Transcript: 9/10/2008 Eric Cunningham

[BBTranscriptTeam]

Eric Cunningham
Brooklyn, NY
Works for VH1 (on "Best Week Ever")

Has won $4,000, and has threel of his lifelines left (PAF, DD and ATE). Bill Nye is still the Expert. His category tree:

Great Thinkers
The Internet
Word Origins
Politics
Cable TV

Who Am I?
Anniversaries
Famous Quotes
(Internal Medicine)
(Finance)

(Star Wars)
(Universities)
(Games)
(Inventions)
(In the Kitchen) (Ed. Note: I'm using the parentheses to denote that that question has already been asked. YMMV.)

$8,000 (Famous Quotes): Dan Rather once famously defined an intellectual as "someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of" whom?
A: Superman B. The Lone Ranger
C: Captain Kirk D: Perry Mason

$16,000 (Anniversaries): In what year did America celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence?
A: 1826 B: 1851
C: 1926 D: 1951

Eric calls for his PAF with 17 seconds left. His three choices are Eric's brother, Andrew, a Peace Corps volunteer from Roanoke, VA; Eric's roommate Jared, a creative manager from Brooklyn, NY; and Norman, a talent producer who works with Eric at VH1, from NY, NY. Eric chooses his brother Andrew. Meredith and Andrew spend a long time discussing his photo (Andrew has a knife in his mouth like a pirate, although he's not dressed as one). Eric gives the question without the choices, and Andrew tells him "sesquicentennial" means 150 years. When Eric asks for him to do the math, Andrew responds, "You do the math!" then hems and haws without giving the year before time runs out. Eric then gives the right answer when the clock starts.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

$25,000 (Who Am I?): Who is Kimbo Slice?
A: Professional fighter B: Heavy metal drummer
C: U.S. Army general D: Celebrity chef

Meredith mentions that the clock now goes to 45 seconds per question, and if Eric gets to the $1MM question, all of the banked time gets added in (currently 2:18).

$50,000 (Cable TV): In 2008, 78-year-old Sue Johanson ended her six-year run as the host of a sex-ed TV show called what?
A: Sex, Etc. B: Sex Therapy
C: Talk Sex D: The Sexpert

Eric chooses to use his DD lifeline with 35 seconds to go. His first choice is B: Sex Therapy, which is incorrect. He then chooses the correct answer.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Meredith introduces the on-decker, Ellenne Webber from Minneapolis.

$100,000 (Politics): In 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama squared off in Democratic presidential debates in all but which of these cities?
A: Austin, TX B: Minneapolis, MN
C: Cleveland, OH D: Philadelphia, PA

Eric chooses to use his last lifeline, ATE, with 36 seconds left. Bill says he remembers that they debated in all but Minneapolis, with a comfort level of "better than half, but more than 90, then swigs a dry-ice fogged beaker of water. (To this transcriber/geek, this is actually pretty cute.) Eric says he trusted Bill Nye the Science Guy when he was younger, so he's going to trust him now.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

$250,000 (Word Origins): Who coined the word "pandemonium" as a name for the capital of Hell?
A: St. Augustine B: Dante Aligheri
C: John Milton D: William Blake

Eric admits to not having read most of these. With 1 second left (actually, no time, since he didn't say final), Eric says he'll walk away.

THE HORN SOUNDS.

















Answers and Time Remaining (sec):

$8,000: B. The Lone Ranger (23)
$16,000: C. 1926 (12)
$25,000: A. Professional fighter (21)
$50,000: C. Talk Sex (32)
$100,000: B: Minneapolis, MN (28)
$250,000: B. John Milton

[TheConfessor]

Wow, six questions in 30 minutes. Isn't that a new record?

[luv2jog]

Wow, six questions in 30 minutes. Isn't that a new record?

That ties the record of 6. There were 6 questions asked on March 1, 2006.

[Ritterskoop]

Faux question for the million, on Great Thinkers:

In which dialogue did Socrates and a companion discuss the nature of piety?

A. Phaedrus
B. Meno
C. Crito
D. Euthyphro

[mrkelley23]

Faux question for the million, on Great Thinkers:

In which dialogue did Socrates and a companion discuss the nature of piety?

