By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
February 2, 2000
Former Chicagoan Bob Bass lost his chance to become a millionaire. And he wants a second shot at it.
As a contestant on last week’s highly popular game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” Bass was asked which U.S. president was the youngest at his inauguration. He answered John F. Kennedy. The show maintains that the correct answer is Theodore Roosevelt.
“Presidential trivia is a specialty of mine,” says Bass, a former University of Chicago graduate student currently residing in Chappaqua, N.Y. “I knew JFK was the youngest president ever elected. I knew Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest president ever sworn in. But I’d never heard the word inauguration’ used in connection with Roosevelt.”
Wrong, according to ABC, which sent Bass home with his $32,000 prize money.
“We stand by our answer and Roosevelt historians are in agreement,” an ABC spokeswoman said. “It’s not parties and parades that make an inauguration. It’s the actual taking of the oath.”
ABC referred the media to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation where Roosevelt was given the oath of office on Sept. 14, 1901, after President McKinley was assassinated. His inauguration took place at a private home and was witnessed by 50 people, including the U.S. district judge who gave the oath, six Cabinet members and various dignitaries.
Bass, 32, counters, “I’ve never gone out of my way to disprove the Roosevelt theory. But I think that when a question has two defensible answers, and certainly my answer is defensible, if not more correct, ABC has the
obligation to credit me for the correct answer. The [show] doesn’t tend to ask ambigious questions. The fact that they made a mistake shouldn’t exclude the person who answered it correctly.”
Bass, who works for a money management firm, says that he is hopeful that the show “will do the right thing, as they did with that other contestant.”
Last August, ABC gave David Honea a second shot after producers conceded they erred on a question about the Great Lakes. That admission helped Honea win $125,000 a few weeks later.
Bass, who works for a money management firm, will appear this morning on the “Today” show with presidential historian Doris Kearns, whom he says is in agreement with his point of view.
Asked if he’d continue to watch the show, even if he is not given a second shot at winning a million bucks, Bass says, “Yes.”
Is that your final answer?
“I’m a fan of the show,” he says. “If they don’t ask me to come back on, I probably won’t watch it with the same enthusiasm. But it’s still a great show.”
Contributing: Gannett.
