Ed Toutant teaches that persistence can help you win a million dollars

Ed Toutant won 1.86 million dollars on who wants to be a millionaire, but the story of how he got to do this is quite bizarre.

He had to be very insistent to get his chance. In his first try at the show, he didn't even make it out of the "ring of fire", but in 2001 he had another go and managed to pass the who wants to be a milionare auditions and make it to the "hot seat". On the show, he was carried over to the next day where he was doing quite well up to $16,000 but then was asked a trivia question that he had no idea how to answer.

The question was: “Scientists in England recently genetically altered what vegetable so it glows when it needs water? 1. Potato 2. Tomato 3. Cabbage 4. Carrots”

Having no clue what the correct answer was, he used his lifeline and polled the audience to see what they would choose. The most people chose "tomato". Toutant thought about it and reached the conclusion that lightening up vegetables that grew under the surface would not be of much use, so he decided to go with the audiences vote and choose "tomato".

Much to his disappointment and despite his sound logic, the correct answer was "potato" and he was sent back home.

But Ed didn't give up on his chance to earn a million dollars in the game show and decided to do some research. After looking it up, he found a minor mistake in the questions, as well as a mistake that was quite larger. The minor mistake was that the glowing potato comes from Scotland, not England. Most Americans would consider this to be a minor detail ("is there a difference"), but and one from the British Isle would consider this to be quite a blooper, and for people who love trivia games, god is totally in the details.

However, the other mistake he found was the deciding one. Apparently, an Oxford professor had grown a variety of tomato that does indeed glow. So not only was the answer he gave a correct one, it was apparently the only correct one.

Toutant wrote who wants to be a milionaire about this, and after consideration they invited him back to the show to continue from where he was erroneously sent off, and went on to win 1.86 million dollars.

Ed Toutant - a man who teaches that perseverance can get you far when you Play who wants to be a millionaire.

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