That year, the entire TV industry was obsessed with an ABC quiz show called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a tense, glamorous British import with high ratings. One weekend, Mike Darnell flew to Parsippany, New Jersey, to attend a wedding. Plane phones were new at the time, so he made a call—and when he heard Millionaire’s numbers were rising, he grew fixated on the problem. “All I could think about is, ‘Who? Who?? Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? What else do the people want?’ ” Darnell stared at the wedding; he thought about that quiz show jackpot. Then, like the genius who combined peanut
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