When you're a Millionaire Phone-A-Friend with $250K on the line

Bob Harris
Bob Harris
10,122,785
0
Published 2009-02-24
The time in late 2004 that my friend Kim "Howard" Johnson (biographer of Monty Python and Del Close — read his books, they're great) called me for a Phone-A-Friend answer — with $250,000 on the line.

Anybody who has read my book about being on Jeopardy knows that a lot of remembering stuff comes just from paying attention in the first place. Luckily I'd seen this incident referenced in a copy of Mad Magazine when I was maybe eight years old, hadn't understood it because I was too young, and, being an easily horrified child, had imagined a mailman stabbing his wife. Then I wondered briefly if I needed to be afraid of our own mailman, or mailmen in general. This stuck briefly in my eight-year-old head, then turned out to be useful 30+ years later.

So cherish the random crap in your skull. You never know. 😁

(Btw, Phone-A-Friend was retired rapidly from WWTBAM five years later, the moment that searching Google became practical in the time allotted. DSL was maybe 800kbps on a good day for most people. Looking back from the 2020s, it's easy to forget how much faster things are now, but this was taped more than two years before the first iPhone was even announced, if that gives you any sense of how far back this was.)

The show eventually aired on 16 February, 2005.
All Comments (21)
  • @Jessiemats
    Well now I know that in 1960 Norman Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele, with a penknife during an argument at a party.
  • @zottffss
    It's funny seeing a friend answer a question with that much speed and confidence but it's even more funny when the audience LOLs about it.
  • @MattiK2609
    "You've got 30 seconds and the time starts....now" - "NORMAN MAILER!!" :D
  • @bak544
    in 1960, what author stabbed his second wife adele with a penknife during an argum.. NORMAN MAILER
  • @seadame
    Bob Harris, the former Jeopardy Champion, gives Kim Howard Johnson the correct answer. I am a fan of Bob Harris.
  • @UrAverageJoe
    Who else thought that, from the title, that Bob Harris actually gave the answer to a million dollar question, not a 250K question?
  • @Knapid
    It couldn't have been any faster than that
  • @richardcleveland6949
    Talk about luck, Howard Johnson his real name also won 12,000 on the syndicated version of the Weakest Link with George Gray and his phone a friend was Bob Harris a 5 time Jeopardy winner