September 09 2008
Kia Ora New Zealand, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
posted by Ana Samways at 9:57 pm
How excruciatingly cruel, to put a teacher in the hot seat for the first episode of Godzone’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and then make the ice-breaker questions too hard. Poor woman, left with nothing after using all her lifelines and getting the fourth question wrong. There’s no doubt she’s going to get heaps from her class.
The British and Australian versions make the questions piss-easy until the first safe level. For $500 the teacher, from Cashmere High School in Christchurch, was asked: “New Zealand’s new fleet of ministerial limousines is from which car manufacturer?” A) BMW b) Mercedes c) Jaguar d) Hummer. The story about this was from way back in December 2007 and didn’t exactly cause a major fuss (and FFS it was during the silly season) … who, other than a political geek, would remember that?
The next contestant, a smug bloke with a PhD, who couldn’t name the spaceship that landed on Mars during 2008, which is kind of fair enough. “Phoenix,” I yelled, having a stab in the dark. “Phoenix” said 55% of the audience. He rang then rang his PhD Professor from Victoria University (which is a pretty smug phone-a-friend) who took at punt with Phoenix too, but wasn’t sure. PhD guy locked it in. Phew, he got to $8000. From there, he wasn’t keen to lose $7000 on guessing the number of Prime Ministers there were during the 1980s. I had too look it up — there were three. Muldoon (1975–1984), Lange (1984–1989) and then Geoffrey Palmer (1989–1990).
Finally there was the personable former air hostess gleefully saying, “Isn’t it great when you get one you know?” before naming Orwell’s Animal Farm as the novel with the line “Four legs good, two legs bad.”
Then Mike said: “The hooter has gone.” Which it had and was. They’ll be back next week. So will I, to see if the early questions ease up and if anyone really has a shot at the million.
Who Wants To be A Millionaire? Tuesday 8.30pm on TV One
September 10th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Harsh on the teacher i say…poor girl.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:11 am
As someone who was in the auditions for this show, I am amazed at the standard of the questions. There was nothing like that in the audition.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Stunningly stupid. For a school teacher not to know this stuff is a sad indictment on our education system. Even her ‘phone a friend’ – also a school teacher was thick. How did she get through? And as for using a lifeline ‘to ask the audience’ a NZ orientated question when they were Aussies is beyond belief. Eddie would be cringing over his beer at this fiasco.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Easy way to avoid the problem of a lack of funding perhaps?
September 10th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I was also in the auditions for this show, and I did pretty well in the quiz… (in fact still waiting on that call they said they’d give us to let us know whether or not we got through). The under $1000 questions did seem particularly hard.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Viki, I’m also waiting…Courteous bastards aren’t they?
September 10th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Absolutely, but seeing as they said that the second round of filming starts on friday I have given up. Only watched last night to see how they did, but don’t think I’ll bother again.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Heh, I was thinking that I would have nailed quite a few of those questions, too. They were clearly scared of us, Viki…
September 10th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Oh and Geoff – the audience was made up of around 90 percent NZ expats. So asking the audience wasn’t as thick as you suggest.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
“who, other than a political geek, would remember that?”
A car geek, I’m ashamed to say.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Well, whaddya know? The producers read Spare Room. I just got an email saying my services are not required for the show. Cowards…:-)
September 10th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
New Zealand’s Got Talent was a steaming pile so I didn’t have high hopes for millionaire.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Mike Hosking DOES need a haircut – from Sweeney Todd.
September 11th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I watched through only the first one and a half contestants and it didn’t grab me at all. One thing that put me off was that so many questions were very specifically on NZ topics instead of general knowledge.
But I’m interested in the comments re Aussies – was the programme filmed in Australia?
September 11th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Well, there is a simple reason that the questions are deemed “too hard”. Of course, why else do you think it’s taken 10 years for NZ to get their own version of the show? Money, of course. They couldn’t actually let someone win $1,000,000 – no way can they afford that!
September 11th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Mike Hosking looks like he’s got an extra large head,and he is so slow, he keeps repeating the questions making it rather boring. The show just doesn’t cut it like England & Australia.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:22 am
My partner and I love watching the Aussie and UK versions, so were interested to see how this one would hold up. We, too, were surprised at how difficult the questions were for the school teacher, in comparison to the 2 contestants following her. Particularly the one about what was outlawed in 2007 (Sheep jokes??). Mike was very stiff in the first half, and very repetitive, but it was good to see him start to relax and loosed up shortly after halfway thru, although he was still quite repetitive in comparison to the other hosts. It’s probably something that will come with time. Looking forward to next week to see how they fare.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Yeah, seriously. I have to wonder if they really intend to give away $1M? Isn’t it illegal to advertise a product as something other than what it is? The Ozzie, English and US shows routinely give away 32K+ – I don’t believe they have the budget to match on an NZ show… where’s that bloke from Investigate magazine?
