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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? fans are buzzing after the latest episode featuring the season’s first official winners of the top prize.
The season premiered weeks ago on ABC and introduced a change to the format. Instead of one contestant playing the game, there are two.
In addition, it’s a pair of celebrity contestants who are typically good friends, colleagues, or family members, such as Jack and Kelly Osbourne.
While previous Millionaire formats had everyday contestants playing the game to leave with some significant money, the celebrity pairs are playing for money that goes to charities of their choice.
During the Wednesday, August 14 episode, viewers saw another pair of celebs attempt to climb up the board and win the $1 million.
One of the two teams did just that, which was the first time it had happened on the game show under the new team format.
Millionaire celebrity contestants included Scrubs actors and Jury Duty star
Millionaire’s recent episode started with a Scrubs reunion as actors Zach Braff and Donald Faison were the first contestants to play the game. Braff played for Midnight Mission as his charity, while Faison played for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation.
They joked with host Jimmy Kimmel that they didn’t think they’d get past the first question on the board, but they did so with ease. Ultimately, they lost on a guess on the $125,000 question but left with for $32,000 their respective charities.
Next up were actor Ike Barinholtz and his father, Alan Barinholtz. The father-son duo brought their wits and brainpower to the show.
Ike has appeared in many television and movie roles, including hit films like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, 2014’s Neighbors, and 2016’s Suicide Squad. He notably appeared as a regular on The Mindy Project as Morgan Tookers from 2012 through 2017.
His father also has acting credentials, including a recurring role as Judge Alan Rosen on TV’s Jury Duty and portraying Sheldon in the film The Oath, which starred his son and Tiffany Haddish.
They played Millionaire for the ASL (American Sign Language) Program at Los Encinos School as their charity.
A video on the Millionaire Instagram page featured Ike discussing how they prepared for the show. He joked they’d been just “sitting in the green room asking each other random questions,” hoping some might appear on the show.
Alan joked that he’d known Ike since birth, so they had a strong connection for the game. They also mentioned they probably wouldn’t use “mom” as their Phone-a-Friend Lifeline since she knew similar stuff.
However, Ike is a former Jeopardy! winner and Alan is a lawyer, giving them plenty of knowledge from which to draw answers and educated guesses. They easily moved up the board past the $125,000 question without using a single Lifeline.
Ike guessed on one question about the name of a star in the night sky based on having appeared several times on The Howard Stern Show on SiriusXM radio.
Father and son celebrity pair achieved Millionaire’s top prize with help from the host
The $250,000 question also posed no problem for Ike, who revealed he’d watched the famous We Are the World video many times and knew it featured actor Dan Aykroyd randomly in the chorus with singers.
They finally caved in and used two Lifeline options for the $500,000 question about which country Ferdinand Magellan died in. After the 50:50 and Phone-a-Friend, they agreed to roll the dice and guessed the Philippines, which was correct.
Alan and Ike were ecstatic after gambling and getting it right. That left the $1 million question as the grand finale for Millionaire. It also meant Ask the Host and Ask the Audience were their remaining Lifelines.
“We’re all in this, OK guys?” Kimmel asked, adding, “This is gonna be a team effort.”
“Not including blanks or bonus spaces, the highest-valued three-letter Scrabble word is ‘zax,’ which is a what?” the host asked.
Their choices were a Rare species of African antelope, a Ceramic container for holy water, a Letter in the Arabic alphabet, and a Tool for cutting roofing slates.
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They had no hunches for this one and used their Ask the Audience Lifeline. The results gave them “Rare species of African antelope,” but Ike wasn’t convinced as he’d thought it was the “Tool for cutting roofing slates.”
They asked Kimmel by using their Ask the Host Lifeline. Surprisingly, he revealed he’d won a Scrabble tournament before and “smoked everybody” in it. He said he was pretty confident that “D” was the answer.
“I hate Ask the Host! Regis never had to do this!” Kimmel joked as Ike and Alan conversed about it and put the pressure on him.
However, Kimmel was right, as were Alan and Ike, for placing faith in his answer. The duo celebrated with the host as the audience cheered them on, and confetti fell from above.
“Congratulations! You just won a million dollars,” Kimmel told them before exchanging hugs with the winners.
Fans reacted to game show’s ‘epic moment’
On an Instagram post featuring Alan and Ike, fans were enamored by the memorable moment after they watched a million dollars awarded on the show.
“Wow, fantastic! I’m not surprised they won, Ike seems like genius level and sure he got it from his dad,” one commenter wrote.
“It’s moments like tonight is why I love Millionaire!!! Congratulations,” another commenter said, while one said the “epic moment would’ve made Regis Philbin proud!”
“Made my night,” another viewer commented.
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The exciting moment arrived just a week after some fans called out the game show for being too easy after seeing Sophia Bush and her friend easily answer a question about a comedy movie. However, the questions on the latest episode seemed harder as they reached the top spot.
With the win, $1 million will go to the ASL Program at Los Encinos School. Their official website said they were “shocked and amazed” by the moment, which will help them implement a model ASL Program for other schools.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on ABC.