Who Could Have Been a Millionaire?

 

     Italian TV has issues. There is usually nothing on, unless you're looking for some long forgotten 1970s American police chase movie dubbed into Italian or some tacky variety show with a 65-year old crooner singing under a disco ball in front of an overly well-lit studio audience. If you don't have cable then those are pretty much your standard options other than the news. To complicate matters, if you do happen to know of a show or a movie that you'd like to watch, then good luck actually figuring out when it's on. As Americans we have been spoiled by the hour and the half hour mark. You KNOW that if you turn on the TV on the hour or on the half hour that you'll catch the beginning of something. In Italy it's far more approximate. For instance, I've figured out that between roughly 9:13pm and 9:22pm there's a good bet that a fairly recent film will be shown on one of three channels. Yes, it takes some flipping between channels to figure out which one and what time, etc., but usually I end up successful. This took me at least a year to figure out.

      That's why one night during the first several months that I was living in Rome, my ex-boyfriend and I found ourselves watching a talent show turned game show turned talk show turned variety show. Clearly they wanted to appeal to the widest possible audience. At first it was just on in the background and then our morbid curiosity and love of the ridiculous sucked us in. I will describe it to you, but it might sound like a weird dream.

      The back of the sound stage was covered with high, velvety, luxurious (possibly blue) theatrical curtains. There was a shiny, old, fancy black car with tinted windows parked to the far right of the stage in which, we soon found out, was hidden a mystery celebrity. The car shared the stage with a four or five piece band, which was set up on a platform just slightly in front of the curtains and which split center stage with another platform adorned with two armchairs and a small table. There may or may not have been a disco ball, but let's just pretend that there definitely was and that it was positioned over the large downstage “performance space”. Of course the camera rarely had the entire set in the frame all at once. Usually it was focused on the performers/contestants who, when we started paying attention, were lined up in the middle of this performance space as the host made the rounds, stopping to talk to each one. They were playing twenty questions, trying to guess the identity of the mystery guest, and at this level the prize for guessing the right answer was €1,000,000! It had already been determined that it was an Italian woman.

      “Are you an actress?”

      Long drum roll with close up of tinted window of car. Finally a slip of paper drops out from the top of the window. YES.

      Next contestant.

      “Do you have brown hair?”

      Another long drum roll. Another close up of tinted window. Another slip of paper. YES.

      “Isabella Rossellini!” I exclaim, laughing because she's the only Italian actress I can think of and she also happens to have brown hair.

      Next contestant.

      “Are you also a singer?”

      Even longer drum roll....... YES.

      “Oh, never mind. She's not a singer.” And that was the end of my participation.

      The questions continued until the host had made it through all of the contestants. They had determined age range, that she did not have short hair (at the moment), and that she had also acted in English. Then came each contestants' turn to take a guess. I don't remember what their guesses were because, like I said, the only Italian actress I could think of was Isabella Rosellini and I didn't recognize any of the names they tried. But I do remember that no one guessed her. However for each guess there was a disproportionate and increasingly anticlimactic drum roll with the same close up of the tinted window before a slip of paper poked its way out and went fluttering to the ground at the host's feet.

      Now here's where the show got really interesting... or painful, depending on your take. The performers/contestants were all seated to the far left of the stage and then one by one got up and did their number. Several were singers, a couple were dancers, and at least one was a magician or ventriloquist or something. After each performance an applause meter measured the audience reaction and according to how high the arrow went the performers were granted between 1 and 4 more questions to ask. It was a long and painful process, full of more drum rolls and more slips of paper. Still no one was able to guess the identity of the poor actress who at this point had been sitting inside that car for at least an hour and a half.

     Then, totally unexpectedly, they opened the guessing game and €1,000,000 prize up to the viewers at home. (To this day it boggles my mind that a show such as this had €1,000,000 to give away just like that, but there you have it.) I so wished I had a guess to offer up, but neither of us could come up with anything. Apparently neither could any of the subsequent callers. But the game just wouldn't end. There were more performances and more questions and more guesses and more people calling from home. The prize kept getting lowered for each new round. We wanted to turn it off but somehow just couldn't manage to tear ourselves away. We were consumed by the need to know WHO was in that car!

      FINALLY the host announced that despite the failure of anyone to guess her identity, the car door would be opened and the celebrity would be revealed. So....drum roll. The loooongest drum roll in the history of the universe. I swear to you this drum roll went on for at least a minute. You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm really really not. It went on for so long that it got funny, then annoying, and then funny again, and then super unbelievably annoying, and then just pee-in-your pants hilarious. And when the car door finally opened.... Isabella freaking Rosellini stepped out.

      I feel that the story should end here, especially since a little piece of me died in that moment, but the story can't end here because the show did not end here. Once our curiosity had been satisfied and we assumed the program was over, we turned off the TV, feeling incredulous, forlorn, and just plain stupid for not having called. (It would prove hard for us to let go of this loss for a long time.) About an hour or so later we turned the TV back on for whatever reason and THE SHOW WAS STILL THERE. Isabella was seated in one of the arm chairs mentioned earlier and the host was seated in the other, and as they bantered back and forth a clown on a unicycle juggled bowling pins while circling the stage in front of them. We watched speechless for a moment before looking at each other in wonder and then breaking down into hysterical laugher. And then maybe tears.

Epilogue:

      I often wonder how my life would be different if I had just picked up the phone and risked my dignity to take a guess. Two things are certain: I'd have a greater respect for Italian programming and I'd let myself splurge for cable TV.

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