A. Phaedrus
B. Meno
C. Crito
D. Euthyphro

Is it just me, or do most of these choices sound like something Sid Caesar would have made up on Your Show of Shows? (No offense, Skoop.)

[FJV Megan]

I love Bill Nye! He was in Baltimore recently to get an honorary degree from Johns Hopkins.

Thank you so much for posting these transcripts! No station in Baltimore has WWTBAM.

[NellyLunatic1980]

Eric Cunningham
Brooklyn, NY
Works for VH1 (on "Best Week Ever")

Which, as we established yesterday, makes him a WE/WE®.

$50K: Never heard of this show. ATA and see if they have a clue. If nothing gets a clear majority, take the DD on the top two answers.

$100K: Having seen most of the debates, I knew this one immediately. I was worried when Eric chose to ask Bill Nye, but it was a good thing that Bill has paid attention to the election.

$250K: Dante is too obvious, so he's out. PAF looks to be the perfect lifeline to use here. Putting "pandemonium +hell" into Google brings up Milton on the second listing.

So I'd be going for $500K with Expert (and possibly DD).

[earendel]

Eric Cunningham
Brooklyn, NY
Works for VH1 (on "Best Week Ever")

Has won $4,000, and has threel of his lifelines left (PAF, DD and ATE). Bill Nye is still the Expert. His category tree:

Great Thinkers
The Internet
Word Origins
Politics
Cable TV

Who Am I?
Anniversaries
Famous Quotes
(Internal Medicine)
(Finance)

(Star Wars)
(Universities)
(Games)
(Inventions)
(In the Kitchen) (Ed. Note: I'm using the parentheses to denote that that question has already been asked. YMMV.)

So they didn't change the categories between shows. Either this will be SOP or else Eric taped his two shows on the same day.

$16,000 (Anniversaries): In what year did America celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence?
A: 1826 B: 1851
C: 1926 D: 1951

Eric calls for his PAF with 17 seconds left. His three choices are Eric's brother, Andrew, a Peace Corps volunteer from Roanoke, VA; Eric's roommate Jared, a creative manager from Brooklyn, NY; and Norman, a talent producer who works with Eric at VH1, from NY, NY. Eric chooses his brother Andrew. Meredith and Andrew spend a long time discussing his photo (Andrew has a knife in his mouth like a pirate, although he's not dressed as one). Eric gives the question without the choices, and Andrew tells him "sesquicentennial" means 150 years. When Eric asks for him to do the math, Andrew responds, "You do the math!" then hems and haws without giving the year before time runs out. Eric then gives the right answer when the clock starts.

Eric later said that he might "do the math" when calculating the thank-you gift he was going to give Andrew.

$25,000 (Who Am I?): Who is Kimbo Slice?
A: Professional fighter B: Heavy metal drummer
C: U.S. Army general D: Celebrity chef

Time to ATA for me - I have absolutely no idea.

$50,000 (Cable TV): In 2008, 78-year-old Sue Johanson ended her six-year run as the host of a sex-ed TV show called what?
A: Sex, Etc. B: Sex Therapy
C: Talk Sex D: The Sexpert

Eric chooses to use his DD lifeline with 35 seconds to go. His first choice is B: Sex Therapy, which is incorrect. He then chooses the correct answer.

I've never seen an episode but have stumbled across the show on occasion, usually on Sunday nights around 11PM. But I couldn't tell you which cable network was airing it.

Meredith introduces the on-decker, Ellenne Webber from Minneapolis.

Which seems to confirm that they do this when the Hot Seater is down to one lifeline.

$100,000 (Politics): In 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama squared off in Democratic presidential debates in all but which of these cities?
A: Austin, TX B: Minneapolis, MN
C: Cleveland, OH D: Philadelphia, PA

Eric chooses to use his last lifeline, ATE, with 36 seconds left. Bill says he remembers that they debated in all but Minneapolis, with a comfort level of "better than half, but more than 90, then swigs a dry-ice fogged beaker of water. (To this transcriber/geek, this is actually pretty cute.) Eric says he trusted Bill Nye the Science Guy when he was younger, so he's going to trust him now.

Not being the political junkie that some are, I didn't know this one. But since I'd still have PAF available, that's what I'd use, figuring that Bill Nye wasn't likely to know this one. I was surprised that he did.

