Author Topic: The most exciting million+ dollar win? (Read 4964 times)

Patrick S · « **on:** August 09, 2006, 07:39:30 PM »

Brad Rutter may be the reigning champion when it comes to game show winnings, but his $2 million win on the J! UTOC was a foregone conclusion and thus not at all exciting. Which million dollar win do you think was the most exciting? While no one individual person won seven digits, my vote has to go to the episode of Super Greed that gave us Lauren Griswold, Phyllis Harris, and that guy whose name I can never remember, winning an aggregate of $2 million. At the time, such a prize had never been awarded (IIRC) and Greed was just notorious for having losing contestants. Not to mention that it was just a great, energetic group of people. That's why I think it was exciting. What do you think?

BrandonFG · « **Reply #1 on:** August 09, 2006, 10:00:15 PM »

[quote name=\'Patrick S\' post=\'126774\' date=\'Aug 9 2006, 07:39 PM\']
What do you think?
[/quote]
Agreed on Rutter's win not being too exciting, but my vote goes to John Carpenter. A lot of people argue that 1) he was smug as hell, and 2) he had an easy stack, but he did the one thing people wanted to see: win the lot. As much as people bitched about the way he burned his Phone-A-Friend, I loved it.

sshuffield70 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 09, 2006, 10:57:23 PM »

One of the most exciting to me is Joe Trela's seemingly improbable win.....granted though I didn't know the answer to the last question.

Scott · « **Reply #3 on:** August 09, 2006, 11:01:42 PM »

Kevin Olmstead's $2.18 Mil win when Millionaire had its progressive jackpot gets my vote.

aaron sica · « **Reply #4 on:** August 09, 2006, 11:24:23 PM »

You know what? I'm gonna kinda go "off the board" on this one....The most exciting million dollar win to me was the first one I ever saw, and it predates "Millionaire" by 13 years.....It would be $1 Million Chance of a Lifetime (or just $1M COAL for short). I don't remember the first couple who won the million, but I remember watching it until that happened.

BTW, welcome to the board!

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #5 on:** August 10, 2006, 01:00:16 AM »

For me, Kim Hunt's big win. It was exciting for me just because it was the only time I was ever shouting the answer at the television on a million-dollar question.

MrBuddwing · « **Reply #6 on:** August 10, 2006, 01:12:35 AM »

I'll second Joe Trela. It wasn't spoiled for me ahead of time, and I lost track of how many times I was screaming, "TAKE THE MONEY!" as he pondered his $1,000,000 question. And when Regis Philbin declared, "HE JUST WON A MILLION DOLLARS!" that was a really big WOW moment in the history of WWTBAM.

comicus · « **Reply #7 on:** August 10, 2006, 01:23:19 AM »

The winners on 1MCoaL always were a bit more excitable than the smug brains on WWTBAM. One particular couple, whose names escape me, nailed the fifth and sixth words with something like four seconds left. Big time thunder for that one. Mike Klauss used to have the clip on his website.

If you must narrow it down to millionaires, my (likely unpopular, "that's not a real game show!") nod goes to Jon Kenney from the first "Pepsi Play For a Billion," with Robert "Bob-O" Essig's Super Millionaire win coming in a close second. Dollar for dollar, though, nothing tops Jamaican Rose on Treasure Hunt, winner of $50,000 and the gold medal in the game show host clean & jerk.

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #8 on:** August 10, 2006, 01:25:28 AM »

[quote name=\'CountdownRound\' post=\'126855\' date=\'Aug 9 2006, 10:23 PM\']
Jon Kenney from the first "Pepsi Play For a Billion,"
[/quote]
Jon? Wasn't his name Richard something? Is it possible you're remembering the second one instead?

Craig Karlberg · « **Reply #9 on:** August 10, 2006, 04:26:31 AM »

For me, it would be Nancy Christy's Millionaire win because she was the first female contestant to snag seven figures on a quiz show even though Stephenie from Winning Lines came oh so close if she hadb't bailed with a couple seconds left. Curtis Warren's MDM on Greed was a close 2nd.

beatlefreak84 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 10, 2006, 09:01:03 AM »

Quote

Jon? Wasn't his name Richard something? Is it possible you're remembering the second one instead?

Yep; his name is Richard Bay...the only reason I remember that is because I was rooting for him through the whole thing, and he seemed so happy when he won...as I'm sure we all would!

Anthony

Don Howard · « **Reply #11 on:** August 10, 2006, 10:00:50 AM »

BEST: Going along with the votes for Joe Trela. All the lifelines burned out many questions earlier and he had the stones to go all the way with The Million Dollar Moth.
WORST: John Carpenter. Don't like him. Can't stand him. The next day he was quoted in the press as saying all the attention was "all a little silly". Ass. How I hate him.

tvmitch · « **Reply #12 on:** August 10, 2006, 11:07:29 AM »

My vote goes to the first UK million-pound winner, because it just hadn't been done before and Tarrant is a master host.

Tony · « **Reply #13 on:** August 10, 2006, 11:40:47 AM »

I will also add my vote for Joe Trela's $1,000,000 win. Going for the million after having burned all the lifelines at the $32,000 mark must take real guts.

comicus · « **Reply #14 on:** August 10, 2006, 11:47:04 AM »

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'126876\' date=\'Aug 10 2006, 09:01 AM\']
Yep; his name is Richard Bay...the only reason I remember that is because I was rooting for him through the whole thing, and he seemed so happy when he won...as I'm sure we all would!

[/quote]
Yup, my bad. I tried looking it up and missed.

Author Topic: The most exciting million+ dollar win? (Read 4964 times)

Patrick S

Scott

Tony