Million Dollar Word Game?

[SamJ93]

I saw this show mentioned in another thread, but do not see it listed in the EoTVGS and found precious little information on Google.  I know it originated from Canada, but anyone know how it was played?  Was it an update of "$1M Chance of a Lifetime?" in some way?  When did it run, and was it seen in the States at all?

--Sam

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'SamJ93\' date=\'Sep 30 2004, 12:55 PM\']I saw this show mentioned in another thread, but do not see it listed in the EoTVGS and found precious little information on Google.  I know it originated from Canada, but anyone know how it was played?  Was it an update of "$1M Chance of a Lifetime?" in some way?  When did it run, and was it seen in the States at all?

--Sam

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It was an inane word game where players had to form words, unscramble anagrams, etc.  If they made it through 5 questions, they won $1000--something that wasn't done often--despite the show being rather easy.  If they made it to--10? word puzzles they won a trip, or something in a jar behind them....I never saw them make it this far, and the host [who was an annoying idiot, Ian Jamison, I believe was his name] never explained the rules.

[Ian Wallis]

It was an inane word game where players had to form words, unscramble anagrams, etc.

It was run for a while on America One television, which was an unscrambled satellite channel on C-Band.  I'm sure it was on a few cable systems as well.

The show was probably trying to capitolize on the success of "WWTBAM", but featured a top prize that really was impossible to win.  I watched it every day for a month at one time and I think I only saw two people even get to the $1000 level, then I gave up on it.

Does anyone know if it's still on?  I think that channel has disappeared from C-band.

[ChuckNet]

The show was probably trying to capitolize on the success of "WWTBAM", but featured a top prize that really was impossible to win. I watched it every day for a month at one time and I think I only saw two people even get to the $1000 level, then I gave up on it.

One player actually made it to the final level, but couldn't unscramble the word.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[Speedy G]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Sep 30 2004, 06:08 PM\']One player actually made it to the final level, but couldn't unscramble the word.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

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It was about 12 letters long.  Heck if I could remember it.  The tenth level was indeed a trip of some sort.

Supposedly there was some sort of matching game with the "prize banks" attached to the wall of the set if someone made it through all 14 levels.  Of course, no one did.

One more prize was that if someone came up with a word that their computer couldn't find (which happened more than often), they got some number of tens of dollars by picking from yet another stack of envelopes.

[Fedya]

What's wrong with unscrambling 12-letter words?  Don't you remember Winning Streak?  :-)

[joe_capitano]

A couple more observations. This was a pay-to-play game. You had to call one of those 1-900 numbers just to enter the pool. Having only seen the show when A1TV was webcast freely I didn't get to see the game as much. I didn't have "unlimited internet" back then.

After the show went off, if I remember correctly, the people responsible for MDWG came up with an internet version which had a grand prize of $10 million - awarded in some Caribbean locale - and you had to travel there to collect the loot.

The scheme never flew. They needed a sizeable minimum number of suck- ... er, players to cough up the $100 buy-in. - . At last count (and this was two or three years ago) they hadn't even cracked 8,000. Evidently the website has vaporized.

The website in question had several similar games, all with huge prizes, and few takers.