Quiz man loses second chance: [3 – All-round Metro Edition]
Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 15 July 2003: 5.
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Abstract
Contestant Jerry McBrien was reinstated on the Nine Network’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire after the revelation that the High Court believed the program erred when host Eddie McGuire claimed a full bench of the court has seven members, when technically two or more judges can constitute a full bench.
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THE quiz show contestant who won another chance to become a millionaire when The Australian revealed he had been wrongly judged, bombed out at his second go last night, walking away with just $32,000.
Contestant Jerry McBrien was reinstated on the Nine Network’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire after the revelation that the High Court believed the program erred when host Eddie McGuire claimed a full bench of the court has seven members, when technically two or more judges can constitute a full bench.
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire invited Mr McBrien back on the show, starting off at $32,000.
While he correctly answered for $64,000 that Charles Bronson was in both Magnificent Seven and The Dirty Dozen, he lost on the $125,000 question. He incorrectly answered that the first national soccer team to win back-to-back World Cups was Brazil.
In fact, it was Italy, meaning he still walked away with only $32,000.
But with a new quiz show, Deal or No Deal, to promote, the Seven Network set out to exploit both the mistake over the High Court and another concerning thecomposition of the Rosetta Stone.
Last year Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, watched by more than 2 million people a week, incorrectly claimed that the stone was made of basalt.
Seven’s Today Tonight claimed the mistake made by Nine was “the greatest mistake in Australian television quiz show history”.
Schoolteacher Michael Mawson, 26, the contestant, said he had 90,000 reasons to be annoyed.