General failure in “Who wants to be a millionaire?”: On the first day of the “three million euro week”, three out of five candidates crash. Jauch no longer understands the world. A WWM premiere then ensures a conciliatory end.
Günther Jauch started the new year confused as rarely. “Ui. How they fall, how they fall, how they shorten their tails. Eijeijeijeijei,” he grieved in the first edition of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. The second candidate had just fallen to 500 euros on Monday evening. “I’m not doing anything. We have a normal show here,” said the RTL moderator somewhat at a loss. “What’s going on today? Is it too hard?” Then it got even worse at the beginning of the “three million euro week”.
Three of the five candidates who completed their round on Monday fell down to the safety level. It was perhaps a good thing that this special week at WWM was extra long. From Monday to Thursday, contenders can qualify for the final on Friday. At least 16,000 euros must be earned for this. For most of the candidates, that was clearly too much to ask on day one.
“The more you get, the better your chances in the final,” said Jauch to the first candidate, Sven Wergen. The teacher from Rheine entered the finals with 32,000 euros. After this regular start, the fate of the WWM already struck, and in perfect form. Gynecologist Anna Öhlrich-Faustmann from Düsseldorf was faced with the question of 64,000 euros: What is “ius soli”, the “law of the soil”, and “ius sanguinis”, the “law of the blood” about?
The options were citizenship, inheritance, self-defense and income tax. Öhlrich-Faustmann had the perfect joker. Her father is a lawyer and was immediately sure: This is where inheritance law comes into play. So his daughter logged the answer – and sealed her fall, because the correct answer was “citizenship”. Pure horror was written on the candidate’s face, and tears came to her eyes.
“It’s a shame now. We would have liked to have had you in the final,” said Jauch. “Something got mixed up legally. Let’s draw a line under it.” Better said than done. Because then Benjamin Burg from Bodnegg near Lake Constance was the next 500 euro candidate. For the German teacher, the “WWM” adventure was over very quickly.
When asked the 2,000-euro question, he thought, “What should be the end of June 2023 after 44 years?” still safe. Burg immediately thought of the magazine when he answered “Gala from Frankfurt” and logged it in “before I let myself be unsettled”. Jauch gave up a question and said instead: “You should have been unsettled.” Because the “Gala” is published by the Hamburg publishing house Gruner
“There’s something that happened in 24 years, ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ has never happened before,” Jauch had stated shortly before. Burg’s partner Kerstin Jacob-Rauch also made it into the selection round for WWM’s “Three Million Euro Week”. That was pure coincidence. “We didn’t even notice that you belong together,” Jauch clarified. After Burg’s crash, he said: “She can still save the family honor.”
In fact, Jacob-Rauch made it onto the hot seat as the last candidate on Monday evening. She returns on Tuesday with the 4000 euro question. After her partner, the third unlucky person from the first WWM broadcast in 2023 crashed, also with the 2000 euro question. Marco Piewek from Essen failed because of the audience. By vote, 61 percent voted for the fact that there were significantly fewer Easter fires in Germany in 2021 than in previous years. 37 percent voted for a sharp decrease in forest fires. Jauch finally fell out of faith with a view to the spectator ranks. “Nobody announces an Easter fire. It’s the forest fires,” he explained to the audience and the advisor in a law firm. “61 percent Easter fire, eijeijei.”
The special edition of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” but also produced a real favorite for Friday’s record win. Michael Blum from Wiesbaden, spokesman for a medical technology company in Hanover, was sufficiently warned as the penultimate candidate on Monday evening. He managed the perfect mixture of caution, knowledge and daring (“We’ll go eat well if it doesn’t work”).
With the help of the 50:50 joker, the 57-year-old figured out that of all parties, only the SPD is represented in all 16 German state parliaments. Blum secured the prize of 125,000 euros by asking which of these films with Tom Hanks was based on a novel of the same name: “Sleepless in Seattle”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Forrest Gump” or “Philadelphia”.
Blum has a faint idea that he even has “Forrest Gump” on his bookshelf at home. An English teacher in the audience also bet on this film, but didn’t dare to get up at the additional joker. Her daughter called at the last second and thus helped the candidate to win. Because when it came to the 500,000 euro question, Blum preferred to fit. He should have known that Van Halen’s hit “Jump” once kept Nena’s “99 Luftballons” from number one on the US Billboard charts. “I hope that I can then make you more than one immoral offer on Friday,” said Jauch.