The Scoop - http://www.bobharris.com/ New subscribers: thanks for joining. Yep, the column is free, and you’re encouraged to forward it to friends. That’s how our readership grows. Gratuitous plug: Steal This Book And Get Life Without Parole is now available; check out http://www.bobharris.com/book.htm. Apologies for my recent extended absence. My computer got the flu and so did I. bh THE SCOOP for November 22, 1999 ___________________________ Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, And Why? Also: What The Mars Orbiter Can Still Teach Us © 1999 Bob Harris http://www.bobharris.com mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * = italics *Regis: For $64,000... What whole number comes immediately after 3? A: 17 B: 372 C: 4 D: Texas Contestant: Oh, wow, Reege... I know I should know this... Can I use a lifeline?* Last weekend, I needed to get my mind away from some stuff. Ron and Nancy Reagan used to get away from it all by going up to their ranch near Santa Barbara. So my friend Andrea, who has a great sense of what makes me laugh, suggested it might be pleasantly distracting to follow in their footsteps. So we drove up the coast and spent a weekend people-watching. My mind never got off the stuff I was thinking about. And now I'm writing about it. "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" is possibly the goofiest, lamest quiz show in history. The questions are mostly dopey, and everyone knows it. The prizes are inordinately huge. Regis Philbin opens every show backlit like Criswell in "Plan 9 From Outer Space." America loves it. And that's what I wanted to get away from in Santa Barbara. There are indeed distractions to be found. Santa Barbara, we discovered almost immediately, is home to the original Sambo's restaurant. The sign is still up -- it's huge, right by the main beach, and impossible to miss -- and the business is open and thriving and operating proudly. Whuh? I thought the old Sambo's restaurants had all changed to Denny's and became landmarks of racial harmony. Apparently not. Indeed, in the restaurant's menus and even its website (www.sambos.com, which happily repeats the Little Black Sambo story in full), even Sambo himself -- an Indian boy -- is depicted as remarkably white. How odd... The contestants on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" are remarkably white, too. Just like the rest of prime-time television. The contestants are also just about as intelligent as typical prime-time TV. In the last week alone: Knowing that Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain was worth $64,000. Knowing that there are four strings on a violin was worth $125,000. Knowing that Georges Seurat was the painter known for pointillism was worth $250,000. Knowing that Frodo Baggins was a Hobbit was worth $500,000. And not one of the above questions was answered correctly. Instead, contestant after contestant paraded through the hot seat, replying even to junior high questions the same way Shaquille O'Neal shoots free throws: How many teaspoons in a tablespoon? Brick. How many innings in a softball game? Brick. Who composed "The Blue Danube?" Brick. And remembering that Richard Nixon once said "sock it to me" on "Laugh-In" was worth $1,000,000. Gee. A million dollars sure isn't worth much these days... Santa Barbara, we discovered, also has an upscale restaurant catering entirely to rich people's dogs. Andrea and I wandered into Three Dog Market because we thought it was a delicatessen. The rows of shelves and long glass display cases fairly bulge with canned goods and condiments, none of which, it turns out, are intended for human consumption. The presentation is hard to swallow, too: almost everything is named with dog-themed puns too gruesome to repeat. We stood nearby and watched as Patagonia-bedecked locals dropped sawbucks on pricey patés for a prized Pekinese... and, on exiting the store, walked right on by a homeless human outside. Money doesn't buy happiness. It buys stuff. Gotta remember that... Because I reached the "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions two years ago (which of late I've finally stopped annoying people with, at least until the column you're now reading), I've been getting email bugging me to try out for "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." For those of you who haven't tried the phone game, they ask three questions, which you are instructed to answer with the keypad of a touch-tone phone. Here's what they asked me when I finally called: Question 1: Arrange the following words to form the name of a famous event: 1) Massacre 2) Saint 3) Day 4) Valentine's Clearly, this question only exists to make sure you didn't die during the recorded instructions. Question 2: Arrange the following wives in