Jeopardy! is a American television game show that’s been on the air uninterrupted since 1984!
So let’s find out some trivia and facts about this famous game show!
- Jeopardy! is an American television game show
- It is created by Merv Griffin
- The show features a quiz competition
- In which contestants are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers
- And must phrase their responses in the form of questions
- The original daytime version debuted on NBC on March 30, 1964
- And aired until January 3, 1975
- A weekly nighttime syndicated edition aired from September 1974 to September 1975
- And a revival, The All-New Jeopardy!, ran on NBC from October 1978 to March 1979
- The current version, a daily syndicated show produced by Sony Pictures Television
- It premiered on September 10, 1984
- Both NBC versions and the weekly syndicated version were hosted by Art Fleming
- Don Pardo served as announcer until 1975
- And John Harlan announced for the 1978- 1979 show
- Since its inception, the daily syndicated version has featured Alex Trebek as host
- And Johnny Gilbert as announcer
- It has 8.000 episodes aired
- The daily syndicated version of Jeopardy! has won a record 33 Daytime 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 a worldwide following with regional adaptations in many other countries
- The daily syndicated series’ 35th season premiered on September 10, 2018
- Three contestants each take their place behind a lectern
- With the returning champion occupying the leftmost lectern
- From the viewer’s perspective
- The contestants compete in a quiz game comprising three rounds: Jeopardy!, Double Jeopardy!, and Final Jeopardy!
- The material for the clues covers a wide variety of topics
- Including history and current events, the sciences, the arts, popular culture, literature, and languages
- Category titles often feature puns, wordplay, or shared themes
- And the host will regularly remind contestants of topics or place emphasis on category themes before the start of the round
- All clues in the show are presented as “answers”
- And responses must be phrased in the form of a question
- For example, if a contestant were to select “Presidents for $200”, the resulting clue could be “This ‘Father of Our Country’ didn’t really chop down a cherry tree”
- To which the correct response would be “Who is/was George Washington?”
- Contestants are free to phrase the response in the form of any question
- The traditional phrasing of “who is/are” for people or “what is/are” for things or words is almost always used
- In a 1964 Associated Press profile released shortly before the original Jeopardy! series premiered
- Merv Griffin offered an 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 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 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 the show to require grammatically correct phrasing
- But after finding that grammatical correction slowed the game down, he decided that the show should instead accept any correct response that was in question form
- Griffin discarded his initial title for the show, What’s the Question?
- When skeptical network executive Ed Vane rejected his original concept of the game, claiming, “It doesn’t have enough jeopardies”
- Jeopardy! was not the first game show to give contestants the answers and require the questions
- That format had previously been used by the Gil Fates-hosted program CBS Television Quiz
- Which aired from July 1941 until May 1942
- Since the debut of Jeopardy! in 1964, several different songs and arrangements have served as the theme music for the show
- Most of which were composed by Griffin
- The main theme for the original Jeopardy! series was “Take Ten”
- Composed by Griffin’s wife Julann
- The All-New Jeopardy! opened with “January, February, March” and closed with “Frisco Disco”
- Both of which were composed by Griffin himself
- The best-known theme song on Jeopardy! is “Think!”
- Originally composed by Griffin under the title “A Time for Tony”
- As a lullaby for his son
- “Think!” has always been used for the 30-second period in Final Jeopardy!
- When the contestants write down their responses
- And since the syndicated version debuted in 1984
- A rendition of that tune has been used as the main theme song
- “Think!” has become so popular that it has been used in many different contexts
- From sporting events to weddings
- Griffin estimated that the use of “Think!” had earned him royalties of over $70 million throughout his lifetime
- “Think!” led Griffin to win the Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) President’s Award in 2003
- And during GSN’s 2009 Game Show Awards special, it was named “Best Game Show Theme Song”
- In 1997, the main theme and Final Jeopardy! recordings of “Think!” were rearranged by Steve Kaplan
- Who served as the show’s music director
- Until his December 2003 death
- In 2008, Chris Bell Music and Sound Design overhauled the Jeopardy! music package for the show’s 25th anniversary
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