Who wants to be a millionaire? Ben Stein, for one

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 31, 2000 by David Bauder Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The music, that relentless heartbeat, may finally be the thing that drives Ben Stein over the edge.

"Stop that!" he shouts. "This isn't a cardiologist's office. It's a game show!"

A bit cranky, are we? There's an unmistakable green around the edges of Comedy Central's spoof of everybody's favorite game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and we're not talking about the color of money.

Jealousy was bound to happen. First Alex Trebek went off the deep end this month, publicly mocking easy questions on Millionaire and pointing out that emcee Regis Philbin finished last both times he appeared on the celebrity version of Jeopardy.

Now Stein opens a few wounds in Who Wants to Win Ben Stein's Money, a special version of his own successful game show, Win Ben Stein's Money, on Tuesday nights.

Stein bounds on-stage clad in the monochromatic garb that is Philbin's signature: black shirt, black tie, black jacket, black trousers. Only the white tennis shoes set him apart.

The first contestant gets a question worth $1. "Joe," Stein asks. "What is your first name?"

His choices are Santa, Moesha, Jesus and Joe. He declines a lifeline.

Later, after Joe racks up a few other correct answers, Stein reminds him how far he's come. "Joe is $999,800 away from winning a million dollars," he says.

Jealous, perhaps? Well, sure.

"We're jealous of the fact that they get paid so much," Stein said by telephone from California. "We wish them well -- I'm a stockholder of (ABC parent) Walt Disney. But we're all sort of in awe of the fact that for doing something that is basically a lot easier than what we do, they get paid such tremendous amounts of money."

He believes that the success of Win Ben Stein's Money, on a much smaller scale, paved the way for ABC to take a chance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

"It's a great show," he said. "Regis is a great guy.... It's just that we are like the poor relatives coming out of some holler in the Appalachians seeing that some little invention that we thought up has made our cousins fantastically rich."

Stein's parody follows the rules of his own game show, including the climactic moment where he challenges the survivor of three contestants to a 60-second series of brain teasers.

"I'm going to do something Regis would never do," he says. "I'm actually going to become a contestant. Stay tuned! You might learn something."

Stein wins handily, as he does roughly three-quarters of the time. He's asked to identify the British poet who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 (T.S. Eliot), the New England state that annually celebrates Bennington Battle Day (Vermont) and the Latin name for Southern Lights (aurora australis). It's not multiple choice, and no helpful friends are waiting by the phone.

He'd relish a chance to put Philbin or Trebek in the soundproof booth next to him, doubting they could handle it. "It's incredibly hard and stressful," Stein said over the phone later.

"I get paid to do my show every day one-33rd of what Regis gets," he said. "And I have to answer the questions."

We're sensing a theme here.

"We're just slaving away in the salt mines," he said, "wondering if we ever will come up for a breath of that rich network air."

Stein loves his home at Comedy Central but it is, after all, a cable channel with a much more limited reach than ABC. In a perfect world, he'd like the chance to air Win Ben Stein's Money on a broadcast network one night a week in addition to the nightly cable episodes.

He shouldn't hold his breath. Comedy Central, which has Stein under contract through the end of this year and holds future options on the show, isn't about to let that happen, spokesman Tony Fox said.

"We, in effect, have created this hit," Fox said. "Why would we want to share it? I understand his point of view, but it doesn't make business sense for us."

So the game continues. A contestant on Who Wants to Win Ben Stein's Money is asked to identify the well-known Indiana college where Philbin went to school.

"You could poll our audience," says Stein's sidekick, Jimmy Kimmel, "but they're really only good if you ask a drug question."

Strings well in the background. The heartbeat sounds again. Stein whines.

"Can we stop the frickin' music?" he says.