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11 things we've learned from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

That's his final answer: ITV axes WWTBAM after Chris Tarrant quits (Credit: ITV)

After 15 years of dishing out cheques to those members of the Great British Public who are quite happy to ring a premium rate phone number 1,500 times a day to get on telly, ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?’ has been axed by ITV. And they didn’t even ask the audience.

To celebrate The Greatest TV Quiz Show™ in UK TV history, we’ve compiled a list of a few of things we’ve learned from Mr. Chris Tarrant and his fast-fingered flagship game show...

Lots of people want to be millionaires
Who’d have thought it, eh? It didn’t take long for us to respond to the question posed to us in the title, with the answer being a comprehensive ‘WE ALL DO. PLEASE GIVE US MONEY. LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY.’

[ITV axes Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? after TARRANT QUITS]


Britannia still rules the airwaves
It can be tempting to dismiss British television nowadays, can’t it? But for every ‘Hollyoaks’ there’s a ‘Downton Abbey’, for every ‘Red Or Black’ there’s a ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ Rather impressively, the company behind ‘Millionaire’, Celador, have so far flogged the format to more than 160 countries worldwide. Not bad going.



Coughing doesn’t always mean you’re ill
Sometimes it means you’re involved in the biggest quiz show scam in TV history (although it’s more likely that you’re ill...). Major Charles Ingram famously bagged the top prize in 2001 but was then accused of being in cahoots with someone in the studio who was coughing when the correct answers were read out. Both parties were found guilty in court of ‘conspiring to cheat the show’ (because coughing isn’t technically a crime).

ITV quiz shows can inspire Oscar-winning films
‘Slumdog Millionaire’ cleared up at the 2008 Academy Awards. Does that mean we can expect to see Brad Pitt playing Bradley Walsh in a Hollywood movie based on ‘The Chase’? Well, we can only hope.

Offering someone a cheque for a lot of money and then snatching it away from them looks like fun
Especially if you explicitly tell them that you ‘don’t want to give them that’ while you’re doing it.



The people most likely to succeed in life are educated, rich and posh
Of the five legitimate £1m winners, three were professional quiz players (one a former ‘Mastermind’ champion, no less), one was already a multi-millionaire (and get this - a banker too!) and the other - 'Eggheads’ Judith Keppel - is a cousin of Camilla Parker Bowles. Depressing, isn’t it?
   
TV companies are loaded
Before Chris Tarrant swaggered onto the scene with his trouser pockets bulging with cash, the best you could hope from a TV quiz show was enough money to cover your bus fare home and maybe a toasted sandwich maker if you won the bonus round. Post-’WWTBAM?’, anything less than a seven-figure sum transferred immediately into our accounts is just an insult.

[BUY Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? games to play at home]


Americans are far cooler than us
When we gave away our first million to Judith Keppel over here in 2000, she smiled politely and said “oh, wow” under her breath. When they gave their first million away to a chap called John Carpenter in the States, he used his ‘phone a friend’ lifeline to call his dad. But he didn’t ask him anything. He said, “I don’t really need you help, I just wanted to let you know I’m gonna win the million dollars...”



Ringing your friends and saying ‘Hello, it’s Chris Tarrant here from 'Who Want To Be A Millionaire?’ never gets old
Well, it does for your friends.

It’s not just TV comedy catchphrases that can get annoying after a while
‘Do you want to phone a friend?’, ‘Is that your final answer?!’ We’ve Mr. Tarrant to blame for arming The Office Idiot with with these gems. Cheers! Chris.

Jane Austen has never named a book after herself
She wrote a book called ‘Emma’, not ‘Jane’. We know that now. If only poor ol’ contestant John Davidson knew that in 1999 before having to trudge out of the Elstree Studios without a penny.

So there you have it, ‘Millionaire’ has taught us plenty. And we think we’re going to miss the chair, the cheques and Chris Tarrant over here at Yahoo TV. How about you? Vote in our poll and then leave us your thoughts on the death of this TV behemoth below...