Make Me a Millionaire
On January 10, 2009, Pat Finn and Maquiel Alejo walked out on the stage of The Big Spin and told their audience that the Big Wheel would spin no more. On January 17, the California Lottery aired its replacement, Make Me A Millionaire.
Four games were played every show:
- Lucky Penny, an expy of The Price Is Right's "Lucky Seven";
- Safe Cracker, a two-player Mystery Box game with a one-shot Bonus Round;
- California Cool, another Mystery Box game with a trivia theme; and
- The Millionaire Game, where one person out of a pool of six were selected to play a "higher/lower" game somewhat like Card Sharks to win the show's progressive jackpot which began at $1,000,000 and increased by $200,000 for each show not won; the smallest and largest wins ($1,400,000 and $5,200,000) occurred within a month of one another.
The following Game Show tropes appear in Make Me a Millionaire:
- Bonus Round: In Safe Cracker, the winning player chooses whether to stay with his money or play a "half or double" round.
- Consolation Prize: Nobody left with less than $2,000. Small prizes like phones, calculators, or even MMaM scratchers were given to players before the game began.
- Personnel:
- Game Show Host: Mark L. Walberg.
- Lovely Assistant: Liz Hernandez.
- Studio Audience
Tropes used in Make Me a Millionaire include:
- Cut Short: Unlike The Big Spin, MMaM ended abruptly with no chance to record a proper Grand Finale and with five episodes left unaired on TV. Also a Downer Ending to fans of The Big Spin and game shows in general when the Lottery announced that there would be no replacement whatsoever.
- Missing Episode: The last five episodes were uploaded to the Lottery's official YouTube page. Oddly, the first of these unaired shows would've provided good closure on-air, as it ended with a $2,600,000 win. (The final unaired episode had a jackpot of $1,600,000 which wasn't awarded.)