Here’s the question we all want to know: did UNCW student Ryan Trimble win a million dollars on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Well, the answer is no, he did not. But to him, there was much more to the experience than just winning money.

 

During the summer of 2011, when Trimble was interning at NBC Studios in New York, he decided to take a shot at a “Millionaire” audition at rival network ABC Studios. It took him a couple of tries to be put in the contestant pool, which meant that he could be called onto the show as a contestant anytime from when he entered to 2013.

 

“They called me the first weekend in October and asked if I could film a show on Halloween, and I said, ‘even if I have to start walking now, yes, I will be there.’ It was so exciting. I immediately called everyone I knew. What I didn’t tell the people who called me was that when they called, I wasn’t wearing any clothes because I had just gotten out of the shower, so I was running around the house naked, like ‘I just got on “Millionaire”!'” said Trimble.

 

So Trimble went to New York to film his episode. He was put in a room with the other 11 contestants who were all scheduled to film that same day in October, ranging from another college student like Trimble, all the way up to an elderly grandmother. They were on “Millionaire” lockdown. They weren’t permitted to have cell phones or laptops, and were virtually cut off from the outside world. Trimble, laughing at the memory, explains that this happened to be when Kim Kardashian announced her divorce, after the infamous 72-day marriage, and somehow that bit of information was leaked into the room of waiting contestants, giving them all something to joke about together.

 

Of course the other question everyone is wondering is, “what’s it like to hang out with Emmy Award-winning Meredith Vieira for a day on the set of a famous show?” Well, according to Trimble, there was no part of his experience that could be considered anything but extremely positive.

 

“Meredith is really neat. She was really nice, very sweet. She obviously looks a little older in person than on television, but so do I, I look 12 on TV. She was very encouraging. She seemed to like me a lot, and I think it was because she has a son my age, and so I think she was having motherly instincts. I’m sure she has to pretend to like all of the contestants, but I honestly think she really liked me. Also, a few weeks after I filmed my episode, I got a hand-written note in the mail from her. I love Meredith,” said Trimble.

 

Trimble said once he got in the “hot seat,” (which now is not even a seat at all) he was ready to play a game. He said that it wasn’t so much about knowing that he was going to be on TV, but rather he just wanted to play a game and have some fun, and maybe make some people laugh in the process. He says that this could have led to his ultimate downfall, because he was so excited to play the trivia game that he completely forgot that there was a lot of money at stake as well.

 

“So I’m down there in the ‘hot standing position’ and I literally have no recollection of what happened. I wasn’t concentrating on remembering, I was concentrating on figuring out the questions. I just remember the audience laughing a lot – in a good way – and knowing that was what I was supposed to be doing. That being in front of cameras was something I really enjoyed and that’s what I wanted to do with my life. It was a moment for me; I’ve done lots of shows here in Wilmington and I do comedy with my comedy troupe, Pineapple-Shaped Lamps (PSL), and we have our crowd of about 50, but it’s usually people we know. It’s awesome to make your friends laugh, but it’s even more awesome to make a room of 200 complete strangers die laughing – and I did that a few times. That’s what I remember, people laughing. Not because I was dumb, but because I said something amusing. I remember really loving that, and it was a moment, because I thought ‘I need to be making people laugh,'” said Trimble.

 

Trimble said, in his humble way and with a quick flash of a bright smile, that he always suspected he was funny. More than anything, Trimble said that his “Millionaire” experience was affirmation that he wanted to make people laugh and be on camera. It wasn’t the money, it wasn’t being with Meredith, or being on TV, it was confirmation that he was headed in the right direction. Trimble thanks his parents for not only telling him that he could follow his dreams, but telling him to actually go out and do whatever it is that makes him happy.

 

“My ultimate dream is to be on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ The combination of doing PSL’s ‘Thursday Night Live’ and being on ‘Millionaire’ showed me that not only is this what I want to be doing, it’s what I need to be doing. It’s like, there’s no plan B, because this is what I have to do,” said Trimble.

 

And, finally, the last question everyone is thinking: what was the question that ended it all? Well, we’ve got the question – and the right answer. Trimble’s final question on the show was, “According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ‘mullet’ as it applies to a hairstyle was ‘apparently coined’ by what music group?” The answers were, “A: Run-DMC, B: U2, C: The Beastie Boys, and D: Metallica.” Trimble, giving it his best shot, and with no lifelines left to use, guessed Metallica, but the right answer? C: The Beastie Boys, final answer.