A game show (or gameshow ) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a host , who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating and narrating where necessary. The history of the game shows dates back to the late 1930s when both radio and television game shows were broadcast. The genre became popular in the United States in the 1950s, becoming a regular feature of daytime television.
119-529: Master Blasters is an American game show that debuted on July 27, 2005. A team of challengers competes against the home team, the Master Blasters, each week to construct rocket -based machines in a timed competition. The series premiered on the Sci Fi Channel in 2005 but ran only four episodes of Master Blasters in 2005, then dropped the series. The Discovery Channel has picked it up and
238-403: A Jeopardy! Masters spinoff, indicating a change of arrangement. In May 2023, Bialik opted not to host the final episodes of the season in support of writers during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike , with Jennings stepping in to host the remaining episodes. Bialik formally went on strike with her union, SAG-AFTRA , shortly thereafter. It was later announced that Jennings would host
357-464: A light pen on an electronic display on their lectern within a time limit of five minutes, during which they also phrase the question, which is pre-written during the wager. After the break, the Final Jeopardy! clue is revealed and read by the host. The contestants have 30 seconds to write their responses on the electronic display, while the show's "Think!" music plays. If either the display or
476-476: A lock-out device . The first contestant to successfully ring in is prompted to respond to the clue by stating a question containing the correct answer to the clue. Any grammatically coherent question with the correct answer within it counts as a correct response. If the contestant responds correctly, its dollar value is added to the contestant's score, and they may select a new clue from the board. An incorrect response or failure to respond within five seconds deducts
595-538: A bonus round usually varies from the standard game play of the front game, and there are often borrowed or related elements of the main game in the bonus round to ensure the entire show has a unified premise. Though some end games are referred to as "bonus rounds", many are not specifically referred to as such in games but fit the same general role. There is no one formula for the format of a bonus round. There are differences in almost every bonus round, though there are many recurring elements from show to show. The bonus round
714-465: A certain amount of money or a limit on how many episodes, usually five, on which a player could appear on a show. The introduction of syndicated games, particularly in the 1980s, eventually allowed for more valuable prizes and extended runs on a particular show. British television was under even stricter regulations on prizes until the 1990s, seriously restricting the value of prizes that could be given and disallowing games of chance to have an influence on
833-399: A commercial break follows. Contestants who finish Double Jeopardy! with less than $ 1 do not participate in this round. During the break, partitions are placed between the contestant lecterns, and each contestant makes a final wager; they may wager any amount of their earnings, but may not wager certain numbers with connotations that are deemed inappropriate. Contestants write their wagers using
952-480: A correct question to win the game. If neither player gives the correct question, another clue is given. Previously, if two or all three contestants tied for first place, they were declared "co-champions", and each retained his or her winnings and (unless one was a five-time champion who retired prior to 2003) returned on the following episode. A tie occurred on the January 29, 2014, episode when Arthur Chu , leading at
1071-441: A correct response is revealed the host confirms it. Otherwise, the host reveals the correct response if all contestants responded incorrectly. A correct response adds the amount of the contestant's wager to their score. A miss, failure to respond, insufficiently specific response, misspelling that affects the pronunciation of the answer, or failure to phrase the response as a question (even if correct) deducts it. The contestant with
1190-424: A dollar greater than twice the second place contestant's score, guaranteeing a win with a correct response. Writing about Jeopardy! wagering in the 1990s, mathematicians George Gilbert and Rhonda Hatcher said that "most players wager aggressively". The top scorer in each game is paid their winnings in cash and returns to play in the next match. Non-winners receive consolation prizes instead of their winnings in
1309-476: A few seconds of silence where the lights on the Jeopardy! set (which had been set up for Jennings to host before Trebek's death) slowly dimmed. That episode, as well as subsequent episodes that aired after Trebek's death, included a dedication screen at the end of the credits through the remainder of the season. To compensate for concerns over pre-emptions caused by holiday week specials and sports, SPT postponed
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#17328008588391428-401: A game show receives a subsidy from an advertiser in return for awarding that manufacturer's product as a prize or consolation prize . Some products supplied by manufacturers may not be intended to be awarded and are instead just used as part of the gameplay such as the low-priced items used in several The Price is Right pricing games . Although in this show the smaller items (sometimes even in
1547-432: A given environment. Several game shows returned to daytime in syndication during this time as well, such as Family Feud , Hollywood Squares , and Millionaire . Wheel of Fortune , Jeopardy! and Family Feud have continued in syndication. To keep pace with the prime-time quiz shows, Jeopardy! doubled its question values in 2001 and lifted its winnings limit in 2003, which one year later allowed Ken Jennings to become
1666-448: A heavy emphasis on comedy, leaving the points as mere formalities. The focus on quick-witted comedians has resulted in strong ratings, which, combined with low costs of production, have only spurred growth in the UK panel show phenomenon. Game shows remained a fixture of US daytime television through the 1960s after the quiz show scandals. Lower-stakes games made a slight comeback in daytime in
