OK, it was the biggest thing on the planet for about a year. So, how did I come to be on this show? That's a story in itself.
The show began a limited run in the summer of 1999, and I was quite a fan from the start. I'm reasonably good at Trivial Pursuit, had participated in my university's College Bowl team, and thought I could do well at this. Well, they had a qualification process - call in to a phone number and participate in their little quiz. My wife encouraged me to do this during its initial run. And so I did.
The quiz itself was in the style of the "Fastest Finger" competition on the show - put these four choices in order, however the question asked you to do so. Miss one, and the call is over. If you answer all three correctly, you are placed in a pool of callers who got them all right. A subset of those callers are moved to a second round. It would be another 10 months before I discovered what the 2nd round would be.
Needless to say, I was disappointed to not be selected for this round. However, when the show came back in the fall, as a regular series, I was delighted to see that the call-in system of recruitment was going to continue. There were windows of a couple of weeks where the call-in window was opened, and call I did - every day possible. Most days, I successfully made it through the first round. And yet I did not get the 2nd round call back.
I waited through September. And October. November. December. And January.
At the end of January, my wife and I received news that would jeopardize my quest, or at least put a time limit on it. She was pregnant with our first child. We found out on Super Bowl Sunday. Now, I am not going to say my quest for game show riches was the first time in my mind that day.... or even that week... but the pursuit now required some planning.
It was decided that if I did not make it onto the show by July - three months prior to the October due date - I would not go onto the show, and my pursuit would be over.
So my calling resumed, throughout February. And March. April. May. June.
Now I was getting nervous. Here it was, July, and I was still not through to the second round. Not even once. My pursuit was not over yet, though I was starting to push it on the timeline. My wife kindly gave a short extension, with the knowledge that she might not be able to travel with me to New York City if I was successful.
It was a late afternoon at work when I got the call. I didn't believe it at first - after all, it had been a long time - but I was convinced by the nice lady from Disney that, indeed, I would be competing in the 2nd round. I had to choose an episode for which to compete - I was given taping dates and times. I chose the July 26, 2000 taping, in the morning - it was a 2-episode day. My rationale on that - which ended up being 100% correct - was that people wanting the free trip to NYC would want to extend it on Disney's dime by being the carry-over contestant, so less people would want to be the carry-over contestant, only to have to compete a 2nd time on the same day. From a qualifying-for-the-show standpoint, I chose correctly. Had I known then what I know now about being a carry-over contestant on the same day, I might have chosen differently.
But that's getting ahead of myself in the story. More on that later.
My 2nd round was scheduled for the following afternoon, at 4:30pm. The format would be the same as round one - "Fastest Finger" questions, a miss ends the game. This time, however, the ten fastest contestants would be sent to New York City to participate in the taping. I was quite excited - I told everyone about my pursuit - I mean, my friends and co-workers all knew about my pursuit, but they were as excited as I was to hear of the advancement of the pursuit.
What surprised me was how many people already had the confidence in me (that I didn't quite have in myself) to already plan to be my lifelines. One of three assists that I was allowed in the on-air version of "Millionaire" was a Phone-a-Friend lifeline. I went with an unusual solution to lifelining, but more on that later.
Needless to say, I aced round 2. It was really easy for me. No problem at all. And within 30 minutes, I knew - I was going to New York City. As it turned out, I could have taken a bit more time - only nine people signed up for my episode got all five questions correct - but it didn't matter - I was going to New York City.
In late July. Wait. Could my wife come? She was my first phone call. It was after-hours.... but as it turned out, she called her doctor earlier in the day (that sneaky devil!) and cleared a late July trip. Luckily, she was in great shape, and this pregnancy was complication-free.
I jumped ahead a bit for story-telling purposes. Disney now needed a lot of information from me - address, phone number, who was coming with me - I had already told them my wife, but it was subject to change - who my local ABC station was (WOKR-13 at the time - they're now WHAM), where my local airport was (they were buying me tickets to fly there), how many extra tickets for the taping I might need (I did ask for two additional, for family members who wanted to drive down to see this occasion).
And I had to fill out a LOT of paperwork. A LOT of paperwork. Identifying my five choices for phone-a-friend. Four were easy - my in-laws, who were scattered throughout the country, were well-connected and smart, so they would be good subject-matter choices. The fifth was my boss, who made a deal with me - I could have the days off, and he would book a conference room and fill it with people, so I could call him and he could shout out a question to the room. This was OK, as far as the rules were concerned, and as I found out later, a common practice.
My wife - her name was Linda (her name still is Linda - she's just not my wife anymore) - and I prepared, by playing a fair amount of Trivial Pursuit, and continuing our religious watching of the show. And packing for a three-day trip to New York City. We had to pack enough monochromatic clothes to cover two episode - no patterns, as they do not look good on TV. This was not a problem for me, but for my pregnant wife, who had a limited wardrobe, this required planning and compromise. Luckily, for her, the rules were not as strict - unless I won the big prize, she'd be staying in the audience. We would fly to New York on the 25th, in the morning. We would have most of that day to enjoy the city, but had to return to the Empire Hotel - right next to Lincoln Center - by 6pm for a meeting with show producers and for more paperwork.
The 25th came, and we got on a plane from Rochester, NY to Laguardia Airport in New York City. We were on our way!
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