chronological order by birth: 1) Eunice Shriver 2) Marilyn Quayle 3) Wallis Simpson 4) Kitty Dukakis Hint: Wallis Simpson was married to the Duke of Windsor, not OJ. Question 3: Arrange the following writers in chronological order: 1) Benjamin Franklin 2) Nathaniel Hawthorne 3) Germaine Greer 4) Niccolo Machiavelli Hint: Machiavelli wrote before England had colonies, Franklin wrote before America had states, and Hawthorne wrote when could have practically owned Germaine Greer. Not a difficult test, but it's not asking which animal Hannibal rode across the Alps, either. (Which, incidentally, was another Brick on the show.) I soon received a phone call inviting me to play a second round. If I did well, I and a companion would be flown to New York to appear on the show. Cool... Santa Barbara also has a store called As Seen On TV, which carries a full line of Ginsu Knives, Pocket Fishermen, and various other devices which make hundreds of julienne fries in seconds. All of which actually work. None of which actually work very well. Stuff on TV usually isn't quite as cool as it seems. I don't pretend to know why "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" is such a runaway hit. I fear that the lack of any actual knowledge required to play the game might be part of it: anyone unable to answer at least half of the questions probably can't operate a TV anyway. That means everyone else gets to feel smart, even when the questions -- like the million-dollar one about Nixon -- are merely tests of one's prior television viewing habits. Greed plays an obvious role, too. It's hard to imagine that "Who Wants To Win A Used Buick Skylark" would be nearly such a success. A certain firewalk aspect cannot be ignored. Since commercials teach us from birth that More Is Always Better, acquiring a million dollars is clearly perceived as a potentially transforming experience, almost an American pop cultural Eucharist. The lights darken as the ritual progresses, and a loud heartbeat sound effect plays. (Incidentally, the pulse rate is at about 35, so either we're hearing Frank Shorter on Thorazine or it's some fat guy about to flatline.) The tensions rise precisely as the dollars add up, implying a victory so validating and sappy that Robin Williams would be needed to star in the film version. Also, my Mom thinks Regis looks cute in his suits. Although I think he looks more like the Mob hired a Keebler elf as consigliere. There were five questions in the telephone semi-final. I had already emailed the winners of the 1997 and 1998 "Jeopardy!" Tournaments Of Champions, who are both really great guys and agreed to be my Lifelines if I got on the show. I had this baby rigged. The first question, as before, simply ascertained that I was a sentient life form in possession of an index finger. The next three questions were similar to the first round, gradually increasing in difficulty. Question 4: place these philosophers in chronological order: Thomas Hobbes, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Bertrand Russell. Boop beep bip boop. Feeling good. I was starting to wonder how some of the less Malkovich contestants on the actual show pass the test in the first place, while people like college professors rarely appear... hmm... with tens of thousands calling... random chance, mostly? And then came Question 5: place the four principal actors from "Seinfeld" in birth order. Maybe so. Needless to say, we didn't fly to New York. We went to Santa Barbara instead. Oh well. I think maybe the "Millionare" fad might not last much past the next sweeps period. Ritual breeds monotony. Big prizes only seem really big the first time someone wins them. The novelty of a quiz show that doesn't even require your full attention seems pretty transitory. And any faith in the transformative power of the grand prize surely must have dissipated last week, when an IRS collections agent with all the self-deprecating charm of a monitor lizard impatiently answered 15 noticeably unchallenging questions, smiled wanly at Regis as if humoring someone who just farted, and stalked off as if the whole thing had been a tiresome inconvenience. In this guy's case, at least, money sure doesn't look like it's gonna buy happiness. Still, as of this writing, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" is an unprecedented success. ABC is currently running it every single night during the most important broadcast weeks of the year, as they will reportedly continue in the foreseeable future. What this all says about America -- that we so intensely adore a quiz show requiring so little knowledge, awarding such massive prizes for such unexceptional abilities -- I am depressed to imagine. And I'll be honest with you: whatever it says, it says about me as well. Once