1785-458: A job offer – may be allowed to appear as a co-champion (now a rare occurrence since the co-champion rule was disestablished in early Season 31) in a later episode. Throughout each season, Jeopardy! features various special tournaments for particular groups (as named in " Tournaments and other events " below). Each year at the Tournament of Champions, the players who had won
1904-403: A modernized revival of Jeopardy! to syndication in 1983 and 1984, respectively, was and remains highly successful; the two are, to this day, fixtures in the prime time "access period". During this "access" period, a contestant named Mark Anthony DiBello became and is still known to be the only person to win automobiles on two of the most popular game shows The Wheel of Fortune and The Price
2023-522: A number of original game concepts that appeared near the same time, including Awake , Deal or No Deal (which originally aired in 2005), Child Support , Hollywood Game Night , 1 vs. 100 , Minute to Win It (which originally aired in 2010), The Wall , and a string of music-themed games such as Don't Forget the Lyrics! , The Singing Bee , and Beat Shazam . The popularity of game shows in
2142-411: A positive score, no contestant automatically qualifies from that game, and an additional wild card contestant advances instead. This occurred in the quarterfinals of the 1991 Seniors Tournament and the semifinals of the 2013 Teen Tournament, where the rule was in effect during the semifinals, but after that tournament the rule has changed for semifinals and finals. As the players are not isolated during
2261-549: A presenting sponsor has provided cash prizes to the losing contestants. The winner of each episode returns to compete against two new contestants on the next episode. Originally, a contestant who won five consecutive days retired undefeated and was guaranteed a spot in the Tournament of Champions. The five-day limit was eliminated September 8, 2003. In rare instances, contestants tie for first place. The rules related to ties have changed over time. Since November 24, 2014, ties for first place following Final Jeopardy! are broken with
2380-476: A result, no Final Jeopardy! round was played. This rule is still in place for the syndicated version, although staff has suggested that it is not set in stone and they may decide to display the clue for home viewers' play if such a situation were ever to occur. The Final Jeopardy! round features a single clue. At the end of the Double Jeopardy! round, the host announces the Final Jeopardy! category and
2499-476: A sound accompanied a contestant ringing in. According to Trebek, the sound was eliminated because it was "distracting to the viewers" and presented a problem when contestants rang in while Trebek was still reading the clue. Contestants who are visually impaired or blind are given a card with the category names printed in Braille before each round begins. To ensure fairness in competition and accuracy in scores,
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#17328008588392618-484: A spin-off, Family Feud , on ABC in 1976. The $ 10,000 Pyramid and its numerous higher-stakes derivatives also debuted in 1973, while the 1970s also saw the return of formerly disgraced producer and game show host Jack Barry , who debuted The Joker's Wild and a clean version of the previously rigged Tic-Tac-Dough in the 1970s. Wheel of Fortune debuted on NBC in 1975. The Prime Time Access Rule , which took effect in 1971, barred networks from broadcasting in
2737-416: A switch, and give the answers to the contestant and let them come up with the question? She fired a couple of answers to me: "5,280"—and the question of course was "How many feet in a mile?" Another was "79 Wistful Vista"; that was Fibber and Mollie McGee's address. I loved the idea, went straight to NBC with the idea, and they bought it without even looking at a pilot show. Griffin's first conception of
2856-417: A tie-breaker clue, resulting in only one champion being named, keeping their winnings, and returning to compete in the next show. The tied contestants are given the single clue, and the first contestant to buzz-in must give the correct question. A contestant cannot win by default if the opponent gives an incorrect question or forgets to phrase the response as a question (even if correct). The contestant must give
2975-413: A traditional solo bonus round in 1978, but this version was not a success and the round was replaced by the original Final Jeopardy! when the show returned in 1984. The Price Is Right uses a knockout tournament format, in which the six contestants to make it onstage are narrowed to two in a "Showcase Showdown;" these two winners then move on to the final Showcase round to determine the day's winner. Until
3094-476: A wager, from a minimum of $ 5 to a maximum of their entire score (known as a "true Daily Double") or the highest clue value available in the round, whichever is greater. Only the contestant who chooses the Daily Double is allowed to answer. A correct response adds the value of the wager to the contestant's score while an incorrect response or failure to provide a response deducts the same value. Whether or not
3213-479: A week, twice a day. Game shows were the lowest priority of television networks and were rotated out every thirteen weeks if unsuccessful. Most tapes were wiped until the early 1980s. Over the course of the 1980s and early 1990s, as fewer new hits (e.g. Press Your Luck , Sale of the Century , and Card Sharks ) were produced, game shows lost their permanent place in the daytime lineup. ABC transitioned out of
3332-430: A worldwide following with regional adaptations in many other countries. Each game of Jeopardy! features three contestants competing in three rounds: Jeopardy!, Double Jeopardy!, and Final Jeopardy! In each round, contestants are presented trivia clues phrased as answers, to which they must respond in the form of a question that correctly identifies whatever the clue is describing. For example, instead of asking, "Who
3451-543: Is Right , hosted by the longest-tenured American game show hosts, Pat Sajak and Bob Barker , respectively. Cable television also allowed for the debut of game shows such as Supermarket Sweep and Debt (Lifetime), Trivial Pursuit and Family Challenge (Family Channel), and Double Dare (Nickelodeon). It also opened up a previously underdeveloped market for game show reruns. General interest networks such as CBN Cable Network (forerunner to Freeform ) and USA Network had popular blocks for game show reruns from
