Phone-a-Friend (2024)

Phone-a-Friend (Telephone in Japan and or Call-a-Friend in India) is a lifeline in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? game. It is most commonly used if contestant gets stuck on a particular question and needs help by calling a friend or relative on telephone. The contestant has to ask the current question and four (or two when 50:50 was used before) possible choices, and the friend is given 30 (25 in Croatia, the Netherlands and Denmark since 2019 or 45 in Ghana, India Hindi 2020 and Greece 2022) seconds to provide input and give the answer they think is correct to the contestant before the call is cut off. In the Colombian version, the timer only start, after the question was read out.

History[]

The Phone-a-Friend lifeline was one of the original three lifelines on the show, when it first aired in the UK on 4 September 1998. The UK version used it for its entirety; however, the U.S. show has used it only until early 2010, when it was discontinued because of an increasing trend in contestants’ friends using Internet search engines to look up the right answer (while this was not necessarily a rules violation, it was against the original intent of this lifeline). This lifeline was sponsored by AT&T for the U.S. primetime run from 1999-2002, the first season of the syndicated version from 2002-03, and 2009 primetime revival. Also in the Canadian version, this lifeline was also sponsored by Clearnet PCS. On the other hand, whereas the U.S. version discontinued this lifeline, the UK version continued to use this lifeline, but instead changed how the lifeline worked; instead of leaving the selected friends at home, the contestant selected their friends ahead of time, and the show brought them backstage and places them in isolated soundproof booths, where they would not see or hear anything that goes on in the main studio until they are called for assistance, and they would not have any access to the internet. Since the 2018 revival in the UK version, the friends would be accompanied by a member of the production team (referred to as "someone from our office" by Jeremy Clarkson) to prevent them from cheating.

In all versions of the game that have this lifeline, a contestant must give the show a list of three or five friends before gameplay begins that can be called (they may not choose any other friends during gameplay). These friends will be called just as a contestant begins gameplay in order to remind them to be on stand-by and to keep the line as open as possible. On live shows, the show may bring said friends to a backstage location somewhere else in the studio and keep them away from telephones, TVs, and access to outside parties, in order for them to not know the contents of the questions a contestant is facing beforehand.

Clock Format[]

In the U.S., UK, other countries' Clock Formats, India Hindi and Turkey, when the contestant chose to use the lifeline, the clock would stop. Once the call was finished, the host would give a brief explanation, and then the clock would start again.

Phone-a-Complete Stranger[]

A variation of Phone-a-Friend, called Phone-a-Complete Stranger, was used on the former Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – Play It! attraction. Instead of calling someone from the contestant's list of friends, a Disney Cast Member would get called and asked by the host to find a park guest to help the contestant with the question they need help on.

During Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios, when the attraction had questions asked about Star Wars, the lifeline would be temporarily renamed Phone-a-Stormtrooper. For ESPN The Weekend, it would be replaced with a chance to ask an ESPN expert for assistance.

Video Calls[]

The video call was first used on Quiz $ Millionaire, then on the 9th and 12th seasons of Kaun Banega Crorepati (called as Video Call-a-Friend), as well as the 2017 season of Ai Là Triệu Phú, since 2021 season of Kto khochet stat' millionerom?, in the 5th season of the Costa Rican version and in 5th season of Marathi version of show. When the contestant was calling, the Phone-a-Friend partner's face on video were shown on the TV screen. After 30 seconds (45 seconds in the 12th season of Kaun Banega Crorepati and the 2021 series of Kon Hoeel Marathi Crorepati), the calling is cut off, the video shown Phone-a-Friend partner's face was also cut off altogether.

In the September 18, 2021 episode of Russian version, for the first time, Phone-a-Friend was held as a teleconference.

Double/Triple Phone-a-Friend rule[]

On the current UK version, starting from Series 35 up to Series 37, due to the inability to Ask the Audience because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the game gives contestants two Phone-a-Friend lifelines, with the condition that they cannot call the same person twice.

Before that, on the second run (2008) and fourth run (2013) of Takeshi Kitano on Quiz $ Millionaire (Japan), he asked the host to replace all the lifelines for three Phone-a-Friend lifelines.

Additionally, on the celebrity special of the 2007-2008 series of Kto khochet stat' millionerom? on 5 November 2007, in which celebrities Tatyana Vedeneyeva and Tatyana Arno appeared, as an exception, the host Maxim Galkin allowed them to use the Phone-a-Friend prompt twice. Each one of the participants called their telephone helper. In the March 31, 2012 episode (Dmitry Dibrov's era), celebrity couple Alexander Revva and Andrey Rozhkov also phoned twice.

