It was said that the contestant attempted to sue the show when it aired unedited, complete with uproarious laughter from the audience and celebrities alike.Īs with most broadcast legends, legions of commenters are certain they saw this event play out on TV, even if the details they recall conflict with those offered by others who are equally sure they witnessed it:
McLean used the word “dough” as a clue, and the contestant, who was African-American, answered “knob” - as in “dough knob.”
#Million dollar pyramid game password
Someone told me that on an old episode of Password hosted by Allen Ludden - late husband of Betty White, if I’m not mistaken - that McLean Stevenson and the contestant got the word “bread” as a password. His humiliation is crushing and immediate, and he attempts to strike back by suing over his embarrassment: Not only does he lose the cash, he’s also roundly laughed at. His chance to earn some easy money is blown because he talks differently than the show’s (white) celebrities and audience.
In particular, linguistic arrogance has historically been a tool wielded by racists to foster a stereotype of Blacks as unintelligent, lazy objects of fun.Īn urban legend about a game show contestant fits this pattern, one in which a laugh comes at the expense of a Black game show contestant whose speech patterns trap him into making the wrong word association. As such, dialect speakers are commonly characterized as being of lower intelligence or just plain lazy, and this characterization is often used to stigmatize members of certain racial, ethnic, or national groups. Many of us grew up being taught that there’s only one correct way to speak our native language, and that people who don’t speak like us demonstrate a deplorable lack of culture or education.