Quiz shows, part two


In January, I participated in the Giljotiini quiz show. Yesterday it was Who wants to be a millionaire?. I tried the SMS quiz twice before I was happy with my time and indeed got an invite to the taping of the show.

It was a long day. I was in the third show of the day, which was also the last one. That meant a long time of sitting in the studio watching the first two episodes. It’s a quite boring show, really and the studio wasn’t a pleasant place to be, with all the hot lights and uncomfortable seats.

Finally it was my turn. The Fastest Fingers part was the scary bit, as I expected. First time I was fast, but one of the contestants was faster with a rather spiffy time of 3.30 seconds. He didn’t last long, though. Second time my luck was better — it was an easy speed question (putting four letters in correct order). I was the fastest — 2.99 seconds! The world record is 0.87, according to the facts and figures page on ABC’s website.

As I was the last contestant of the last show of the day, I must go and continue next week. My situation is good: I’ve only used the Ask-the-Audience lifeline and I have 20 000 euros. In the Finnish version that is second limit. So I can’t lose that, I can only get more.


8 responses to “Quiz shows, part two”

  1. 20k! Boy, there’s a-gonna be some serious student grant (or whatever opintotuki is in English) payback for you, even after the taxes.. 🙂 Way to go!

  2. Well, all of it. So 20k isn’t actually that much, it’s about 7.5k after taxes and student grant payback.

  3. This is a week old now, so best of luck for today. 🙂
    Peter Sarrett filmed the US version of WWTBAM? in December and his episodes were broadcast last month. He got up to question thirteen, which is $250, 000 over there. Digging around, I can find a list of the old Finnish values when you played in Markka rather than Euros. Would I be correct in guessing that the values go:
    100
    200
    500
    1 000
    2 000 (safe)
    3 000
    6 000
    10 000
    15 000
    20 000 (safe)
    30 000
    50 000
    70 000
    100 000
    200 000
    …and that these represent about 19% more than the old prizes in Markka did? 🙂
    I’d still be keen to see a video of you on Giljotiini as well as on this! There must be something I can get you in return…

  4. Didn’t go too well — I blew the first question. Still, 20 000 euros isn’t too bad for almost no effort. The list of values you have is almost correct… 200, 450, 700, 1 000, 2 000 (safe), 3 000, 5 000, 8 000, 12 000, 20 000 (safe), 30 000, 45 000, 70 000, 100 000, 200 000.
    I have the Guillotine on tape and will tape these, but I can’t get them copied easily, that’s the problem.

  5. Aww, blimey. Well, like you said, it’s still good money.. Much much more than I made working for the whole summer 🙂
    What was the blown question, anyway?

  6. It was about the first sentence of “Gone With the Wind” (what it told about Scarlett O’Hara). Tough one to search for — not an easy one to find in 25 seconds or so. It’s a bit ironic, as we talked about the last sentence of the book few days before that…
    I will actually get about 11 000 euros after taxes, they were less than I expected…

  7. Congratulations!
    11K euros is really not bad for answering a couple of questions. The 20 000 before taxes is a normal salary for a whole year of work… I guess I’m abit jealous at this point =)
    But really it’s great and sincere congratulations to you!
    -Stefu

  8. “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”
    🙂