After Ms. Giffords departure and an interregnum without any regular co-host, Ms. Ripa signed up with the show in 2001 and was evaluated a revitalizing change: sprightly, irreverent, clever at playing the chatterbox partner to the irascible Mr. Philbin. He typically made a joke of looking tired while she rattled on.
In one episode, the “American Idol” star Clay Aiken playfully put a turn over her mouth to shut her up.
” Thats a no-no,” she snapped, grumbling that she had no idea where his hand had been.
While still doing his early morning program, Mr. Philbin in 1999 became host of the original American variation of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Imitated an extremely effective British test program, it skyrocketed to appeal overnight as the highest-rated prime-time video game show in tv history. At a time when game programs were frequently viewed as dishonest ghosts of the past, an impressive 30 million viewers tuned in for each broadcast when it was airing three nights a week.
The show, whose concept was so emphatic that its creators put no concern mark in the title, solitarily lifted ABC to top place from 3rd among the networks; made Mr. Philbin ABCs biggest star; raised the stock worth of the networks parent company, Disney; and revolutionized concepts about what made up a prime-time hit.
A tournament-style program in which candidates responded to consecutive multiple-choice questions for money amounts rising to $1 million, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” was addictive. It was designed around non-stop rising stress, with throbbing music, flashing strobe lights, a loudly ticking clock and Mr. Philbin, the inquisitor, presenting questions on a scale of silly to difficult and then demanding, “Is that your final answer?”
“To being in the audience, with the lights beneath the Plexiglas floor swiveling in all instructions and a substantial camera boom sweeping overhead, is to feel as if one were inside a giant pinball machine,” Elizabeth Kolbert composed in The New Yorker in 2000.
Regis Philbin, TV’s Indignant Everyman, Dies at 88
