Author Topic: Millionaire Questions... (Read 123813 times)

clemon79 · « **Reply #705 on:** February 26, 2006, 09:50:01 PM »

[quote name=\'jalman\' date=\'Feb 26 2006, 06:28 PM\']This might seem illogical, but did being a Blues Brother have anything to do with his participation?
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Prolly did, but he still looks horribly out of place among that list of artists.

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If a Jackson was the youngest singer, in that case it would prolly have to be Randy.

Wikipedia lists Michael's birthdate as 8/29/58, and Randy's as 6/23/56. So, no.

And, Kevin: While the "check your ego at the door" quote is true, it was delivered in a written invitation well before the night of the event, which is probably when Prince declined. It was also delivered by Quincy Jones (which adds a nice ObGameShow to all of this), and not Geldof, who, while tangentially involved with the USA For Africa project, was much better known for Band Aid on his side of the pond.

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #706 on:** February 26, 2006, 10:00:58 PM »

Aha. My error.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #707 on:** February 27, 2006, 12:16:11 AM »

[quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Feb 26 2006, 07:42 PM\']Perhaps throw a year in there to make it clear what you're going for. I, myself, have no clue. Again, as Chris has said, it's probably generational.

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Take this with a grain of salt, but IMDb says he narrated both the original and the remake. So maybe have the question say the 1974 and 2003 versions...

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #708 on:** March 01, 2006, 01:08:21 AM »

The online community website, MySpace.com, is owned by what media conglomerate?

A: NewsCorp
B: AT&T
C: General Electric
D: Disney

Dbacksfan12 · « **Reply #709 on:** March 01, 2006, 03:09:34 AM »

A.

Easy to google.. "Who Owns Myspace?" gave me the answer in the first result.

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #710 on:** March 01, 2006, 06:07:06 PM »

Am I the only one who thinks that Googlability should not be a factor in determining a question's value? There has not been a single MDQ on the show that couldn't be easily Googled. What do you guys think?

BrandonFG · « **Reply #711 on:** March 01, 2006, 06:15:50 PM »

[quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Mar 1 2006, 06:07 PM\']Am I the only one who thinks that Googlability should not be a factor in determining a question's value? There has not been a single MDQ on the show that couldn't be easily Googled. What do you guys think?

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Agreed...I know it's helped at least one phone-a-friend in the past. However, type in "president" and "Laugh-In", and the second hit mentions Nixon. Type in "insect inspired term computer bug", and your first hit takes you to a page that mentions the moth and some myths behind that story. So yes, Googlability has nothing to do with it. IMO, the mark of a good question is when it takes several pages of links to find it. The only problem I'd see is that if you can't find an answer after the second or third page, your question might go into "urban legend" territory.

The only thing about your question is that it's been in the news (no pun) for the past few months, so that could be fresh in some folks' minds. It could possibly make a good second tier question though.

clemon79 · « **Reply #712 on:** March 01, 2006, 06:18:39 PM »

[quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Mar 1 2006, 03:07 PM\']Am I the only one who thinks that Googlability should not be a factor in determining a question's value? There has not been a single MDQ on the show that couldn't be easily Googled. What do you guys think?

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I think there's a difference between "answer found easily via Google" and "answer is right there staring you in the face in the very first hit without even having to so much as click on the link."

Just sayin'.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #713 on:** March 01, 2006, 06:58:52 PM »

[quote name=\'whoserman\' date=\'Mar 1 2006, 07:07 PM\']Am I the only one who thinks that Googlability should not be a factor in determining a question's value? There has not been a single MDQ on the show that couldn't be easily Googled. What do you guys think?[/quote]
The original point of the Googling is that a clever contestant has lined up a phone-a-friend who can look something up for him in thirty seconds. I'll acknowledge that it's just one factor, but it certainly ought to be a consideration in evaluating a question's difficulty, especially since the original point of this thread (back when it started in the late 1970s) was to come up with very, very hard questions. Now that it's just a great big repository of any multiple choice question that pops into your head, I imagine its importance is a little less.

