Reality TV has shown us some great and some not to so great moments of humanity. From crazy fights on Big Brother, Jersey Shore to the Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent, we have seen some extraordinary unscripted moments on Television that to this day give us goosebumps. However, that is the coolest of them all is still John Carpenter winning a million dollars on Who Wants to be a millionaire. Watch the clip below.
Who wants to be a millionaire or Kaun Banega Crorepati is a very famous game show where a contestant has the chance to win million dollars by answering questions that get harder as they progress further. There are 3 lifelines given to the contestant, audience poll, 50-50, and phone a friend. John Carpenter, an Internal Revenue Service agent appeared on the show on 19 November 1999 and reached the final question without using any of his lifelines. That in itself is an extraordinary feat, but what he did in the final question is among the biggest flex on live TV.
For his last question, he was asked, “Which of these US Presidents appeared on the television series ‘Laugh-in’?” The options were A) Lyndon Jonson, B) Richard Nixon, C) Jimmy Carter and D) Gerald Ford. Mr. Carpenter with a broad smile on his face after seeing the question asked the host Regis Philbin to call a friend. What happened next is truly the stuff from a Bollywood movie where the hero is the coolest guy in the universe.
Carpenter, used his Phone-A-Friend lifeline, not for help but to inform his father that he would win the million-dollar prize as he knew the answer already! If something like this happened today, this person would have even bigger clout than Elon Musk but for some reason, this crazy flex seems to be lost in time. This YouTube comment pretty much sums up John Carpenter’s savagery and coolness!
