McMillion$ is a True Crime series from HBO, premiering on February 3, 2020. It focuses on the infamous scheme to defraud The McDonald's Corporation out of the million-dollar prizes for its popular Monopoly promotion between 1989 and 2001.
McMillion$ provides examples of:
- Always Someone Better: (In this case, Ratings-wise.) The trial of the McDonald's Monopoly fraud was obscured by the impending news of 9/11.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The first episode shows a McDonald's commercial
featuring Jerry Colombo and his fraudulently won Dodge Viper, before Colombo becomes a person of interest in the next episode. - Lucky Charms Title: According to the title, it's actually McMillion$.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. The two central figures of the scheme, Jerome Jacobson and Gennaro Colombo, both go by the nickname "Jerry". One of the investigators interviewed lampshades this by referring to them as "the two Jerrys".
- The Reveal:
- The informant that started it all was Ma Colombo.
- "Uncle Jerry" was able to rig the contest because had received an envelope loaded with a set of the seals used on the prize envelopes by mistake. Therefore, he was able to open the envelopes and then replace the seal, making it look as if they had never been tampered with.
- Shell Game: The official website for the series posted one of these. In the first two rounds it operates like a fair version of the game in which you're shown the game piece and then it's hidden and you try to follow it as it moves around the screen. If you pick wrong, you get to try again until you get it right. In the third round, however, you pick three times and are told every time that you didn't win, the moral being "Some games you just can't win."
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Lee Cassano believes herself to be this, reporting the scheme to the IRS in an attempt to avoid taxes on the prize money and shocked to discover it went to the FBI. (According to the FBI, however, that was not how they discovered the plan.) The show ends by suggesting a different person was the informant as well.
