The Daily Show’s longtime fact-checker attempted to help two TDS correspondents out of a jam on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire last night.
Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng were teammates on the ABC game show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel when they suddenly hit a roadblock in their quest to win a million dollars for charity. They had just passed the $64,000 question and were going for $125,000 when they called in Adam Chodikoff for help.
Chodikoff, who is also credited as a senior producer on The Daily Show, has been with the program since 2006. Tasked with meticulously overseeing every piece of information the show presents, Chodikoff has said that his main priority is to maintain total accuracy on TDS. “I want it on my gravestone,” Chodikoff told Vulture in 2017. “Without credibility, the jokes mean nothing.”
Unfortunately, Chodikoff’s performance on Millionaire may have been hindered by Chieng.
The question in question: “What invention introduced in 1888 led Louis Brandeis to co-author The Right to Privacy, an essay that argued Americans had the ‘right to be let alone’?” Klepper and Chieng were torn between the four answers choices: hot air balloon, polygraph, metal detector, and Kodak camera.
While Klepper leaned toward ‘Kodak camera,’ Chieng argued that was too obvious an answer for a question about privacy issues. Unable to agree, the pair suggested using their trusted Daily Show colleague as their Phone-a-Friend lifeline.
“He’s smart. He knows things. He makes us feel dumb,” Klepper said.
“When he checks facts, does he have a thirty-second time limit on that checking?” Kimmel pointed out.
“He does not,” Klepper admitted.
“He is great with American legislation,” Chieng added.
“Yes,” Klepper agreed. “[But] this is not American legislation.”
Even so, the duo went ahead with their call to Chodikoff—but before Chieng began reciting the question, he opted to make a joke.
“Hey Adam, how’s it going, man? You okay?” Chieng asked casually as a joke. The bit wasted two seconds at the top of the call. Three more seconds were wasted as Chieng stumbled over the pronunciation of the name ‘Brandeis’, to which Klepper interjected with the correct pronunciation. Unfortunately, Chodikoff did not have an immediate answer to the question in mind.
“I don’t know,” Chodikoff admitted. With six seconds left, Klepper squeezed in a follow-up question, asking whether the Kodak camera was invented in 1888.
“No, I don’t—“ Chodikoff began before the timer cut him off.
“That was my fault,” Chieng admitted, explaining that he should have realized the question was too long to fit into a 30-second phone call.
“I also want to point out, you asked him how he was doing at the top of the call,” said Kimmel.
“I know,” said Chieng. “I couldn’t not do the bit.”
Left to their own devices, Klepper and Chieng went with “polygraph” as their answer, reiterating that “Kodak camera” felt too obvious and Chodikoff had seemed to disagree with that answer.
Unfortunately, Kimmel revealed they were wrong. “The answer was the one you were gravitating toward the whole time,” said the host.
With the wrong answer, Klepper and Chieng’s winnings fell to $32,000—an amount that will go to their two chosen charities, Community Help In Park Slope (CHIPS) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Watch Chodikoff’s Millionaire moment below:
