then they stop the feed. When Regis reads the question, they only see the question, not Regis. They get the feedback after the contestant answers the question.

I asked her how it felt to be the first person selected - and she was excited about it. I also asked her how much pressure was on her - and was the pressure any less knowing that if they gave Todd the wrong answer, that he doesn't lose any money, since he was already locked at $100,000. Nancy said that the pressure was still on, because she liked him and really wanted him to win.

The talking continued until 12:30 am, when I needed to get back home. While the rest of the group were planning on going out for a little karaoke, Jason and I walked out of the restaurant, sharing a high five for an exciting, eventful day.