How did I not know this!???!! Thread

The soldier who was killed (Art Bonifas) was supposed to rotate home in 2-3 days. That tree-trimming mission was going to be his last official task.

The incident is excellently detailed in "The Long Gray Line," historian Rick Atkinson's outstanding book on the West Point Class of 1966. His widow went on to work at the Air Force Academy.

I can't stress how good this book is. That class was star-crossed, things did not end well for many of the 1966ers, and not just in Vietnam.

 

Two were killed. Horrific.

The North Koreans took turns for over an hour on the other victim. It's in the thread I linked.

 

So..

We know it wasn't a Styx or Pink Floyd question since you had to Google the answer.

Were the five chosen for different areas of expertise?

 

I loved that show and went a couple of times in person to a taping and take the written test. Never got a call.

The first taping I went to, for some reason, they made the questions super-hard. Like the normal $32,000 question was asked as a $4,000 question. The most anyone won in that taping was $8,000, and that was the contestant that was continuing from the previous day’s taping.

A couple of contestants went home with nothing. One of them was asked a ridiculous question for the $1,000, got it wrong, and the audience was so upset that we were being pretty quiet for the next contestant. They actually had a staffer come out during the next break to say that they understood we were unhappy about the previous contestant, but that they needed us to be louder and cheer harder. Meredith didn’t really engage with the audience either, except to wish a quick Happy Hanukkah to everyone in one break.

The second taping was more enjoyable. Meredith engaged with the audience during the breaks and they had a video celebrity phone a friend with Bill Nye and John McCain (who showed a lot of personality, which was nice). The contestants did better too (a couple of $50,000s), including one guy who was a soldier who was trying to win money for his pregnant wife, so everyone was really rooting for him.

 

I wonder if a lot of game shows pull that trick to stay within their budget. Like they have a certain number of big prizes they can award, and try to balance out the wins and losses.
I've been watching a lot of Family Feud lately, and they certainly seem to do it there. One day the Fast Money questions are impossibly easy, where at least three of the five questions only have two likely (and obvious) answers. That way, each No. 1 answer gets 35-40 points and it's easy to win. The next day they're either impossibly hard, or there are several questions that have four or five potential answers so that even the No. 1 answers only net 20-25 points each and you almost have to run the table to get to 200 and win.

 

I wonder about that too.

 

The movie aboutt the Who Wants to be a Millionaire Scandal was interesting - the "hook" of the show originally was that "anybody" could be on the show - if you won the call-in thing - as opposed to most game shows which are "produced" or "cast" looking for an interesting mix of players rather than just having a line-up of middle-aged boring white guys who tend to excel at trivia.

 

There was a story about a Nickelodeon show (I think it was Legends Of The Hidden Temple) where because of budget constraints, made the final game impossible to prevent too many wins.

 

The term "nerd" originated in a Dr. Seuss book - but was given more mainstream popularity when used in Happy Days in the 70s.

 

The bonus round of Wheel of Fortune suddenly gets real tricky when a couple people in a row have won, I’ve noticed.

(Not really a Wheel fan, but since my son learned his letters at two, he likes screaming out the letters when they pop up. Now he also likes to point out who Pat and Vanna are and that it is “America’s game,”in a very matter-of-fact way. He has no interest in Jeopardy, leaving my wife and I heartbroken.)

 

Which wheel is more rigged, Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune?

Over the years I always figured it was TPIR (which is unwatchable now between Drew Carey and the post-pandemic setup), but you’ll notice whenever they do the “Final Spin” on WOF no one ever gets a bankrupt.

 

That’s just editing. Gets them an extra commercial.