3570-606: Is currently being shown on the Science Channel . The show was filmed primarily at Northwest Regional Airport in Roanoke, Texas . The remaining members of the Master Blasters Team are rotated each week. Game show On most game shows, contestants answer questions or solve puzzles, and win prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services . Game shows began to appear on radio and television in
3689-400: Is often played for the show's top prize. It is almost always played without an opponent; two notable exceptions to this are Jeopardy! and the current version of The Price Is Right . On Jeopardy! , the final round involves all remaining contestants with a positive score wagering strategically to win the game and be invited back the next day; Jeopardy! attempted to replace this round with
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3808-521: Is one of the longest-running game shows of all time. The show has consistently enjoyed a wide viewership and received many accolades from professional television critics. With over 9,000 episodes aired, the daily syndicated version of Jeopardy! has won a record 45 Emmy Awards as well as a Peabody Award . In 2013, the program was ranked No. 45 on TV Guide ' s list of the 60 greatest shows in American television history. Jeopardy! has also gained
3927-475: Is phrased properly in question form. A contestant who initially does not phrase a response in the form of a question must re-phrase it before the host rules against them. Contestants are encouraged to select the clues in order from lowest to highest value, as the clues are sometimes written in each category to flow from one to the next. Deviating from this is known as the "Forrest Bounce", a strategy in which contestants randomly pick clues to confuse opponents that
4046-526: Is the only U.S. President to marry in the White House?" and the answer being " Grover Cleveland ", the clue is "He is the only U.S. president to marry in the White House" and the contestant would respond by asking "Who is Grover Cleveland?" The Jeopardy! and Double Jeopardy! rounds each feature game boards consisting of six categories with five clues each. The clues are valued by dollar amounts from lowest to highest, ostensibly by difficulty. The values of
4165-539: Is unable to attend a taping. In such cases, her voice is replaced with Gilbert's in post-production. The Clue Crew traveled to over 300 cities worldwide, spanning all 50 of the United States and 46 other countries. Occasionally, they visited schools to showcase the educational game Classroom Jeopardy! Robert Rubin served as the producer of the original Jeopardy! series for most of its run and later became its executive producer. Following Rubin's promotion,
4284-511: The 1950s quiz show scandals and ratings declines led to most of the primetime games being canceled. An early variant of the game show, the panel show , survived the quiz show scandals. On shows like What's My Line? , I've Got a Secret , and To Tell the Truth , panels of celebrities would interview a guest in an effort to determine some fact about them; in others, celebrities would answer questions. Panel games had success in primetime until
4403-520: The 1960s, most game shows did not offer a bonus round. In traditional two-player formats, the winner – if a game show's rules provided for this – became the champion and simply played a new challenger either on the next show or after the commercial break. One of the earliest forms of bonus rounds was the Jackpot Round of the original series Beat the Clock . After two rounds of performing stunts,
4522-401: The 1990s was a major factor in the explosion of high-stakes game shows in the later part of that decade in both the U.S. and Britain and, subsequently, around the world. A bonus round (also known as a bonus game or an end game) usually follows a main game as a bonus to the winner of that game. In the bonus round, the stakes are higher and the game is considered to be tougher. The game play of
4641-457: The 1990s, allowing for higher-stakes games to be played. After the popularity of game shows hit a nadir in the mid-1990s United States (at which point The Price Is Right was the only game show still on daytime network television and numerous game shows designed for cable television were canceled), the British game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? began distribution around the globe. Upon
4760-427: The 7–8 p.m. time slot immediately preceding prime time , opening up time slots for syndicated programming. Most of the syndicated programs were "nighttime" adaptations of network daytime game shows. These game shows originally aired once a week, but by the late 1970s and early 1980s most of the games had transitioned to five days a week. Many people were amazed at this and in the late 2000s, gameshows were aired 7 times
4879-649: The Clue Crew in 2004, and Jon Cannon and Kelly Miyahara took over her position in 2005. Farrell recorded clues until October 2008, and Cannon until July 2009. Miyahara, who also served as announcer for the Sports Jeopardy! spin-off series, left in 2019. The Clue Crew was eliminated beginning with the 39th season in September 2022; Foss became a producer for the show and McGuire a stage manager . Foss also serves as in-studio announcer when Johnny Gilbert
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4998-412: The Tournament of Champions, the quarterfinals are unseeded and contestants participate in a random draw to determine playing order and lectern positions over the course of the five games. The Tournament of Champions is seeded based on total winnings in regular games to determine playing order and lectern positions, with the top five players occupying the champion's lectern for the quarterfinal games. Since
5117-532: The United States was closely paralleled around the world. Reg Grundy Organisation , for instance, would buy the international rights for American game shows and reproduce them in other countries, especially in Grundy's native Australia . Dutch producer Endemol ( later purchased by American companies Disney and Apollo Global Management , then resold to French company Banijay ) has created and released numerous game shows and reality television formats popular around