J.R. · « **Reply #714 on:** July 20, 2006, 06:47:24 AM »

This is sort of a variation of the TV themed Australian $1,000,000 question:

Which of these television programs original runs ended LAST?

A: Mama's Family ----- B: Falcon Crest
C: Newhart ------------ D: My Two Dads

Scroll down for answer and explanation:

[color=\"#CCFFFF\"]A: March 12, 1990 ----- B: May 18, 1990
C: May 21, 1990 ------- D: April 30, 1990

So the correct answer is C: Newhart (Source: IMDB)[/color]

-Joe R.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #715 on:** July 20, 2006, 10:50:45 AM »

[quote name=\'JRaygor\' post=\'124575\' date=\'Jul 20 2006, 06:47 AM\']
This is sort of a variation of the TV themed Australian $1,000,000 question:

Which of these television programs original runs ended LAST?

A: Mama's Family ----- B: Falcon Crest
C: Newhart ------------ D: My Two Dads[/quote]
Forget that you could do that with any four shows you want, the nice thing about the Australian question is that they were using four very popular shows as their choices and the examples were at least a season apart. The difference between your right answer and one of your wrong ones is three days and it happened sixteen years ago. That's a ridiculous thing to expect anybody to know or figure out. I'd also have serious reservations about trusting IMDB as your source for such an obscure, specific piece of information.

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #716 on:** November 12, 2006, 05:05:27 AM »

Sorry to drudge this one up again, but while parusing www.triv.net, I came across a question at level 15 that I thought was really impressive. It reads as follows:

Which of the following countries is the largest in area?

A: Argentina
B: Sudan
C: Saudi Arabia
D: Kazakhstan

There are a number of reasons I thought this was a good one. First off, all four of these are well-known countries, even Kazakhstan with the influx of the new "Borat" movie.

I would think that most people's minds would instantly veer towards B and C, seeing as Sudan is the largest country in Africa and Saudi Arabia is virtually right next door to Sudan, and similar in size. In truth, these are the smallest of the four.

Kazakhstan seems like a really good fakeout answer, as one might automatically dismiss it as being the smallest of the four just because it's a former Soviet republic. In actuality, it's one of the largest of the former Soviet republics, and the second biggest of the four choices.

The answer, Argentina, is a mere 26,000 sq. mi. bigger than Kazakhstan. That could potentially be a problem, but the way I see it, this question requires a lot of reasoning and some knowledge. That alone makes it a good question. Plus I know Chris will like this: questions of this variety ("Which is the extreme of the four?") are very hard to google.

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #717 on:** February 25, 2007, 01:49:48 PM »

Sorry for double-posting in a thread that's been dead for four months, but I think I have a pretty good question. I'd like to see what you guys think.

In minutes, the original release of which of the following classic American movies has the longest running time?

A: The Wizard of Oz
B: Citizen Kane
C: Dr. Zhivago
D: The Sound of Music

Of course, adding "Gone with the Wind" to the mix would make it a $25,000 question at the very best.

What do you guys think?

clemon79 · « **Reply #718 on:** February 25, 2007, 02:03:46 PM »

Interesting, but they're all long-assed movies. Unless you've seen them, is there really any interesting way to reason it out?

Kevin Prather · « **Reply #719 on:** February 25, 2007, 03:40:55 PM »

Well, Wizard and Kane aren't all that long-assed. I tried to set the question up with four very popular movies that most people have probably seen at some point.

Music runs just a little under three hours, and IIRC, it takes a four-hour block to run it on TV with commercials. Your average Joe has probably seen it on television, since they run it into the ground during the holiday season. If he knows that there are about 15-20 minutes of commercials per hour, he could reason that Music is just shy of the three-hour mark.

At that point, you could probably dismiss Oz and Kane as being WAY too short, (1:40 and 2:00 respectively.) All that remains then is whether or not Zhivago is over three hours. (It is.) Admittedly, you'd have to see Zhivago in order to know that, but the MDQ shouldn't be a TOTAL gimme. And even if you haven't seen it, you can get pretty deep into the question before you realize you can't create an answer.