Moreover, on the 2018 New Year special episode of Stani Bogat, on Kamen Alipiev-Kedar and Dobrina Cheshmedzhieva's 15,000-lev question, the Phone-a-Friend lifeline was used twice.

Phone at Home[]

In France, in the temporary at-home version of the show due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in connection with quarantine, a lifeline was introduced, a home version of the "Phone-a-Friend" lifeline called "Phone at Home" (L’appel à la maison). It works like Phone-a-Friend, only difference is the phoned person is an anonymous person.

Differences in allotted time[]

While the standard time given in most versions is 30 seconds, a few other versions, like Tko želi biti milijunaš?, BankGiro Miljonairs and Hvem vil være millionær?, reduced the time allotted to 25 seconds, or increased the time allotted to 45 seconds like Kaun Banega Crorepati and Who Wants To Be Rich?.

Music/Sounds[]

Phone-a-Friend Started

Phone-a-Friend Countdown

Phone-a-Friend Countdown (Sweden 2000)

Phone-a-Friend Early End

Trivia[]

• The clock's ticking sound and music would later carry over to the ESPN game show 2-Minute Drill, which was also created by executive producer Michael Davies.
• Regis Philbin said on the first episode of the U.S. version that Phone-a-Friend was his favorite lifeline.
• Phone-a-Friends are always contacted before the show to be reminded of the rules and told when recording is. They cannot answer any incoming calls not from the Millionaire hotline during recording times and must not make any outgoing calls. This often takes a lot of time, as each contact has to be told what to do before the show, and much of the time it's not possible to reach them straight away. Landline phones were also usually preferred.
• On at least three occasions, a contestant used the Phone-a-Friend lifeline on the last question not for help, but to inform their friend that they were about to win the top prize, then eventually do so. The first instance of this is John Carpenter, and soon afterwards, Enrique Chicote in Spain, Ralf Schnoor in Germany, and Jonas von Essen in Sweden would later repeat Carpenter's trick.
• When Eddie Timanus used the Phone-a-Friend lifeline during his Millionaire run, since he was blind, host Meredith Vieira read the question and four possible choices to Eddie's friend instead of Eddie himself, and also reminded them of how much time remained on the 30-second clock.
• In the first episode of the British version, the Phone-a-Friend lifeline was conducted using a handheld landline telephone. It was only used during Graham Elwell's run - it was dropped afterwards since the producers and Chris Tarrant felt it didn't fit. Then, the handheld landline telephone was also used on the first season of 50x15 in Spain, Quiz $ Millionaire in Japan and the second series of Milionár in Slovakia.
• Phone-a-Friend has had many incidents where the desired contact is either not at home or producers have dialed or been given the wrong phone number. This regularly happens during recording (although Phone-a-Friends are reminded of when times during which they might be called before the show), and though these are usually edited out in post-production, at least two have made it onto the show, both in Vietnam.
  • The first was on July 12th, 2005 (?), Lê Thanh Huệ used her Phone-a-Friend lifeline to call doctor Tùng, who was working on 108 Hospital. But the show accidentally called an unknown woman, as the phone number given was the number of the hospital itself. Due to this, she phoned her dad, Thuộc, but the wrong name had been inputted into the computer (the computer recorded Thuật and the contestant's dad was named Thuộc). She ended up not usingPhone-a-Friendand answered the question. This was the first recorded broadcast Phone-a-Friend error.
  • The second was on May 7th, 2019, when Phạm Quỳnh Như used her Phone-a-Friend lifeline on the sixth question to call Vũ Văn Khanh, however producers dialed the wrong number (the woman on the phone said, "Wrong number!"). Host Phan Đăng said that this is the first time an error had occurred regarding Phone-a-Friend in the short history of Ai Là Triệu Phú (not realizing the 2005 incident). Producers tried to call Vũ Văn Khanh again - this time the right number was called.
• On one episode of the Kazakh version, on which the pictures of the Phone-a-Friend contestants was not displayed.
• On Vem vill bli miljonär?, the music for the 30 second clock was pitched slightly lower than the usual music. The circle around the clock also disappeared in an anti-clockwise direction, rather than clockwise as per usual.
• On the first series of Cincuenta por quince, the original graphics had no orange circle on the outside, and the number was in the Arial font, as opposed to the usual Copperplate Gothic. The clock also ended slightly later than the music. After the mid-series graphics revamp, the clock was a slightly 3D circle with a small red circle going clockwise around the outside for the duration of 30 seconds. It wasn't until late 2000 that 50x15 used the usual clock design.
• In Vietnam, host Phan Đăng once tried to "fix"Phone-a-Friend's lifeline name (Gọi điên thoại cho người thân) asAsk A Friend(Hỏi ý kiến người thân).

Gallery[]