I was in the second round (and knowing how easy the questions on the actual show are), I, too, started to imagine how money might change everything... One of the swells coming out of that dog delicatessen gave the homeless guy a dog treat. Maybe he'd find more compassion outside Sambo's. ___________________________ Updating an earlier story, here's an obvious connection nobody seems to have made: The super-spiffy Jet Propulsion Laboratory just released a final report admitting that the Mars Climate Orbiter disintegrated into the Martian sky last September due to a navigational error caused by a teeny little oversight. What happened was this: Lockheed Martin submitted acceleration data in English units (e.g. pounds, furlongs, and drams) and JPL mindlessly entered them into a computer assuming metric units (e.g. challahs, sporks, and frontons). 416 million miles and $125 million dollars later, wub-wub-wub-wub-wugga-wugga-wugga-fuWOOOOOOOM-flam-flam-flam-hissssssssssss. Oops. Thing is, that's not really the worst part of the story. Remember the Cassini space probe, whose onboard generators are powered by 72 pounds of plutonium, the most dangerous substance on earth? You might remember a bunch of wild-eyed fearmongers -- including NASA's own former head of emergency preparedness -- making a bunch of noise about how Cassini might be dangerous. And just because NASA launched Cassini aboard a Lockheed Martin Titan IV rocket which tends to blow up, and created a flight plan calling for a high-speed pass of Cassini just above Earth orbit. Fortunately, Cassini was launched successfully, the high-speed pass was completed without event, and so 72 pounds of plutonium are now on their way to the outer reaches of our solar system. And so the mainstream media has dismissed critics of the program as alarmist. But last year, the *very next* Titan IV went kablooey, dropping a billion dollars' worth of fiery classified crap into the Atlantic. And last September, the *very next* object intended to pass just outside a planet's atmosphere went kablooey, dropping over a hundred million dollars' worth of fiery crap onto Mars. And NASA intends to continue launching plutonium-powered generators into space, insisting at the top of their lungs that nothing can possibly go worng... ___________________________ Bob Harris is a stand-up comedian, political writer, and syndicated radio humorist. His new book, Steal This Book And Get Life Without Parole, is now available at http://www.commoncouragepress.com/steal.html. To receive a free email subscription to The Scoop, just send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________ Bob’s Big Plug-O-Rama™ (updated 11/22/99): Steal This Book And Get Life Without Parole is widely available and can be ordered directly from http://www.commoncouragepress.com/steal.html at 25% off retail. The book includes cartoons by Tom Tomorrow and a foreword by Paul Krassner. You can read some ridiculously kind reviews at http://www.bobharris.com/book.htm. Noam Chomsky’s book on the Balkan War, The New Military Humanism: Lessons >From Kosovo, is now available. I was honored as heck to provide the narration. This, too, is best obtained directly from Common Courage. Syndication of "This Is Bob Harris," the daily radio feature, is rolling along: over 75 stations and counting. Call your favorite station and ask for the feature. They pay attention, honest. The radio stuff is now also rebroadcast four times daily in over 140 countries by Armed Forces Radio, for which I am paid precisely zilch. But then, the Pentagon doesn't have any money. (A toilet seat they pay $500. Me, squat.) Http://www.bobharris.com now includes streaming stand-up comedy clips, radio commentaries, and lots of other stuff like early writing samples from National Lampoon, my first published cartoons, and other such whatnot. The Firesign Theatre's new CD, "Boom Dot Bust," is now available. I mention this because I'm a huge fan, and Phil Proctor, one of the nicest guys I know, invited me in for one of Firesign's recording sessions. As a result, for several seconds on the CD I am barely audible as an extra, cooing in falsetto as an audience member of the cable access "Glue-It Yourself Show." This is one of the high points of my life. You can also hear an audio version of my commentaries at Soapbox, http://www.webactive.com/webactive/soapbox/monday.html. Some past columns are reprinted in the current print editions of the Humanist magazine and the Funny Times. The email version of this column now has subscribers in 46 countries. Welcome Belize! Finally, Mother Jones online (http://www.motherjones.com) also often carries The Scoop. I am honored to be associated with these people. They’re swell. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb
