 |
| Jul 21 |
| Home | Login | Browse | News | TV Schedule | Statistics | Preference | Help | Google Groups |
Jeopardy! A quiz show with a twist: contestants are provided with the answers. But what are the right questions? |
|
|
| Jeopardy! (1964) Three contestants, one of whom is typically a defending champion, play the game in three rounds: the Jeopardy! Round, the Double Jeopardy! Round, and the Final Jeopardy! Round. (In the special case of a tie in tournament play, a fourth round, the Tiebreaker Round, is added.) The three contestants stand behind podiums which display their scores (updated as the game proceeds) and their names. Jeopardy! Round Six categories are announced, each with a column of five trivia clues (phrased in answer form), each one valued, in dollars, incrementally more than the previous, ostensibly by difficulty. Each category is a topical category, and the categories change on each show; the category names are frequently puns or collectively build a theme. Upon the show's 1964 premiere, dollar values were $10, $20, $30, $40, and $50. These values were increased to $25, $50, $75, $100, $125 with the revival of the show in 1978, and successively doubled with the 2nd pilot for the Alex Trebek version in 1984, with the premiere of the Trebek-hosted version in 1984, and during its 18th season in 2001 for present values of $200, $400, $600, $800, and $1,000. (The 1990 Super Jeopardy! tournament used a point value scale that incremented from 200 to 1,000.) The returning champion or the new challenger in the first position begins the game by selecting a category and monetary value (e.g. "PRESIDENTS for $200"). The host then reads the clue ("He was the father of our country; he didn't really chop down a cherry tree"), after which any of the three contestants may ring in using a hand-held signaling device. The first contestant to successfully ring in following the host's reading of the clue must then respond generally in the form of a question ("Who was/Who is/Who's George Washington?"). (See Phrasing below.) A correct response earns the dollar value of the clue and the opportunity to select the next clue from the board. An incorrect response or a failure to respond within a 5-second time limit deducts the dollar value of the clue from the player's score and gives any remaining opponents the opportunity to ring in and respond. If none of the contestants give a correct response, the correct response is read, and the player who has most recently given a correct response to a clue chooses the next clue. Daily Doubles One clue hidden on the Jeopardy! Round game board is designated a "Daily Doubles" (a name taken from horse racing). Only the contestant who selects a Daily Double may respond to its clue. The player may wager as much as the maximum amount of a clue on the board (currently $1,000 in the Jeopardy! Round and $2,000 in the Double Jeopardy! Round) or as much as he or she has accumulated, whichever is greater, but must wager at least $5. Players may also indicate that they wish to make it a "True Daily Double", meaning that they are risking all the money that they have accumulated up to that point. Daily Doubles are sometimes designated with special tags, such as "Audio Daily Double" (in which a sound clip is played as part of the clue), "Video Daily Double" (in which a video clip is played as part of the clue), "Celebrity Daily Double" (in which a celebrity delivers the clue), etc. Such a tag is displayed as soon as the Daily Double has been selected. Ringing in Before the 1985-86 season, contestants could ring in any time after the clue was revealed. To this day, players are required to wait until the host finishes reading the clue before they may ring in. Lights surrounding the game board, invisible to the television audience, illuminate to indicate contestants may ring in. Pressing the signaling button prior to the lights' illumination locks the player out for approximately one quarter of a second. Phrasing In the Jeopardy! Round, players are not penalized for forgetting to phrase a response in the form of a question; the host will give a reminder to contestants who do not correct themselves before their time runs out. In the Double Jeopardy! Round, adherence to the phrasing rule is followed more strictly, but players are still permitted to correct themselves before their time runs out if they are not immediately ruled against. On occasion, players have couched their phrasing in creative ways or in languages other than standard English without penalty. Double Jeopardy! Round The second round, Double Jeopardy!, works like the first round, with the following exceptions:
Finishing Double Jeopardy! with $0 or less Contestants who finish Double Jeopardy! with a $0 or negative score are automatically eliminated from the game and not allowed to participate in the game's final round, Final Jeopardy! In this case, the contestants still receive consolation prizes, which (beginning with Show #4089, aired May 16, 2002) are $1,000 for third place and $2,000 for second place. In the original Art Fleming version, no money was awarded if a contestant finished with $0 or in the red (with a negative score), but he/she did receive parting gifts. If a returning champion finished in the red, it did not count against their previously accumulated winnings; any cash they had previously won was theirs to keep. In Celebrity Jeopardy!, which are played for charity, contestants are allowed to participate in Final Jeopardy! under all circumstances, and such contestants are granted nominal scores with which to wager for Final Jeopardy! On rare occasions, two contestants have been disqualified from playing, leaving the first-place player to play the Final Jeopardy! Round alone. Final Jeopardy! Round In the Final Jeopardy! Round, the host first announces the category, then the show goes into a commercial break (during which the staff comes on stage and advises the contestants while barriers are placed between the players to discourage cheating). The contestants then risk as little as $0 or as much money as they have accumulated, by writing it on a card (in the 1964-1975 version) or electronic tablet (since 1984). After the final commercial break, the Final Jeopardy! clue is revealed and read by the host, following which contestants have 30 seconds to write a response on a card/electronic drawing board, again phrased in the form of a question. The light pen is automatically cut off at the end of the 30 seconds. With rare exception, the "Think!" music is played during this 30-second period. Other Final Jeopardy! response methods are occasionally used: * Blind contestants (including 5-time champion Eddie Timanus and 2005 Teen Tournament quarterfinalist Kerri Regan) utilize a keyboard with Braille keys. Entered text will be displayed in a typed font rather than the contestant's handwriting. Cash prizes The top money-winner at the end of Final Jeopardy! is the day's champion and returns to the next show. During the 1964 and 1978 NBC and 1974 syndicated versions, all three contestants kept whatever cash they won. On the 1974 syndicated version, the winner also received a bonus prize or cash (see entry in "Other versions" for more information). Starting in 1984, rather than receiving their scores in cash, runners-up were awarded consolation prizes; typically, a vacation package for the second-place player and merchandise for the third-place player. This changed on May 16, 2002; thereafter, the second-place finisher was awarded $2,000 and the third place finisher was awarded $1,000. Since the show did not provide airfare or lodging for challengers (airfare was provided for returning champions' subsequent flights to L.A.), these cash consolation prizes alleviated the financial burden of appearing on the show. The greatest amount won by an individual in a day was $75,000, by Ken Jennings, on July 23, 2004. Special cases If no contestant finishes Final Jeopardy! with a positive total (i.e., at least $1), then nobody wins and three new contestants appear on the following show; in such cases the three players will participate in a backstage draw to determine player position. The three-way loss has happened three times since 1984, the first occasion being on the second episode; the number of times this occurred during the 1964 NBC version is undetermined. If two or more contestants tie for first place, they each win the money and come back, assuming that they each have at least $1. Three players have held the co-champ title twice. Ties in non-regular-play games are broken via a special Tiebreaker Round; this has only known to have happened on five occasions, most recently on November 13, 2007 during the second semifinal game of the Tournament of Champions. An additional tiebreaker category with a single clue is given after the Final Jeopardy! Round, and the first player to ring in with the correct response wins. In case of a three-way loss in a tournament, none of the three players advance, and an additional wildcard is added in the tournament. Scores coming to Double Jeopardy! break ties for a wildcard position. A three-way tie for first place has only occurred once during the Alex Trebek era of Jeopardy!, and only one contestant in the Trebek era has won a game with only $1.
|