5236-474: The aforementioned Richards; news personalities Katie Couric , Bill Whitaker , Savannah Guthrie , Sanjay Gupta , Anderson Cooper , George Stephanopoulos , and Robin Roberts ; athlete Aaron Rodgers ; talk show host Mehmet Oz ; actress Mayim Bialik ; former children's show host LeVar Burton ; business journalist David Faber ; and sportscaster Joe Buck . In addition, the 2021 Tournament of Champions
5355-490: The air dates of Trebek's final week; the episodes scheduled for the week of December 21–25 were moved to January 4–8, 2021. Before Trebek's final episodes, reruns of episodes in which he recorded clues on location were shown from December 21, 2020, to January 1, 2021. Jennings took over hosting when production resumed on November 30, 2020; his six weeks of episodes aired between January 11 and February 19, 2021. The season went on to be completed by additional guest hosts, namely
5474-413: The bottom of the board. This strategy was regularly used by James Holzhauer during his winning streak between April and June 2019. From the premiere of the original Jeopardy! until the end of the 1984–85 syndicated season, contestants were allowed to ring in as soon as the clue was revealed. Since September 1985, contestants are required to wait until the clue is read before ringing in. To accommodate
5593-539: The changes. If an error that may have affected the result is not discovered until after taping of an episode is completed, the affected contestants are invited back to compete on a future show complying with federal quiz show regulations. Contestants who finish Double Jeopardy! with zero dollars or a negative score are automatically eliminated from the game at that point and awarded a consolation prize. On at least one episode hosted by Art Fleming, all three contestants finished Double Jeopardy! with zero dollars or less, and as
5712-401: The clue's value from the contestant's score and allows the other contestants the opportunity to ring in and respond. If the response is not technically incorrect but otherwise judged too vague, the contestant is given additional time to provide a more specific response. Whenever none of the contestants ring in and respond correctly, the host gives the correct response, and the player who selected
5831-644: The clues increased over time, with those in the Double Jeopardy! round always being double the range of the Jeopardy! round. On the original Jeopardy! series, clue values in the first round ranged from $ 10 to $ 50 in the Jeopardy! round and $ 20 to $ 100 in Double Jeopardy! On The All-New Jeopardy! , they ranged from $ 25 to $ 125 and $ 50 to $ 250. The 1984 series' clue values originally ranged from $ 100 to $ 500 in Jeopardy! and $ 200 to $ 1,000 in Double Jeopardy! These ranges were increased to $ 200–$ 1,000 and $ 400–$ 2,000, respectively, on November 26, 2001. Gameplay begins when
5950-439: The concept eventually became Family Feud , as whose inaugural host Dawson was hired. Jeopardy! Jeopardy! is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin . The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given general knowledge clues in the form of answers and they must identify
6069-437: The contestant in third receives the third-place prize. Various researchers have studied Final Jeopardy! wagering strategies. If the leader's score is more than twice the second place contestant's score (a situation known as a "runaway game"), the leader can guarantee victory by making a sufficiently small wager. Otherwise, according to Jeopardy! College Champion Keith Williams, the leader usually wagers an amount that would be
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#17328008588396188-447: The contestant responds correctly, they choose the next clue. During the Jeopardy! round, contestants are not penalized for forgetting to phrase their response in the form of a question, although the host will remind them to watch their phrasing in future responses. In the Double Jeopardy! round and in the Daily Double in the Jeopardy! round, the phrasing rule is followed more strictly, with a response only able to be ruled as correct if it
6307-573: The cost of travel if a tournament travels (does not stay in Los Angeles) on the second week. Starting in Season 40, according to the official podcast in August 2023, as a result of inflation, consolation prizes were raised $ 1,000 each to $ 3,000 for second and $ 2,000 for third. During Art Fleming's hosting run, all three contestants received their winnings in cash where applicable. This was changed at
6426-409: The daily syndicated version's first pilot, from 1983, Jay Stewart served as the announcer, but Johnny Gilbert took over the role at Trebek's recommendation when that version was picked up as a series. The Jeopardy! Clue Crew, introduced on September 24, 2001, was a team of roving correspondents who appeared in videos, recorded around the world, to narrate some clues. Explaining why the Clue Crew
6545-424: The daytime game show format in the mid-1980s (briefly returning to the format for one season in 1990 with a Match Game revival). NBC's game block also lasted until 1991, but the network attempted to bring them back in 1993 before cancelling its game show block again in 1994. CBS phased out most of its game shows, except for The Price Is Right , by 1993. To the benefit of the genre, the moves of Wheel of Fortune and
6664-493: The discontinuation of The Price Is Right $ 1,000,000 Spectacular series of prime-time specials. In April 2008, three of the contestants on The Price Is Right $ 1,000,000 Spectacular won the top prize in a five-episode span after fifteen episodes without a winner, due in large part to a change in the rules. The insurance companies had made it extremely difficult to get further insurance for the remaining episodes. A network or syndicator may also opt to distribute large cash prizes in
6783-403: The early 1960s; examples include Jeopardy! which began in 1964 and the original version of The Match Game first aired in 1962. Let's Make a Deal began in 1963 and the 1960s also marked the debut of Hollywood Squares , Password , The Dating Game , and The Newlywed Game . Though CBS gave up on daytime game shows in 1968, the other networks did not follow suit. Color television
6902-416: The end of Double Jeopardy!, wagered to tie challenger Carolyn Collins rather than winning. Chu followed Jeopardy! College Champion Keith Williams's advice to wager for the tie to increase the leader's chances of winning. A three-way (non-zero) tie for first place has only occurred once on the syndicated version hosted by Trebek, on March 16, 2007, when Scott Weiss, Jamey Kirby, and Anders Martinson all ended
