Classes sponsor 'Thousandaire' quiz show

Regis Philbin may not be asking the questions, but a few lucky students will have the opportunity to spend some time in the hot seat.

Tomorrow night, the officers of all four classes will be sponsoring their own live rendition of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" — except they call it "Who Wants to be a Thousandaire."

The game, which will take place in McCosh 50 at 8 p.m., will give students the opportunity to win up to $1000 by answering original trivia questions in the style of the ABC show.

Class of 2001 president Justin Browne said that the idea originated with the senior class, during senior week last fall.

"Over the summer and at the beginning of the year, the senior class officers were brainstorming ideas for activities for Senior Week, and we came up with this one," Browne said.

"It went over really well [during Senior Week], so we thought we should try to do it again, but wanted to open it up to the whole school this time," he said.

The money given away in the game will be drawn from the class budgets, Class of 2003 president Catherine Farmer said.

"All four of the classes are giving some money for the evening, about one thousand dollars each," she said.

Class of 2004 president Eli Goldsmith said he thinks students are particularly excited about seeing a portion of their class budget returned directly to them.

"Lots of times we spend our class money on buying food or tickets or on rentals for different events," he said, "but this is great because most of the money is going straight back to students, and I think students like the idea of that."

"We're honestly giving out at least one thousand dollars — people don't get that chance every day," he added.

Participants' names will be drawn at random from among audience members, Browne said. "When [students] come to the game, they'll fill out an [information] sheet, and we'll put all the info sheets into a collection, and names will be drawn at random," he said.

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The game will be conducted almost exactly like the television show, Farmer said. The eight audience members whose names are drawn will compete in a round of "fast-finger," and the winner will go on to the hot seat.

"We'll draw eight new contestants each round, and if you got chosen to 'fast-finger' and didn't win then your name goes back in," Farmer said.

"We'll have life-lines and we'll poll the audience by applause. Instead of phoning a friend, you can call on someone in the audience," she explained.

Farmer said each round will consist of 14 questions, all of which the class officers have already written.

Max Anderson '01, who hosted the game during senior week, will also host the show this Saturday. "Max was great," Browne said. "We all had a fun time and wanted him to do it again."

Goldsmith said he thinks the best part of the event will be the interaction between students from the different classes.

"This event is nice, because lots of times when you interact with people in older classes, it's at the 'Street' and in that type of setting," Goldsmith said, "but this is a fun, entertaining type of setting."

Browne said he hopes the other classes will continue sponsoring campus-wide events in future years.

"I hope people will continue to do this 'Thousandaire' event, but I mainly think it will challenge other classes to be creative and come up with new and fun events like this one," he said.