Transcript 03/31/08 Tom Stigi

[BBTranscriptTeam]

Tom Stigi
Bayside, NY

“Meredith says that she likes Tom’s look. He has a ponytail that reaches below his shoulder blades, a moustache, goatee and an earring in his left ear.

$100 In classic children’s stories, Red Riding Hood, Bo-Peep and Miss Muffet all have names featuring what diminutive adjective?
A. Mighty
B. Little
C. Thrifty
D. High Maintenance

$200 Which of these household fixtures sometimes rocks violently back and forth if it’s burdened with an uneven load of wet clothes?
A. Washing machine
B. Bathtub
C. Refrigerator
D. Furnace

$300 A cookbook for those with bold culinary tastes, “Creepy Crawly Cuisine” is subtitled “The Gourmet Guide to Edible” what?
A. Mushrooms
B. Birds
C. Insects
D. Hot peppers

$500 The current unemployment rate and Federal minimum wage are listed on what U.S. department’s Web site?
A. Labor
B. Defense
C. Justice
D. Transportation

$1K Though it’s spelled differently, the name of Texas’s capital city has the same pronunciation as the last name of what famous author?
A. Edith Wharton
B. Mark Twain
C. Jane Austen
D. Herman Melville

commercial break

Tom plays in a band. People tell him he looks like Frank Zappa.

$2K “P=2L+2W” is a math equation commonly used to find the perimeter of what shape?
A. Circle
B. Triangle
C. Hexagon
D. Rectangle

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

Answers:
$100 B. Little
$200 A. Washing machine
$300 C. Insects
$500 A. Labor
$1K C. Jane Austen
$2K D. Rectangle
$4K B. Skeleton

[ulysses5019]

$300 A cookbook for those with bold culinary tastes, “Creepy Crawly Cuisine” is subtitled “The Gourmet Guide to Edible” what?

Hey, who needs to cook them?

[gsabc]

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

Any chitchat or self-discussion here? Just wondering about his thought processes to get to the wrong answer.

I think the Zappa lookalike must have eaten that yellow snow.

[silvercamaro]

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

Any chitchat or self-discussion here? Just wondering about his thought processes to get to the wrong answer.

Virtually none, unless it was edited. Sadly, after Meredith told him he was wrong, she said, "I thought it was giant slalom, too."

I don't believe her. I cannot believe that Meredith doesn't know what giant slalom is -- from skiing, from watching skiing on television, from watching the Olympics, from going to the Olympics, from reporting on the Olympics, from interviewing skiers, or from going to a ski resort at least once in her life as, if nothing else, a snow bunny. I was annoyed greatly that she demeaned herself, no matter how well intentioned to make the contestant feel better, by pretending she did not know.

Whether she could not know the sport of skeleton is somewhat different, in that it is not particularly popular. If I'd been the contestant, I would have been happy that "luge" wasn't one of the choices, because I'm never sure without deep thought which one is head-first and which is feet-first. With the choices offered, the answer was clear by the process of elimination.

[kayrharris]

Maybe that's the only answer he identified with snow, although there is a big difference in skiing and sledding. It probably would have been a good use of ATA here if he was unsure, but somehow it seemed like he didn't have second thoughts about his answer.

[ulysses5019]

I don't mean to be an apologist here, but the skeleton event is a relatively new Olympic event. It was introduced in SLC in 2002. I don't know if he saw the q and dismissed skeleton immediately because it sounded too ridiculous.

edit time.....


it seems like it has sporadic appearances as an Olympic sport as early as 1928

[kusch]

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

Any chitchat or self-discussion here? Just wondering about his thought processes to get to the wrong answer.

I think the Zappa lookalike must have eaten that yellow snow.

I have never heard of this event, but I knew it was not any of the other 3. Wonder if I could pull the trigger and go with that?

[NellyLunatic1980]

Tom Stigi
Bayside, NY

Queens, so he's a WE®

Tom plays in a band. People tell him he looks like Frank Zappa.

And now, he's a WE/WE®.

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

And now he's a goner. How could anybody not know that giant slalom is skiing and not sledding?

Nihil obstat®

[earendel]

Tom Stigi
Bayside, NY

“Meredith says that she likes Tom’s look. He has a ponytail that reaches below his shoulder blades, a moustache, goatee and an earring in his left ear.

Is Bayside in the WE® area? I'm guessing that it is.

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

He was so confident with the answer. A couple years ago elwing and I traveled to Washington and coming back we stopped in Calgary to see the Olympic venues. Two of our sons were with us and they were able to make both a luge (feet first) and a skeleton (head first) run on the bobsledding training track.

[peacock2121]

Poor guy.

I thought he was going to use the fifth lifeline. I thought I saw on his face that he heard rumblings from the audience and was going to re-consider.

Alas - no.

[slam]

Is Bayside in the WE® area? I'm guessing that it is.

Bayside is in Queens. So, yes, solidly in the WE area.

[MarleysGh0st]

$4K What Olympic event requires competitors to lie on a sled and hurtle headfirst down an icy track?
A. Giant slalom
B. Skeleton
C. Curling
D. Biathlon

Tom makes A. Giant slalom his final answer.
Tom leaves with $1K.

Any chitchat or self-discussion here? Just wondering about his thought processes to get to the wrong answer.

Virtually none, unless it was edited. Sadly, after Meredith told him he was wrong, she said, "I thought it was giant slalom, too."

I don't believe her. I cannot believe that Meredith doesn't know what giant slalom is -- from skiing, from watching skiing on television, from watching the Olympics, from going to the Olympics, from reporting on the Olympics, from interviewing skiers, or from going to a ski resort at least once in her life as, if nothing else, a snow bunny. I was annoyed greatly that she demeaned herself, no matter how well intentioned to make the contestant feel better, by pretending she did not know.

Do you think she deliberately says this to ease a contestant's pain? She certainly says it a lot, unless it's a pop culture question where Meredith obviously must have interviewed the celebrity in question several times before on her other shows.



Before the choice were revealed, luge popped into my head. Then when I saw the choices were revealed, I remembered luge was feet-first, skeleton was head-first. Absolutely not any of the others.