7021-484: The first black woman to host a prime time game show, Pay It Off . The rise of digital television in the United States opened up a large market for rerun programs. Buzzr was established by Fremantle , owners of numerous classic U.S. game shows, as a broadcast outlet for its archived holdings in June 2015. There was also a rise of live game shows at festivals and public venues, where the general audience could participate in
7140-400: The first to be regularly scheduled. The first episode of each aired in 1941 as an experimental broadcast. Over the course of the 1950s, as television began to pervade the popular culture, game shows quickly became a fixture. Daytime game shows would be played for lower stakes to target stay-at-home housewives. Higher-stakes programs would air in prime time . (One particular exception in this era
7259-406: The form of an annuity , spreading the cost of the prize out over several years or decades. From about 1960 through the rest of the 20th century, American networks placed restrictions on the amount of money that could be given away on a game show, in an effort to avoid a repeat of the scandals of the 1950s. This usually took the form of an earnings cap that forced a player to retire once they had won
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#17328008588397378-611: The game down, he decided to accept any correct response that was in question form. Griffin discarded his initial title of What's the Question? when skeptical network executive Ed Vane rejected his original concept of the game, claiming, "It doesn't have enough jeopardies ." The format of giving contestants the answers and requiring the questions had previously been used by the Gil Fates -hosted program CBS Television Quiz , which aired from July 1941 until May 1942. Art Fleming
7497-399: The game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not easily be shown on camera, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories. He originally intended requiring grammatically correct phrasing (e.g., only accepting "Who is..." for a person), but after finding that grammatical correction slowed
7616-447: The game with $ 16,000. Until March 1, 2018, no regular game had ended in a tie-breaker. If no contestant finishes Final Jeopardy! with a positive total, there is no winner and three new contestants compete on the next episode. This has happened on several episodes, including the second episode hosted by Trebek. A winner unable to return as champion because of a change in personal circumstances – for example, illness or
7735-442: The game. Since May 16, 2002, consolation prizes have been awarded in cash—$ 2,000 for second-place contestants and $ 1,000 for third-place contestants. Since travel and lodging are generally not provided for contestants, cash consolation prizes offset these costs. Production covers the cost of travel for returning champions and players invited back because of errors who must make multiple trips to Los Angeles. Production also covers
7854-425: The highest score at the end of the round is that day's winner. If there is a tie for second place, consolation prizes are awarded based on the scores going into the Final Jeopardy! round. If all three contestants finish with zero dollars, no one returns as champion for the next show, and based on scores going into the Final Jeopardy! round, the two contestants who were first and second receive the second-place prize, and
7973-486: The imitator million-dollar shows were canceled (one of those exceptions was Winning Lines , which continued to air in the United Kingdom until 2004 even though it was canceled in the United States in early 2000); these higher stakes contests nevertheless opened the door to reality television contests such as Survivor and Big Brother , in which contestants win large sums of money for outlasting their peers in
8092-409: The impetus for a completely new game show. The first part of Match Game ' s "Super-Match" bonus round, called the "Audience Match", asked contestants to guess how a studio audience responded to a question. In 1975, with then regular panelist Richard Dawson becoming restless and progressively less cooperative, Goodson decided that this line of questioning would make a good game show of its own, and
8211-418: The judges double-check their own rulings throughout each episode. If it is determined at any point that a previous response was wrongly ruled correct or incorrect during the taping of an episode, the scores are adjusted at the first available opportunity, typically either at the start of the next round/segment or immediately after a Daily Double is found, with the host providing any necessary explanation regarding
8330-410: The late 1930s. The first television game show, Spelling Bee , as well as the first radio game show, Information Please , were both broadcast in 1938; the first major success in the game show genre was Dr. I.Q. , a radio quiz show that began in 1939. Truth or Consequences was the first game show to air on commercially licensed television; CBS Television Quiz followed shortly thereafter as
8449-410: The late 1960s, when they were collectively dropped from television because of their perceived low budget nature. Panel games made a comeback in American daytime television (where the lower budgets were tolerated) in the 1970s through comedy-driven shows such as Match Game and Hollywood Squares . In the UK, commercial demographic pressures were not as prominent, and restrictions on game shows made in
8568-503: The line producer was Lynette Williams. Griffin was the daily syndicated version's executive producer until his retirement in 2000. Trebek served as producer as well as host until 1987, when he began hosting NBC's Classic Concentration for the next four years. At that time, he handed producer duties to George Vosburgh, who had formerly produced The All-New Jeopardy! In 1997, Harry Friedman , Lisa Finneran (now known as Lisa Broffman), and Rocky Schmidt succeeded Vosburgh as producers of
