5 days ago
Gay Byrne's voice lives on in incredible gaming throwback
Gay Byrne's voice has been found in an incredibly random place — a video game that is over two decades old.
The legendary broadcaster and former Late Late Show host wore many hats throughout his illustrious career — from hosting the Rose of Tralee to The Meaning of Life before his passing in 2019.
However, one overlooked portion of his career may be that he hosted the Irish version of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' for three years from 2000-2003; and while the show was only around for a short span, it was enough to have him immortalised in the video game. Gay lent his voice for the Irish video game version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2000, when he hosted the show. Pic: Maxwell's
Released in 2001, the game sure enough features voiceover work from Gaybo himself — and while many believed that the game was lost to the annals of history (or perhaps stuck with UK versions of the game), one person on the Ireland Subreddit shared that they found the Irish version with Gay's voice.
The video saw Gay tell the player that he had 15 questions ahead of him (standard for Millionaire, to be fair), and introducing him with the first question; although the player, who was filming the game, was clearly surprised that Gay Byrne would appear in a PS1/emulator of all places — saying 'look at this, it's f***ing Gay Byrne!'
People thought that the idea of Gaybo in a video game was hilarious, with one person joking that they wanted to see Gay in a TellTale style video game — with options including 'press [circle] to cut to a guest' and press triangle to interrupt a guest mid-interview (I'd play that). Gay Byrne on the set of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2000. Pic: Maxwell's
As for the iconic game show, Gay hosted the Irish version for three seasons; using Irish punts for the first round of episodes in 2001 before switching to Euros.
The game was known for being incredibly difficult, as some players found themselves crashing out before even getting to the €1,000 (usually the first five are 'gimmes') — with RTÉ landing in hot water after one person answered a question 'wrong' despite it having at least two right answers.
The controversy arose in 2001, when contestant Shane O'Doherty was asked where the lunula was located, with his phone-a-friend, a physician, saying that it was in the heart. However, he got the question 'wrong' when the answer they were looking for was actually in the fingernail. Gay was the most prolific presenter in Irish history, most notably taking on the Late Late Show. Pic: X/ Late Late Show
Since both answers are technically correct, the elimination of Shane received significant controversy, with him eventually being brought back to the show where he was given another awkward question about 'Olympic Gold medalist' John Pius Boland in the 1896 games — when first place won silver medals.
However, Shane decided to take his £125,000 as he wasn't actually sure of the answer. Fair enough.
