Could You Miss the Million Pound Question Twice?
No fan of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, regardless of the country, will be able to forget Ken Basin’s $475,000 loss after giving the wrong Final Answer to his million dollar question. It’s the moment you never really wanted to see, but you still wanted to a little bit. Did you know it happened in England first, though? Well, it sort of happened. On a special celebrity Valentine’s edition, Laurence and Jackie Llewelyn-Bowen had the rare chance to face a million pound question twice. The video of the moment has only recently been revealed, finally, and it’s a much different reaction than the American miss.
The story is that the couple was given an ambiguous question about the motto of the United States, translated from Latin. They answered, “In God We Trust,” but the actual answer was, “One Out of Many.” ”In God We Trust,” is the legal motto, so they were given the chance to answer a second million pound question, which they wisely walked away from. No one gambles £468,000 twice, especially after what happened. The reaction to the loss from Chris and the audience is pretty different than the American one. Compare the moments below. The UK video is split into two parts, so apologies in advance.
It’s a cool moment in Millionaire history that I’m glad we finally got to see. What did you think?
I miss the days of Regis hosting Who Wants to be a Millionaire…
Was it really a different reaction? I think there was utter shock that it happened in both cases. The American reaction was just louder. In my opinion, both were just indicative of how American audiences react and the Brit audiences react all the time.
With that said…even with the 2nd question opportunity…it’s heartbreaking to watch both of those.
It’s a bit strange to me, why they didn’t play the normal $1,000,000 lose cue. Either: 1. They didn’t make the cue yet. 2. There was a mistake in the soundbooth. Or, 3: They might’ve wanted to ease the pain.
It definitely existed. It was in the first edition WWTBAM computer game from 2000. Chances are TPTB just decided they didn’t like how in-your-face it was, and decided to go with the Q14 loss cue. I can’t explain why they didn’t use the Q10 loss cue for consistency though.
May have been a snap decision in the sound booth – the music cues were definitely played live in the studio at that point, and you’ll note that the lose cue was only played some time after the loss was declared, when the correct answer was mentioned.
They definitely played the same final answer cue though. As you say though, the Q10 loss cue would have been strictly the right one, as the Q14 one is in the wrong key (and not even a compatible one either, it’s a semitone lower).
Watching the video now. Someone please tell me who these people are. Thank you.
Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen was an interior designer on home improvement show “Changing Rooms”, which had finished an eight-year run on BBC1 just over a year earlier. (The format was also franchised into the US.) His flamboyant style and mannerisms made him somewhat of a cult figure, hence appearing on Millionaire as a celebrity. The other contestant was his wife.
Spooky, suspenseful music, a podium of ten monitors (one for each contestant), and the host and winning contestant sitting down center stage? Wasn’t there a show like this in the U.S. once?
That is really a ridiculous question. A quick web search will uncover that both are official mottos of the USA. How could they let such an obviously incorrect question slip through, especially for the million?
The key is “from Latin”. In God we trust was never from Latin origins, so had they answered either of the other answers, they would have lost and not gotten another chance.
How astute! It never clicked in my mind that In Latin was the right words to key in on. I remember from my days in high school quiz bowl that it was e pleribus unum (or however it’s spelled) so for me I went right to out of many one. I never took that “in latin” reference into consideration
Given that charity was going to suffer, I’m not surprised that the British version gave them a second chance. I knew that the key was “latin” but for the celebs it really was somewhat of a trick question, and for the Million it should never be that way. The space question was more like what it should have been.