Fifteen-to-One: Contestant of the Year!
Quest
Dickson <ch...@dickson.demon.co.uk>
>Ladies and gentlemen, unless someone takes Chris Tarrant's million
>pounds home, we have our "Best UK Game Show Contestant of 1999" already.
>
>I didn't see yesterday's "Fifteen-to-One", but I did see today's. At the
>start of today's show, William G. Stewart (anyone know what the G stands
>for?) said that on yesterday's show, the winner, Bill McCaig, scored a
>perfect 433 in the final, for the first time in the show's history of
>eleven complete years and more.
Yeah, I saw this. A fantastic performance although I have to say that
the questions seemed to fall 'nicely' for Bill early on and the latter
(final) q's seemed relatively easy. I know WGS says it's easier at home
but having been on before (once or twice!) Mr McK seemed to have got
over the TV nerves contestants MUST feel and was relaxed and in full
control throughout. I was on my way out of the room for a brew when
the score was around 200 and thought 'hang on, somethings going to
happen here!' It did.
Bill was, quite rightly smug with his achievment whilst retaining
humilty and decorum.
William (Gladstone - I believe) Stewart was (in order) speechless,
impressed and congratulatory in his own understated way.
Sorry, I didn't tape it but, as you say, it *will* be shown again.
--
Q
Simon Evans
<ch...@dickson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Ladies and gentlemen, unless someone takes Chris Tarrant's million
>pounds home, we have our "Best UK Game Show Contestant of 1999" already.
>
>I didn't see yesterday's "Fifteen-to-One", but I did see today's. At the
>start of today's show, William G. Stewart (anyone know what the G stands
>for?)
Gladstone
Now I didn't see the programme either so I am prepared to be flamed
royally. However, personally (as a former twice appearing contestant
on Fifteen to 1) I believe that the 40 questions in that final were
probably 40 questions that Bill Stewart knew Bill Mckaig COULD answer.
He is something of an institution on 15 to 1 and Bill Stewart loves
his 'old boys' - he also would know what kind of things Bill M would
know and what things he has tripped up on in the past.
That said, It is an excellent performance, and he would have needed to
be fastest on the buzzer three times.
Still, with ratings stuck, format the same, wouldn't something like
this spice up a bit of interest .......
Just a thought, no slander, libel etc. intended.
Bob Cousins
>He is something of an institution on 15 to 1 and Bill Stewart loves
>his 'old boys' - he also would know what kind of things Bill M would
>know and what things he has tripped up on in the past.
On the other hand, Bill may have careful researched previous questions. There is
a general pattern to the questions, e.g. cabinet ministers, bible stuff.
--
Bob Cousins, Software Engineer.
http://www.lintilla.demon.co.uk/
"We demand that we may, or may not, be philosophers!"
John Dean
who has previously appeared or auditioned for the show making a further
request for audition, to the point where he took that guy to court recently
allegedly in the cause of 'fairness & opportunity' & yet insists that anyone
who wins a show (& in the case of the 2 who stood next to Bill McCaig,
actual losers) comes back for another go. How is this fair to new
contestants, that the people most likely to beat them come back time & again
(& I've seen Bill McCaig half a dozen times & I don't make a point of
watching every day) while those who lose on two unlucky questions in the
first round (or even just fail to appear on the program as a result of their
audition) never get another chance?
Yes, I know he's started saying previous contestants can't apply 'for the
moment' but he still hasn't done anything about it.
No, I've never applied or auditioned
--
John Dean -- Oxford
Having finally given up the struggle
I am anti-spammed -- defrag me to reply
john...@msn.com
Simon Evans wrote in message >
>
(snip) and Bill Stewart loves
Gmshwfan
In article <36c9beed...@newshost.breathemail.net>, simo...@bigfoot.com
(Simon Evans) writes:
>I believe that the 40 questions in that final were
>probably 40 questions that Bill Stewart knew Bill Mckaig COULD answer.
This could be considered a subtle, but undoubtedly legal, form of rigging. It's
one of those things that happen all the time, and you don't really notice until
something like this event happens.
It's interesting that if you've auditioned, you can't ever audition again. I
don't know of a show here that would even attempt to do that. (Imagine Price
doing that!)
'Brian
"Hidden in Footnote 210 of the narrative: "They engaged in oral-anal contact as
well." Now Starr wants to criminalize kissing the president's ass."
-- David Plotz quoting (and commenting on) the Starr report in "Slate"
magazine.
Chris M. Dickson
<gmsh...@aol.com> writes
>This could be considered a subtle, but undoubtedly legal, form of rigging. It's
>one of those things that happen all the time, and you don't really notice until
>something like this event happens.
Oo-er. I think you'd have to have been watching too many episodes of the
X-Files to conclude that. ;-)
Fifteen-to-One has been going for well over a thousand episodes over the
last eleven years or more, possibly getting close to thirteen or fifteen
hundred by now. (I lose track exactly.) William G. Stewart has 150
questions to ask in each one, and he typically uses over a hundred,
sometimes well over, in a commercial half-hour show. (The difficulty of
the questions rapidly increases at around the #80 mark; the last forty
are saved for the grand final second half of the show.) Multiplying up,
we're talking six digits of questions asked over the years.
Are there six digits' worth of questions that you can reasonably ask in
a quiz show?
(Aside: how many questions - well, answers - has J! asked over the
years? I'll concede that J! has definitely asked the same order of
magnitude of number of questions/answers; off the top of my head,
possibly twice as many as Fifteen-to-One - roughly half as many
questions per show and roughly four times as many shows over the years.)
It has been commented, not least on ukgs-l and on this newsgroup but
also in what limited game and quiz show fandom exists in the UK, that
the same types of questions crop up on Fifteen-to-One again and again.
WGS has jokingly remarked that he loves it every time when the
government reshuffles the cabinet, simply because he can reuse old sets
of questions with new sets of answers.
Perhaps it might have happened that a larger-than-usual proportion of
what could be called "standard Fifteen-to-One questions" cropped up in
the last forty of that show, and some might allege that this was more
than mere coincidence that a multiple former series champion happened to
appear on that show. (I don't know the figures exactly, but I would
guess that somewhere around five previous series winners take part in
every new series these days.) Surely as improprieties go, this doesn't
rate more than 3 microBarries or 7 nanoEnrights on the old scale. ;-)
It has got me wondering on a related topic, though. Which Jeopardy!
categories appear most frequently, and are there old favourite
questions/answers that keep getting rephrased or re-expressed within
those categories?
Best wishes to all!
Chris
--
Obligatory William G. Stewart quote:
"The Internet's not just for kids, you know!"
(in person, backstage at the taping of series 1, episode 6 of Wanted)
AN
>
> It has got me wondering on a related topic, though. Which Jeopardy!
> categories appear most frequently, and are there old favourite
> questions/answers that keep getting rephrased or re-expressed within
> those categories?
Well, I've seen about 800 variations on the old "Who wrote the play 'Our
Town' question.
AN