Join the chase to Jeopardy!
Juvenile banter-free, it’s easy to see why this iconic US show has been running for so long, says James Croot.
Calling all TV quiz show fans. Forget The Beast, The Sinnerman and The Vixen, there’s a regular weekday show that’s all about the questions and the contestants, rather than juvenile banter and pithy put-downs.
If like me, you’ve witnessed one too many Bradley Walsh giggling fits on The Chase, then I strongly recommend switching channels to Jeopardy!
(9.20am and 3.30pm, weekdays on Prime and on Sky5 from April 18). You’ll be hooked in no time.
This is no Johnny-come-lately, flash-in-the-pan gameshow format either. This is a tried-and-tested formula that first aired in 1964.
Created by Merv Griffin, it turns the traditional question-and-answer format on its head, with three contestants given clues so they can come up with a suitable question-framed response. For example, the clue ‘‘Barbara Millicent Roberts’’ in a category entitled ‘‘Fictional Character’s Full Names’’, should prompt the question, ‘‘Who is Barbie?’’
Clues are worth variable amounts, and contestants lose that same amount if they get it wrong.
Known as the Daily Double ,a couple of questions allow competitors to choose how much they are willing to risk, based on how much money they have already accumulated. The same option applies to the Final
Jeopardy Question, where the events of the previous 20 minutes can be turned on their head by a high wager. This strategic, suspense creating element is one of the show’s real charms.
But really it’s the combination of perfect pacing (slow enough to play along at home, but packing an impressive potential 61 questions into its slim running time), engaging and enlightening topics (categories can run the gamut of ‘‘Questionable Movie Titles’’ to ‘‘Historic Losers’’ and ‘‘Crayola Colours’’) and its delightfully deadpan host.
The silver-haired Alex Trebek has been Jeopardy‘s frontman since 1984. Avuncular without being intrusive, he clearly enjoys meeting the contestants, be they a fire lookout from Oregon, a bartender from New York, or a data analyst from Illinois. However, he also provides plenty of amusing moments, especially while sticking to his rigid format of asking only one personal question of each competitor.
And as with our own Sale of the Century almost three decades ago, those who go on a winning-streak become larger-than-life characters themselves.
In 2004, Seattle computer scientist Ken Jennings won an incredible 74 games in a row, raking in more than US $2.5m. Last year, my family became hooked watching the flamboyant Austin Rogers’ 12-match winning streak, each victory punctuated by another oddball mimed celebration.
That’s what I love about Jeopardy, it’s the contestants who are celebrated, rather than promoting a group of anti-hero know-it-alls as with British shows The Chase and Eggheads. Jeopardy! has won a record 33 Daytime Emmy Awards and has become something of a pop-culture touchstone and icon, featuring on a wide range movies and TV shows from Cheers, The Golden Girls and The Simpsons, to White Men Can’t Jump, Die Hard and Groundhog Day.
Television history is littered with abandoned briefly popular quiz show formats: Face the Music, The Weakest Link, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Are You Smarter Than a 10-YearOld? to name a few.
Jeopardy! has outlasted all of those, and deservedly so.