20 years (and a day or two) ago...

[Mr. Weatherman]

Somehow this anniversary seemed to elude us all (or at least no one here made mention of it), but on Monday, August 16, 1999, the UK hit game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? made its US debut with host Regis Philbin on ABC.

The show was a breakout hit — propelling ABC to the number one network spot for a brief bit and, in many ways, ushering in the age of reality television as we know it today.  It’s unfortunate we didn’t get a 20th anniversary series, as was the case with the 10-year anniversary in 2009, but with the syndicated version cancelled, I suppose it wouldn’t make much sense to air a one-off special this time around — although the UK seems to have completely revived their version of the show following their 20th anniversary series last year, so 🤷🏻‍♂️.

Here’s to Millionaire and the hope that maybe ABC will one day soon revive the show with a format true to its roots, once again following in the footsteps of its UK counterpart!

[ThomHuge]

Here’s to Millionaire and the hope that maybe ABC will one day soon revive the show with a format true to its roots, once again following in the footsteps of its UK counterpart!

Hopefully if they do they'll have learned from the first go-round and won't overhype it--it seems like that's what led to the rapid decline in its popularity initially, they didn't create enough scarcity and it got over-promoted and overexposed. It certainly caused me to lose interest--it was on every night so I didn't really feel a need to tune in for regular shows; truthfully I didn't really tune in again until they did Mega Millionaire and Super Millionaire.

And also...if they do bring it back...hopefully it'll be without the clock and the shuffle format.

[Briguy]

My guess is it will be awhile before Millionaire is brought back. And then very carefully thought out.

Remember, this was a show that had long run it’s course and whose cancellation, at least IMO, was long overdue.

Brian

[tpir04]

The way they oversaturated the market with Millionaire, and the way it was barely hanging on since Meredith Vieira left, and the way they tried to beat a dead horse with the Clock and Shuffle formats, and the last-ditch graphics overhaul in the last half of the final season, it'd have to be gone at least another 10 years for it to get any sort of hardcore following.

[JayC]

I just remember how quickly Millionaire became a huge hit and the fun of playing the McDonalds game before it premiered that you won a prize for answering the question correctly on the back of French fry boxes. It definitely changed primetime TV making game shows hot ticket programming again and are now used as cheaper summer programming and the reality shows that are still huge lineup pieces. It was exciting for a bit then just got oversaturated, it seemed like for a couple years it was on every single night plus there were video and computer games, classroom versions, and pop culture references to it every where.

[GameShowKid]

It was exciting for a bit then just got oversaturated, it seemed like for a couple years it was on every single night plus there were video and computer games, classroom versions, and pop culture references to it every where.

I remember thinking at one point in its primetime run that there were way too many celebrity episodes. I stopped watching mainly because of that.

[blozier2006]

I remember thinking at one point in its primetime run that there were way too many celebrity episodes. I stopped watching mainly because of that.

Heck, in the fall of 2001, they actually devoted one night a week (Friday?) exclusively to celebrity episodes.

[gamesurf]

Thursday, actually. Civilians played Mondays.

The big problem with that was if you watched both days, you had to follow two different storylines and keep track of two different groups of contestants, bouncing back and forth between "civvies chasing serious life-changing money" and "celebs joking around for charity". It was confusing and unfocused.

Didn't help that they had to schedule the civilian episodes around Monday Night Football. First-run civilian episodes would never again have a consistent start and end time across the whole country until the 10th anniversary specials.

[pannoni1]

Thursday, actually. Civilians played Mondays.

The big problem with that was if you watched both days, you had to follow two different storylines and keep track of two different groups of contestants, bouncing back and forth between "civvies chasing serious life-changing money" and "celebs joking around for charity". It was confusing and unfocused.

Didn't help that they had to schedule the civilian episodes around Monday Night Football. First-run civilian episodes would never again have a consistent start and end time across the whole country until the 10th anniversary specials.

I had the Infogrames PC game, the Pressman board game, and Tiger handheld during the series' Regis heyday, which was a testimony to how much I was into Millionaire.

Though with the celebrity overkill, it soon forced The Weakest Link an early goodbye, which was total nonsense with the ridiculous voting that had almost nothing to do with performance.