An idea for a WWTBAM? special edition week...

[Kevin Prather]

So far on Syndie Millionaire, we have had a few special edition weeks, including Radio Week and Pop Culture Week*. I had one idea, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. I thought I'd ask you, the experts...

...what about a Kids Week?

Kids age 13-16 getting a shot at $1,000,000? Would it work?

One flaw I could imagine is if they lose a lot of money, they might start crying or something, but other than that, it seems like an okay idea to me. What do you think?

Discuss and cuss.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 07:48 PM\'] Kids age 13-16 getting a shot at $1,000,000? Would it work?
 [/quote]
 I think that is an incredible amount of pressure to put on someone that young.

[vtown7]

IIRC, wasn't that done somewhere in Europe? Maybe it was Poland? I'm not sure, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the kid gambled on question 15 and took the very very long drop back down to the second safety net.

Cheers,

Ryan

[JayC]

That could work, and I could always use a nice million!

[Kevin Prather]

[quote name=\'vtown7\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 10:09 PM\'] IIRC, wasn't that done somewhere in Europe? Maybe it was Poland? I'm not sure, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the kid gambled on question 15 and took the very very long drop back down to the second safety net.

Cheers,

Ryan [/quote]
 Wow. Can anyone confirm that?

[Steve McClellan]

Certainly.

http://www.angelfire.com/80s/gameshowsteve/wwtbam-poland.wmv

[JasonA1]

The video clip may still be out there. I believe it was a 50/50 shot too. Anyway, the video was up because the webmaster of the site with it advertised it as "playing the mil. dollar loss cue." I had it on my system at one point.

-Jason

[tommycharles]

[quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 09:48 PM\'] So far on Syndie Millionaire, we have had a few special edition weeks, including Radio Week and Pop Culture Week*. I had one idea, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. I thought I'd ask you, the experts...

...what about a Kids Week?

Kids age 13-16 getting a shot at $1,000,000? Would it work?

One flaw I could imagine is if they lose a lot of money, they might start crying or something, but other than that, it seems like an okay idea to me. What do you think?

Discuss and cuss. [/quote]
 Any particular reason for the asterisk?

Anyhow - as I tried to bring up earlier, I could see huge gambling implications here. Or is there something that exempts game shows from gambling laws?

But it would be fun to watch.

Would you make the questions easier, then? Or risk having a 13yr old deal with a 70's pop culture question at the $300 level?

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'tommycharles\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 11:59 PM\'] [quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 09:48 PM\'] So far on Syndie Millionaire, we have had a few special edition weeks, including Radio Week and Pop Culture Week*. I had one idea, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. I thought I'd ask you, the experts...

...what about a Kids Week?

Kids age 13-16 getting a shot at $1,000,000? Would it work?

One flaw I could imagine is if they lose a lot of money, they might start crying or something, but other than that, it seems like an okay idea to me. What do you think?

Discuss and cuss. [/quote]
Any particular reason for the asterisk?

Anyhow - as I tried to bring up earlier, I could see huge gambling implications here. Or is there something that exempts game shows from gambling laws?

But it would be fun to watch.

Would you make the questions easier, then? Or risk having a 13yr old deal with a 70's pop culture question at the $300 level? [/quote]
 It's no different that Teen J! or Teen Wheel, etc.

The way I'd do this, though, is scale things down, and maybe have the teens play for a grand prize of a full college scholarship, say $100,000. Maybe make the first two tiers playable for savings bonds, then the final level could be scholarship money.

$50
$100
$150
$250
$500

$1000
$2000
$3000
$4000
$5000

$10,000
$20,000
$25,000
$50,000
Full Scholarship

I know this little exception could cause confusion, but you see where I'm going here. :-P

[Jay Temple]

First, I'm not sure whether there are any legal ramifications to the gambling aspect of some game shows when kids are involved.  However, it certainly feels uncomfortable having a kid play with that kind of money.

I remember TJW finding a clever way around the bad feeling about kids gambling (in the Beat the Devil bonus).  They played the maingame normally, but a parent came up for the bonus round.  For Millionaire, it might feel better if you had parent-child teams.  (To make it more like a true Kids' Week, I'd stipulate that Phone-a-Friends have to be kids, and only the kids in the audience participate in the Audience Poll.)

As to the scholarship suggestion, I've never objected to scholarship money substituted for cash, but my long-standing complaint about Kids' Weeks on game shows is when they go cheap.  My first recollection of this was on TJW, when kids played for points and winners got a $500 savings bond.  (1) Savings bonds cost half the face value, so they were only spending $250 instead of $500.  (2) Because they played for points, a game that would be a $650 win for an adult was still, even at face value, only a $500 win for a kid.  

The worst offender that I recall was when they had kids on Pyramid in 1980.  There were two versions:  (1) For several weeks, a kid and a relative would play together in a way that resembled the future $25/$100K Pyramid, but it was $2,500 on the first win and $5,000 on the second, and they had to leave after winning one WC.  (2) For the final week, they played the normal way, but instead of $10/$15/$20K, they went for $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000.  You could easily win more by having three good rounds in the WC than by winning the first time around.

[inturnaround]

What's the difference between deciding to answer a question on WWTBAM and J!? In both instances, your decision to answer a question may cost you money. No one to my knowledge ever had a problem with kids playing J!.  So, I don't see the problem.

[Timsterino]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 11:05 PM\'] [quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Dec 22 2003, 07:48 PM\'] Kids age 13-16 getting a shot at $1,000,000? Would it work?
 [/quote]
I think that is an incredible amount of pressure to put on someone that young. [/quote]
What Chris said. I remember Michael Davies being quoted as saying that the kids in  the prime time Family Edition  were so distraught after losing that he would never do Millionaire with kids again. Of course that did not stop them from doing another edition.

I do not think you will ever see kids by themselves in the hotseat. It is an enormous amount of pressure for them.

Tim :-)

[gameshowguy2000]

I agree. Nothing could be worse than watching a kid walk away with zilch after bombing out on the first 5 questions.

[dickoon]

[quote name=\'vtown7\' date=\'Dec 23 2003, 04:09 AM\'] IIRC, wasn't that done somewhere in Europe? Maybe it was Poland? I'm not sure, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the kid gambled on question 15 and took the very very long drop back down to the second safety net. [/quote]
 I may be getting confused, but didn't it happen in India as well? The Indian version of the show, which after a little Googling I believe to be called Kaun Banega Crorepati, had a very good web site with details of their biggest winners and fallers. Unfortunately the site seems to have gone, so perhaps the show isn't on the air there any more, which seems faintly unlikely, somehow.

The reason why I'm confused is that I also recall a kid in India winning the big money as well; Joe Isham had a chart of which version of WWTBAM? paid out most worldwide relative to typical salary and I suspect the Indian version was most generous in this regard. I have a suspicion that the Indian version had a child Q15 winner followed immediately by a child Q15 loser, but I have only my memory to rely on here.

Actually, I know there are a lot of quiz fans in India; I'm not sure why none of them have ever found us here. Perhaps the term "game show" just isn't known.

Hey ho!
C

[J.R.]

Oh, that Polish Clip was heartbreaking. I don't know if it was the quality of the movie, but it appeared that the kid had all of his lifelines intact. He should of used another one. I wonder if what Hubert Urbankski was saying ("Aleck" sp?) ment "Sorry".

Still, at leas the kid was brave, I'll give him that.
-Joe R.