8687-633: The long-running Definition ). Unlike reality television franchises, international game show franchises generally only see Canadian adaptations in a series of specials, based heavily on the American versions but usually with a Canadian host to allow for Canadian content credits (one of those exceptions was Le Banquier , a Quebec French-language version of Deal or No Deal which aired on TVA from 2008 to 2015). The smaller markets and lower revenue opportunities for Canadian shows in general also affect game shows there, with Canadian games (especially Quebecois ones) often having very low budgets for prizes, unless
8806-596: The mid-1980s to the mid-'90s before that niche market was overtaken by Game Show Network in 1994. In the United Kingdom , game shows have had a more steady and permanent place in the television lineup and never lost popularity in the 1990s as they did in the United States, due in part to the fact that game shows were highly regulated by the Independent Broadcasting Authority in the 1980s and that those restrictions were lifted in
8925-463: The mid-2010s. In 2016, ABC packaged the existing Celebrity Family Feud , which had returned in 2015, with new versions of To Tell the Truth , The $ 100,000 Pyramid , and Match Game in 2016; new versions of Press Your Luck and Card Sharks would follow in 2019. TBS launched a cannabis -themed revival of The Joker's Wild , hosted by Snoop Dogg , in October 2017. This is in addition to
9044-445: The most games and money in the previous season come back to compete against each other for a large cash prize. Tournaments generally feature 15 contestants and run for 10 consecutive episodes. They generally take place across three rounds: the quarterfinal round (five games), the semifinal round (three games), and the final round (two games). The first five episodes, the quarterfinals, feature three new contestants each day. Other than in
9163-507: The most successful game show contestants in America would likely never be cast in a British or Australian game show for fear of having them dominate the game, according to Mark Labbett , who appeared in all three countries on the game show The Chase . The Japanese game show is a distinct format, borrowing heavily from variety formats, physical stunts and athletic competitions. The Japanese style has been adapted overseas (and at one point
9282-436: The next taping, scheduled for November 9–10, 2020. In a New York magazine interview from 2022, then-consulting producer and former contestant Ken Jennings noted supervising producers Lisa Broffman and Rocky Schmidt had named him interim host for that taping and remembered his last conversation with Trebek days before rehearsal was to commence. In Sony Pictures Television's official Jeopardy! podcast in 2023, Broffman noted
9401-414: The original Jeopardy! series premiered, Merv Griffin offered the following account of how he created the quiz show: My wife Julann just came up with the idea one day when we were in a plane bringing us back to New York City from Duluth . I was mulling over game show ideas, when she noted that there had not been a successful "question and answer" game on the air since the quiz show scandals . Why not do
9520-423: The overall standings. This format has been used since the first Tournament of Champions in 1985 and was devised by Trebek himself. To prevent later contestants from playing to beat the earlier wild card scores instead of playing to win, contestants are "completely isolated from the studio until it is their time to compete". If none of the contestants in a standard 15-player tournament format quarterfinal end with
9639-421: The pen malfunctions, contestants can manually write their responses and wagers using an index card and marker, although the index card has the required phrasing pre-printed on each side ("Who/What"). Visually impaired or blind contestants typically type their responses and wagers with a computer keyboard. Contestants' responses are revealed in order of their pre-Final Jeopardy! scores from lowest to highest. Once
9758-582: The person, place, thing, or idea that the clue describes, phrasing each response in the form of a question. The original daytime version debuted on NBC on March 30, 1964, and aired until January 3, 1975. A nighttime syndicated edition aired weekly from September 1974 to September 1975, and a revival, The All-New Jeopardy! , ran on NBC from October 1978 to March 1979 on weekdays. The syndicated show familiar to modern viewers and aired daily (currently by Sony Pictures Television ) premiered on September 10, 1984. Art Fleming served as host for all versions of
9877-399: The previous clue chooses the next clue. Gameplay continues until the board is cleared or the round's time length expires, which is typically indicated by a beeping sound. The contestant who has the lowest score selects the first clue to start the Double Jeopardy! round. Since 2021, if there is a tie for the contestant with the lowest score, the contestant with the last correct question among
9996-477: The rehearsal for Jennings was scheduled November 8, 2020, but canceled when Schmidt gave staff the news that Trebek had died that day. At the time of Trebek's death, producers publicly declined to discuss any plans to introduce his successor while stating that they had enough new episodes with Trebek as host to run through Christmas Day. On November 9, 2020, the first episode to air after Trebek's death, executive producer Mike Richards paid tribute to Trebek, after
10115-403: The removal of the five-game limit in 2003, in the unlikely case of a tie in total winnings between two Tournament of Champions players, the player who won the most games receives the higher seed. If still tied, seeding is determined by comparing the tied players' previous aggregate scores. The winners of the five quarterfinal games and the four highest-scoring non-winners ("wild cards") advance to
10234-496: The results of the game. (Thus, the British version of The Price Is Right at first did not include the American version's "Showcase Showdown", in which contestants spun a large wheel to determine who would advance to the Showcase bonus round.) In Canada, prizes were limited not by bureaucracy but necessity, as the much smaller population limited the audience of shows marketed toward that country. The lifting of these restrictions in
10353-418: The returning champion selects a clue by indicating its category and dollar value. The two (or if there is no returning champion, three) challengers participate in a random draw prior to taping to determine contestant order, and if there is no returning champion, the contestant who drew the first lectern starts. The underlying clue is revealed and read aloud by the host, after which any contestant may ring in using
