Mo Rocca: Steve Nash Owes Me

Last night I appeared on the 10th anniversary primetime edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, hosted by Regis Philbin.

I've never understood why the show's title doesn't have a question mark at the end. Even if it's a rhetorical question, it at least calls for an exclamation point, a la the 1970s series What's Happening!! (With all due respect to Raj and Rerun, I'm not sure that show deserved two exclamation points. The far superior Good Times didn't even have one.)

What Who Wants to Be A Millionaire really needs is an interrobang: a question mark followed by an exclamation point.

In any case I was on the show as the expert lifeline, an innovation of the syndicated version of the show hosted by the luscious and creamy Meredith Vieira. I appeared from my apartment via Skype, an increasingly popular and cheap way of including guests remotely. (Soon everything will be done via Skype: Meet The Press, jury duty, weddings.) The most stressful part of pre-production was cleaning my apartment and arranging the background to impress the 7 million visitors "dropping in." I hope everyone appreciated the photo of my father, the plant, and the giant bust of President Grover Cleveland.

I was called upon by three of the four contestants over the course of the episode. The first was about Shakespeare and the second about Jules Verne. These were pretty straightforward. I am lucky that I wasn't called upon to name Bernie Madoff's two sons. ( Um … Uday and Qusay?)

Finally NBA (National Basketball Association) star Steve Nash (he's a basketball player) called for an assist (that's something that happens in basketball). Here's how it went down:

If I do say so myself I was quite good in the clutch (that's a sports metaphor).