September 11th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Mike was crap, the questions were ridiculous, and that teacher deserves another shot.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I was not slightly impressed with the show. I have always thought it was a retrograde step stopping the “Fastest Finger First” selection, it allows too much vetting of candidates, it is not even slightly transparent. The standard of the competitors was poor and the initial questions, which I personally had no problem with, were nevertheless very difficult by comparison with similar shows overseas.
I don’t believe that a desire not to give prizes is to blame, the show will be well insured against having to give away major prizes, that is the way it is done everywhere else in the World
September 11th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Hoskin needs some te reo lessons
September 11th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Trust TVNZ to take a winning formula and completely stuff it up! I’ve watched and loved the original British version of the game, the American one is OK if you make allowances for a lot of less than bright sparks on it, and the Aussie version is compelling and fun. The Kiwi model, judging by their debut, is cringe-making. Where is fastest finger? Who was the idiot who decided it would be cheaper to fly contestants to Melbourne than to build a set here, and worse yet, fill the audience seats with ex-pat Kiwis? That pretty much takes the “Ask the Audience” lifeline out of the equation. Why should ex-pats know NZ current events? They live in Australia for goodness sake! When I lived in Aussie, I wouldn’t have known nor cared what type of cars NZ MP’s were driving. And don’t get me started on the “scintillating” host. My wet dishrag has more charm & personality.
September 13th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I remember around a year ago in Sideswipe Ana gleefully published a fake doctored photo of an “American” contestant getting an easy question wrong. Turned out the fake photo was a screencap from the British version, the question and answers were shopped.
There was a subsequent admission of guilt from Ana but no apology. So, Ana; where is the REAL photo and mocking caption published in Sideswipe of the NZer getting the $500 question wrong? Not anti-American enough for you no doubt.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:50 am
So, let me get this straight ‘Bob’… You have commented on a post here, about the NZ version of Millionaire, to have a bitch at me about mistakenly publishing something, in another publication, a year ago…something I corrected at the time, but didn’t grovel enough over. Sheesh dude…Let. It. Go. This is not a forum for your personal vendettas, or to voice assumed prejudices about me, someone you have never met.
September 13th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Lol Bob. Way too show yourself up there. Why do Americans think the world is against them?
September 17th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Ahahaha…Ana, way to go…Bob, get a life, this is not about you.
I agree with Ministerial Chauffeur & Laza…Mike Hoskings sucked big time as the host. Boring and unappealing, hopeless at Te Reo…comfortable? Hell no!
September 17th, 2008 at 12:23 am
I think its stupid how they have to go over the rules every single time, with every contestant; and explain how all the lifelines work, I mean honestly who hasnt watched the show before?!
And why does everyone have to tell a little story before answering each question.. just get on with it less B.S more millionaires!!
September 19th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I wanna see a whole lot of people win the million and screw over the companies (whichever one it is) finances.
Power to the people!
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Mike Hosking was total crap, and very awkward, nothing even close to the standard of the British show.
Also, that teacher was absolutely retarded. Those questions were stupidly easy, it was embarassing to watch. whoever it was that said only a ‘political geek’ would know the limousine question – did you not care that several million dollars of your tax went on a wasteful fleet of cars for overpaid government ministers? it was less than a year ago – and was mentioned extensively in the media. Do you even have a job? or a brain for that matter?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:17 am
Rob, I suggested the ministerial car choice from 2007 was a bit of a tricky question for the very early Millionaire questions, which is a valid point I think. I love your ‘I-can’t believe-people-are-so –stupid’ attitude; which is really just another way of saying ‘I-am-so-terribly-clever’. Good for you Einstein.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
ana is a whore
October 14th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Looks like we got a lady-hater! Too funny.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Well done TVNZ on strangling the world’s best gameshow. Over the past three or four weeks at least 8 contestants have only won $1000 simply because TVNZ are cheap and have clearly made the questions too difficult, too early. I made it through to the interview stage in Auckland, and know an awful lot of trivia, but I’m glad I wasn’t selected – I too would have struggled to get much past $2000. The audience was help, regularly getting it wrong, mainly because they’re now Aussies. The difficulty level is proven to be ludicrous. There was a question on the nationality of painter Freda Kahlo. In NZ it was around $8 or $16k. The identical question in the UK? £500,000.
Tony Holden and the TVNZ management have turned off viewers in droves. Who wants to win $1000 is not the name of the game people! Its a shame, but no second series please – its teeth pulling at its finest and is not good telly. ‘House’ is far more entertaining!