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One of the most successful, long running, and globally known game shows became popular in the late 1990's. This game show was called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The series has accredited its success to the natural attraction the general public has with trivia-based game shows, as well as the prospect of high payouts for winners.

Some of the Best Worst Moments for Contestants

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire works on the simple idea that as contestants answer questions correctly, they gain more money with each question. The ultimate goal is to reach a million dollars, although not too many have been able to achieve this.

Some of the best moments of embarrassing moments come from those who don't answer the first question correctly and earn a total of $0. This occurrence is quite rare, as the first question is generally seen as something elementary students could answer.

Chase Sampson from Tennessee is an example of one such contestant. For the question, Homeowners buy surge protectors to protect their possessions from unexpected surges of what as an answer, Chase blurts out water flow follow by final answer, only to realize seconds later of his hasty mistake.

One other case occurred with Paul Galm, who got the question Which of these phrases is a common way of saying I can't take it anymore! Much like Chase, Paul hastily answered That's the last stick only to realize milliseconds later that he had made a huge mistake- and walked home with $0.

The Biggest Payout in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire History

Trivia fanatics like to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to see how they would fare in a game show, had they been in the hot seat themselves. When payouts over $2,000,000 are given away- it's always nice to see how much a little trivia knowledge can take you.

In 2001, the game show was at a loss for $1,000,000 winners. To keep the game interesting producers offered to add $10,000 to a jackpot every time an episode was shown without a $1,000,000 winner. Interestingly enough, it took over 100 shows for the jackpot to be had. It was finally obtained by Kevin Olmstead.

How much did Olmstead take home? For the biggest payout in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire history, Kevin took an impressive $2.18 million. Given, this sum would be drastically smaller after taxes, but even then it would remain to be one of the biggest payouts in game show history.

In a spin-off of the original series, Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire was released- with a grand prize of $10,000,000. This sum was reported to be the largest award given in any game show ever created. Sadly, no one was able to take the challenge. In fact, the biggest prize achieved through this spin-off was the usual $1,000,000 awarded to Robert Essig.

Final Thoughts on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Try as they might, network producers can't keep the same show running indefinitely. The series was bound to drift into the abyss of daytime reruns. But for a long stretch of time, trivia fanatics around the world recognized the show as a popular culture icon- especially for them It's unknown as to whether the once great show can be brought back from the dead- but for the sake of jaw-dropping (or embarrassing) winnings, we sure wouldn't mind a new spin on an old game!