"What's The Password?"

-"What's the password?...what's the password?...Alrighty"-
(Vince McMahon, WWE Raw, 2008)
Can you imagine being so rich that you could afford to give away huge amounts of cash? Can you imagine watching your favourite TV show and by the end of it being a quarter of a million dollars richer? Now, to me that sounds like pretty exciting stuff, talk about sweaty anticipation, right? Now, can you imagine said event being one of the most mind-numbingly slow and tedious experiences of your life?
If you said "Yes" then you have not managed to erase "McMahon's Million Dollar Mania" from your mind and I share your pain.

Post-Wrestlemania, the WWE goes into a ratings dip, the excitement of the previous years programming reaches its conclusion and many fans take a time-out from watching wrestling, or simply get turned off by the new direction WWE maybe be taking its stars in the aftermath of its superbowl equivalent. Despite this happening pretty much every year, WWE often panic and throw a whole load of panic ideas at the wall in an effort to keep the fans tuned in.
But non of these zany ideas were more surreal than "McMahon's Million Dollar Mania" which was simultaneously obnoxiously nauseating and car crash addictive. Vince McMahon made an announcement that every week on WWE RAW he would give away one million dollars "of his own money" to randomly selected viewers, provided they register on WWE.com and quoted a password should he call them live on the air during the following weeks episode of RAW. McMahon would then show off his dick size by awarding the caller a random amount of money.
Yes, you read correctly, Vince McMahon was paying the audience to watch RAW.

So, week one of Million Dollar Mania began and WWE fans sat on their edge of their seat with excitement (well, providing they lived in the USA and had bothered to register)
What basically followed was a series of long, awkward and drawn out segments where Vince stood on the arena ramp and failed to call contestants. McMahon would call number after number, sometimes the call wouldn't connect, wouldn't be answered, would get cut off etc, occasionally when the moon and stars aligned and McMahon got through to the lucky player there would be awkward pauses and bad sound. Despite the game only having one rule, Vince would often forget to ask for the password and would have to correct himself afterwards. The only truly glorious moment was when McMahon got Rick Roll'd by an answerphone, the confusion on his face was incredible.

Somewhere amongst this abortion, a selection of lucky viewers made sums of money around the 25,000-250,000 dollar mark, apart from one woman who only got two dollars because Vince was feeling like a prick. These segments went on and on and ate heavily into the shows running time which could have been dedicated to something really insane like some pro-wrestling matches.
The weirdest part of this whole debacle is that I personally think McMahon is generally awesome in his on-camera role, he has a distinctive voice and a very natural arrogance that fans love to hate, but here he just seemed bored and confused, pretty much the way I felt watching it at home.

McMahon's Million Dollar Mania ran for three decades, or it may have been three weeks, I'm not sure but they sure felt about the same length. At the end of the final giveaway, some wacky explosions happened and the RAW set "fell" on Vince McMahon, this stunt-fest lead to a storyline where, actually, come to think of it, it didn't lead to anything.
All that mattered was Vince didn't have to spend forever calling people on his show to give away his money, something that made both of us very happy indeed.

Here is a video that captures the banality of this competition in just five minutes. If you can't get through this clip without getting bored, remember that is the competition in its EDITED form: