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Jeopardy! trivia: 80 amazing facts about the famous game show!

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