1 vs. 100 = 1,000,000

Just watched last Friday's episode of 1 vs. 100. It was billed as a battle of the sexes, with a female contestant playing against an all-male mob, and a male contestant playing against an all-female mob.

The female contestant, Katherine Kazorla, lost embarrassingly early, after saying 4 was a prime number. (Seriously?)

On the other hand, the male contestant, 21 year old Jason Luna, was the show's first $1 million winner!

I was surprised to see anyone win the top prize on that show. It has an all-or-nothing prize structure, the kind I hate to see in game shows. With the prospect of losing everything, instead of just dropping to $32,000 (as in Millionaire), you're foolish not to bow out at some point. Even though the show recently changed the prize structure, they still kept the all-or-nothing format.

In this recent episode, the contestant won because every member of the mob left at that point (15) answered the question wrong:

According to Hallmark, what is the biggest card-giving holiday of the year?

Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day

Is that question so hard? Were the women distracted by their own perception of the latter two holidays? Because think of it this way: ask any man if he's ever received a card for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. Or, to look at it from the other end, you probably only send out one Mother's Day card (unless you have a blended family), one Valentine's Day card (unless you're a bigamist or adulterer), but any number of Christmas cards. How many people and families do you contact only once a year, with a Christmas card?