$250,000 (Word Origins): Who coined the word "pandemonium" as a name for the capital of Hell?
A: St. Augustine B: Dante Aligheri
C: John Milton D: William Blake

Eric admits to not having read most of these. With 1 second left (actually, no time, since he didn't say final), Eric says he'll walk away.

POW! Right in my wheelhouse! So I'd be going for the $500K question with Double Dip and ATE still available. With "the Internet" and "Great Thinkers" as my remaining categories, I like my chances.

[earendel]

Faux question for the million, on Great Thinkers:

In which dialogue did Socrates and a companion discuss the nature of piety?

A. Phaedrus
B. Meno
C. Crito
D. Euthyphro

D - Euthyphro, final answer!

[peacock2121]

Wow, six questions in 30 minutes. Isn't that a new record?

It didn't annoy me yesterday as it did the day there were only 10 questions.

I can't put my finger on why.

[MarleysGh0st]

I'd have needed a lifeline on each of the upper tier questions, starting with the $25K one. Hopefully I'd have saved the Double Dip for $250K, since I did have the right hunch on that.

Outstanding work, Bill Nye, on the debate question! Really, what does it matter where the debates were held, when they were televised to a national audience?

[Rexer25]

Outstanding work, Bill Nye, on the debate question! Really, what does it matter where the debates were held, when they were televised to a national audience?

Because it's incidental, insignificant information, also known as trivia. I've heard there are people who like to test their knowledge of such arcane facts.

So, how'd you do on Sploofus today?

[MarleysGh0st]

So, how'd you do on Sploofus today?

I don't play Sploofus.

I did check out their web site a while back, but I couldn't find any explanation for this game everyone else is playing, where you seem to get one e-mail question a day. Can someone supply URL specifically for that?

[MarleysGh0st]

Outstanding work, Bill Nye, on the debate question! Really, what does it matter where the debates were held, when they were televised to a national audience?

Because it's incidental, insignificant information, also known as trivia. I've heard there are people who like to test their knowledge of such arcane facts.

Yeah, everything can be considered trivia, but some questions have more reason for being memorable than others.

[gsabc]

Eric Cunningham
Brooklyn, NY
Works for VH1 (on "Best Week Ever")

Has won $4,000, and has threel of his lifelines left (PAF, DD and ATE). Bill Nye is still the Expert. His category tree:

Great Thinkers
The Internet
Word Origins
Politics
Cable TV

Who Am I?
Anniversaries
Famous Quotes
(Internal Medicine)
(Finance)

(Star Wars)
(Universities)
(Games)
(Inventions)
(In the Kitchen) (Ed. Note: I'm using the parentheses to denote that that question has already been asked. YMMV.)

So they didn't change the categories between shows. Either this will be SOP or else Eric taped his two shows on the same day.

Since his were the 2nd and 3rd shows of the week, I'd say the latter. I'm interested in the Friday/Monday holdovers, if any. I wonder if they'll edit things so Friday shows always end on the end of a contestant's run.

[MarleysGh0st]

Eric Cunningham
Brooklyn, NY
Works for VH1 (on "Best Week Ever")

Has won $4,000, and has threel of his lifelines left (PAF, DD and ATE). Bill Nye is still the Expert. His category tree:

Great Thinkers
The Internet
Word Origins
Politics
Cable TV

Who Am I?
Anniversaries
Famous Quotes
(Internal Medicine)
(Finance)

(Star Wars)
(Universities)
(Games)
(Inventions)
(In the Kitchen) (Ed. Note: I'm using the parentheses to denote that that question has already been asked. YMMV.)

So they didn't change the categories between shows. Either this will be SOP or else Eric taped his two shows on the same day.

Since his were the 2nd and 3rd shows of the week, I'd say the latter. I'm interested in the Friday/Monday holdovers, if any. I wonder if they'll edit things so Friday shows always end on the end of a contestant's run.

The only possible benefit for a contestant getting this category preview is in lifeline management: "I won't use this lifeline here, because I'll need it more when I get to that question." If TPTB did change the stack because a contestant carried over overnight, that wouldn't be fair. (Well, since the contestant must have gotten past the earlier question to become a carry-over, perhaps that's moot.) And it might be construed as inappropriate tinkering by the standards & practices people.

I'd say, if they get a last minute chance to cram about "Great Thinkers" or whatever, so be it!