10472-407: The rule change, lights were added to the game board (unseen by home viewers) to signify when it is permissible for contestants to signal. Attempting to signal before the light goes on locks the contestant out for half of a second. The change was made to allow the home audience to play along more easily and to keep an extremely fast contestant from potentially dominating the game. In pre-1985 episodes,
10591-429: The season beginning with record-holding former contestant Ken Jennings , each hosting for a few weeks before passing the role onto someone else. Then- executive producer Mike Richards initially assumed the position of permanent host in September 2021, but relinquished the role within a week. Mayim Bialik and Jennings served as permanent rotating hosts of the syndicated series until December 2023, when Jennings became
10710-476: The second season of the new celebrity edition. In December 2023, after the strike was resolved, Sony announced that Jennings would remain the sole host of the syndicated series permanently, noting that it was still open to having Bialik host the prime time specials. Don Pardo held the role of announcer on the NBC version and weekly syndicated version, while John Harlan replaced him for The All-New Jeopardy! In
10829-404: The semifinals the way they are during the quarterfinals, show officials discovered a flaw after the 2013 Teen Tournament, because the triple zero loss happened in the second semifinal that allowed the third semifinal of the 2013 Teen Tournament to be played differently from the first (which was played before the triple zero loss). Starting with the 2013 Tournament of Champions, semifinal games, like
10948-451: The semifinals, which run for three days. The semifinals are seeded with the quarterfinal winners being seeded 1–5 based on their quarterfinal scores, and the wild cards being seeded 6–9. The winners of the quarterfinal games with the three highest scores occupy the champion's lectern for the semifinals. The winners of the three semifinal games advance to play in a two-game final match, in which the scores from both games are combined to determine
11067-483: The series is made for export. Canadian contestants are generally allowed to participate on American game shows, and there have been at least three Canadian game show hosts – Howie Mandel , Monty Hall and Alex Trebek – who have gone on to long careers hosting American series, while Jim Perry , an American host, was prominent as a host of Canadian shows. American game shows have a tendency to hire stronger contestants than their British or Australian counterparts. Many of
11186-406: The show between 1964 and 1979. Don Pardo served as announcer until 1975, and John Harlan announced for the 1978–1979 season. The daily syndicated version premiered in 1984 with Alex Trebek as host and Johnny Gilbert as announcer. Trebek hosted until his death, with his last episode airing January 8, 2021, after over 36 years in the role. Following his death, a variety of guest hosts completed
11305-527: The show through the 2021–2022 season. Bialik also hosted the season's various tournaments and primetime specials. In July 2022, it was announced that Bialik and Jennings would return as co-hosts of the syndicated version. Jennings would host the Tournament of Champions and the new Second Chance Tournament, while Bialik would again host the primetime specials and spinoffs, including a new celebrity edition of Jeopardy! , which premiered in September 2022. However, in January 2023, ABC announced Jennings would host
11424-550: The show's American debut in 1999, it was a hit and became a regular part of ABC's primetime lineup until 2002; that show would eventually air in syndication for seventeen years afterward. Several shorter-lived high-stakes games were attempted around the time of the millennium , both in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as Winning Lines , The Chair , Greed , Paranoia , and Shafted , leading to some dubbing this period as "The Million-Dollar Game Show Craze". The boom quickly went bust, as by July 2000, almost all of
11543-487: The show's first multi-million dollar winner; it has also increased the stakes of its tournaments and put a larger focus on contestants with strong personalities. The show has since produced four more millionaires: tournament winner Brad Rutter and recent champions James Holzhauer , Matt Amodio , and Amy Schneider . Family Feud revived in popularity with a change in tone under host Steve Harvey to include more ribaldry . In 2009, actress and comedienne Kim Coles became
11662-651: The show, such as the science-inspired Geek Out Game Show or the Yuck Show . Since the early 2000s, several game shows were conducted in a tournament format; examples included History IQ , Grand Slam , PokerFace (which never aired in North America), Duel , The Million Second Quiz , 500 Questions , The American Bible Challenge , and Mental Samurai . Most game shows conducted in this manner only lasted for one season. A boom in prime time revivals of classic daytime game shows began to emerge in
11781-446: The show. Beginning in 1999, Friedman became executive producer, and Gary Johnson became the third producer. In 2006, Deb Dittmann and Brett Schneider became producers, while Finneran, Schmidt, and Johnson were promoted to supervising producers. Johnson left the show in 2011, while the other producers remained until Sarah Whitcomb Foss took over all producer duties following the Clue Crew's 2022 disbanding. The original Jeopardy! series
11900-408: The single digits of dollars) are awarded as well when the price is correctly guessed, even when a contestant loses the major prize they were playing for. For high-stakes games, a network may purchase prize indemnity insurance to avoid paying the cost of a rare but expensive prize out of pocket. If the said prize is won too often, the insurance company may refuse to insure a show; this was a factor in
12019-436: The sole syndicated host. While Bialik was originally arranged to host additional primetime specials on ABC , and spin-offs , the announcement of Jeopardy! Masters in 2023 meant these duties were shared as well. Following Bialik's withdrawal in part of supporting writers and actors due to the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes , Jennings assumed hosting duties for all forms of media. Currently in its 41st season, Jeopardy!
