Which is larger? An elephant or the moon? Did a contestant on “Who Wants to be a Millionnaire” really not know the answer to an impeccably simple question?
An image showing what appears to be a woman on popular TV quiz show “Who Wants to be A Millionnaire” getting an absurdly easy question wrong often circulates across the Internet.
The question, “Which of the following is the largest?” presents the answers of an elephant or the moon. Of course any person of sound mind would be able to correctly determine the correct answer. Except, as the image would have you believe, the contestant who, judging by the selected answer, opted for elephant.
Often the image circulates by itself as the viewer can determine by the image alone as to what is happening. However various stories have also attached itself to the image over the years, including the one below…
NEW YORK – Idaho resident Kathy Evans brought humiliation to her friends and family Tuesday when she set a new standard for stupidity with her appearance on the popular TV show, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”
It seems that Evans, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, got stuck on the first question, and proceeded to make what fans of the show are dubbing “the absolute worst use of lifelines ever.”
After being introduced to the show’s host Meredith Vieira, Evans assured her that she was ready to play, whereupon she was posed with an extremely easy $100 question. The question was:
“Which of the following is the largest?”
A) A Peanut
B) An Elephant
C) The Moon
D) A Tennis BallImmediately Mrs. Evans was struck with an all consuming panic as she realized that this was a question to which she did not readily know the answer.
“Hmm, oh boy, that’s a toughie,” said Evans, as Vieira did her level best to hide her disbelief and disgust. “I mean, I’m sure I’ve heard of some of these things before, but I have no idea how large they would be.”
Evans made the decision to use the first of her three lifelines, the 50/50. Answers A and D were removed, leaving her to decide which was bigger, an elephant or the moon. However, faced with an incredibly easy question, Evans still remained unsure.
“Oh! It removed the two I was leaning towards!” exclaimed Evans. “Darn. I think I better phone a friend.”
Using the second of her two lifelines on the first question, Mrs. Evans asked to be connected with her friend Betsy, who is an office assistant.
“Hi Betsy! How are you? This is Kathy! I’m on TV!” said Evans, wasting the first seven seconds of her call. “Ok, I got an important question. Which of the following is the largest? B, an elephant, or C, the moon. 15 seconds hun.”
Betsy quickly replied that the answer was C, the moon. Evans proceeded to argue with her friend for the remaining ten seconds.
“Come on Betsy, are you sure?” said Evans. “How sure are you? Puh, that can’t be it.”
To everyone’s astonishment, the moronic Evans declined to take her friend’s advice and pick ‘The Moon.’
“I just don’t know if I can trust Betsy. She’s not all that bright. So I think I’d like to ask the audience,” said Evans.
Asked to vote on the correct answer, the audience returned 98% in favor of answer C, ‘The Moon.’ Having used up all her lifelines, Evans then made the dumbest choice of her life.
“Wow, seems like everybody is against what I’m thinking,” said the too-stupid-to-live Evans. “But you know, sometimes you just got to go with your gut. So, let’s see. For which is larger, an elephant or the moon, I’m going to have to go with B, an elephant. Final answer.”
Evans sat before the dumbfounded audience, the only one waiting with bated breath, and was told that she was wrong, and that the answer was in fact, C, ‘The Moon.’
Despite what story comes attached to the image, you can be guaranteed it’s false because the image itself has been doctored. The woman is not called Kathy Evans, and she wasn’t even on the US version of the quiz show but rather the UK version, hosted by Chris Tarrant. Her name is Fiona Wheeler and you can see the actual unedited photo of her on the show below.
As you can see from the above photo, the question is somewhat harder than the photoshopped photo claims, and Fiona answered it correctly. She went on to win £32,000GBP on the show. Thus the image is fake, often used as a joke to imply stupidity. But it isn’t real.
