(Hmmm, wonder why I’d go with Rush lyrics in the title for this post?)
It’s been about 24 hours since “that happened” — so I suppose it’s safe to comment on “what happened.”
For the last few months, I’ve been following “La Poule aux œufs d’or” — one of only two lottery TV game shows in production in North America. The other is the long-running “Cash Explosion” in my adopted home state of Ohio, where they still write off the one-year-old “Make Me Famous, Make Me Rich” as if it were a Pam Ewing-style bad dream. #IYKYK
A look at the show’s entry on Wikipedia gives the impression the game show plays like “Treasure Hunt” — both the original series hosted by Jan Murray and the reboot that Chuck Barris bought from Murray. The original version of “La Poule” had a quiz element whereas the current version is luck-based. Seeing as how it’s a lottery show, it has to be to be luck-based.
In recent months, the show’s progressive jackpot (“le gros lot”) already surpassed its own record of $1,075,000, a payoff awarded nearly two decades ago — just after America’s Memorial Day weekend of 2004.
“La Poule aux œufs d’or” had gone more than a year without awarding the jackpot — which reached $1,525,000; as of this writing, that translates to $1,127,000 and change in American currency.
See the historic three-game episode here. You’ll get an idea of how the show works in the first game. “Le gros lot” is awarded in the second game. I wondered if a fresh $150,000 jackpot would go into circulation for the third game with it being randomly placed into one of the remaining eggs (a policy enforced in the 1970s and 1980s versions of “Treasure Hunt”) — but no.
As of this writing, a spot check of Google News indicates many French-speaking Quebec media have reported on this. I’m honestly surprised the English-speaking media in Canada have not followed suit.