12138-551: The start of Trebek's hosting run to avoid the problem of contestants who stopped participating in the game, or avoided wagering in Final Jeopardy!, rather than risk losing the money they had already won. This also allowed the increase to clue values since only one contestant's score is paid instead of three. From 1984 to 2002, non-winning contestants on the Trebek version received vacation packages and merchandise, which were donated by manufacturers as promotional consideration. Since 2004,
12257-542: The team who won the most money answering one final question for a jackpot which started at $ 1,000 and increased $ 500 each week until won. Another early example was the Lightning Round on the word game Password , starting in 1961. The contestant who won the front game played a quick-fire series of passwords within 60 seconds, netting $ 50 per correctly guessed word, for a maximum bonus prize of $ 250. The bonus round came about after game show producer Mark Goodson
12376-417: The tied players selects first. A "Daily Double" clue is hidden behind one clue in the Jeopardy! round, and two in Double Jeopardy! The name and inspiration were taken from a horse-racing term . Daily Double clues with a sound or video component are known as "Audio Daily Doubles" or "Video Daily Doubles", respectively. Before the clue is revealed, the contestant who has selected the Daily Double must declare
12495-407: The tournament, such as the 2020 Greatest of All Time or 2022 Tournament of Champions, or in the quarterfinals of tournaments without wild cards where a player must win the game to advance (21 or 27 players), the tie-breaker will be used regardless of the score being zero or positive for players to win the game and either advance to the next round or receive the point towards winning the tournament. This
12614-401: The two-game finals, must have a winner. Players who participate in Final Jeopardy! will participate in the standard tie-breaker, regardless of the score being zero or a positive score. Similarly, if all three players have a zero score at the end of a two-game match, a normal tournament finals format will proceed to a tie-breaker. In a tournament format where a player must win multiple games to win
12733-459: The wake of the scandals limited the style of games that could be played and the amount of money that could be awarded. Panel shows there were kept in primetime and have continued to thrive; they have transformed into showcases for the nation's top stand-up comedians on shows such as Have I Got News for You , Would I Lie to You? , Mock the Week , QI , and 8 Out of 10 Cats , all of which put
12852-422: The wife of the contestant couple would perform at a jackpot board for a prize. The contestant was shown a famous quotation or common phrase, and the words were scrambled. To win the announced bonus, the contestant had to unscramble the words within 20 seconds. The contestant received a consolation gift worth over $ 200 if she was unsuccessful. Another early bonus round ended each episode of You Bet Your Life with
12971-587: The world. Most game show formats that are popular in one country are franchised to others. Game shows have had an inconsistent place in television in Canada , with most homegrown game shows there being made for the French-speaking Quebec market and the majority of English-language game shows in the country being rebroadcast from, or made with the express intent of export to, the United States. There have been exceptions to this (see, for instance,
13090-449: Was You Bet Your Life , ostensibly a game show, but the game show concept was largely a framework for a talk show moderated by its host, Groucho Marx .) During the late 1950s, high-stakes games such as Twenty-One and The $ 64,000 Question began a rapid rise in popularity. However, the rise of quiz shows proved to be short-lived. In 1959, many of the higher stakes game shows were exposed as being either biased or outright scripted in
13209-419: Was added, executive producer Harry Friedman said, "TV is a visual medium, and the more visual we can make our clues, the more we think it will enhance the experience for the viewer." Following the initial announcement of auditions for the team, over 5,000 people applied for Clue Crew posts. The original Clue Crew members were Cheryl Farrell, Jimmy McGuire, Sofia Lidskog, and Sarah Whitcomb Foss. Lidskog left
13328-428: Was confirmed by Ken Jennings in a post-match interview posted on the show's website during the Season 40 Champions Wildcard Tournament. In the standard tournament finals format, contestants who finish Double Jeopardy! with a zero dollars or negative score on either day do not play Final Jeopardy! that day. Their score for that leg is recorded as zero dollars. In a 1963 Associated Press profile released shortly before
13447-591: Was directed at different times by Bob Hultgren, Eleanor Tarshis, and Jeff Goldstein. Dick Schneider, who directed episodes of The All-New Jeopardy! , returned as director from 1984 to 1992. He was then succeeded by his associate director, Kevin McCarthy , who served until his retirement in 2018. After McCarthy's departure, he was succeeded by Clay Jacobsen, who served through 2021 and was later replaced by Russell Norman. As of 2022, Jeopardy! employs seven full-time writers and seven researchers to create and assemble
13566-517: Was first presented Password , contending that it was not enough to merely guess passwords during the show. "We needed something more, and that's how the Lightning Round was invited," said Howard Felsher , who produced Password and Family Feud . "From that point on every game show had to have an end round. You'd bring a show to a network and they'd say, 'What's the endgame?' as if they had thought of it themselves." The end game of Match Game , hosted for most of its run by Gene Rayburn , served as
13685-415: Was first used in 1985 by Chuck Forrest , who won over $ 70,000 in his initial run as champion. Trebek expressed that this strategy not only annoyed him but also the staff, since it disrupts the rhythm that develops when revealing the clues and increases the potential for error. Another strategy used by some contestants is to play all of the higher-valued clues first and build up a substantial lead, starting at
13804-671: Was hosted by Buzzy Cohen , winner of the 2017 tournament. On August 11, 2021, it was announced that Richards would succeed Trebek as host of the daily show and Bialik would host Jeopardy! primetime specials and spin-offs. On August 20, following a report from The Ringer exposing controversial remarks made on his podcast in the past, resurfaced controversies from Richards's time on The Price Is Right , and accusations of self-dealing regarding his executive producer position, Richards stepped down as host after taping only one week of episodes. Richards's five episodes as host aired in September 2021. Bialik and Jennings then alternated hosting
13923-478: Was introduced to the game show genre in the late 1960s on all three networks. The 1970s saw a renaissance of the game show as new games and massive upgrades to existing games made debuts on the major networks. The New Price Is Right , an update of the 1950s-era game show The Price Is Right , debuted in 1972 and marked CBS's return to the game show format in its rural purge . The Match Game became "Big Money" Match Game 73 , which proved popular enough to prompt
14042-432: Was parodied with an American reality competition, I Survived a Japanese Game Show , which used a fake Japanese game show as its central conceit). Many of the prizes awarded on game shows are provided through product placement , but in some cases they are provided by private organizations or purchased at either the full price or at a discount by the show. There is the widespread use of "promotional consideration", in which
14161-527: Was the original host of the show throughout both NBC runs and its brief weekly syndicated run, between 1964 and 1979. Alex Trebek served as host of the daily syndicated version from its premiere in 1984 until his death in 2020, except when he switched places with Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak as an April Fool's joke on April 1, 1997. Trebek was still serving as host, having taped his last episode on October 29, 2020, for an intended Christmas Day broadcast, when contingency plans were made for him to miss
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