Jeopardy!: Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of My Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that gives you the secret history and little known fascinating facts about your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. My name's Jordan Runt Talk, and I'm Alex Heiglin and Hegel Today. I'm so excited we're talking about one of my favorite shows, one of my favorite pop culture entities of all time, Jeopardy. Yeah, this is I know this is a big one for you. I know, I was really surprised to hear that you weren't as into it as I am. I saw you as like somebody who did you audition and get turned down? Or you aren'ist into this as I would have thought. That would be the very predictable. Now, you want to know, the sad truth of it is that I was in my um middle school quiz bowl team, That's right, Yeah, and we suffered a very humiliating loss at one point, and I've frankly I've never been able to play a buzz in trivia game him again. It's really derailed my career. It was like I blew my a c l out or something equivalent of that. I just I never played again, and it's all too painful for me. I can't. I'm not making this up. I did. I was in Quizzble and we were it was a humiliating defeat. Let me just say what happened. He was there one question in particular that it was just this. It was like they had like they had like they the other team had like me on steroids because I could never do I could never do my worst enemy basically, well yeah, because it was like this dude like had command of just all kinds of obscure, ridiculous facts, but he could also do math, which I could ever do. So we were just murdered. I think it was like they got like a perfect score of the answers were from this kid, and we got like ten. It was embarrassing, and it was like just as far as like that team had ever gone, and I it's you know, it's haunted me ever since. Um, but I you know what I did spend a lot of time with Jeffardy wise as growing up was the SNL skits. Oh yeah, we'll talk about about that in here definitely, of course. But before we go any further, we have a little special treat for this episode. You know, passions run high here on too much information, and it's something that we love about ourselves, but sometimes the language does get a little bit rowdy. So in the interest of good taste we've obtained at great expense, I might add the original buzzing sound from the unaired nine pilot of Jeopardy. I'm so excited to share this. Let's give it a listen. Isn't it great? We do it all for you anyway, that's it. I just wanted to share that. Well, then let's dive the in. Baby. I'm glad we're getting you said it out already. Yes, it's time to kick off this episode, this jet episode, if you will. We're going to talk about how Lucille Ball helped get Alex Trebeck the hosting gig, how hash Brownie's nearly put him out of commission, how the theme tune was written on a Hollywood icons piano, and how the writer's come up with the clues in the first play. We'll also lift the lid on the show's finally honed production process, give you tips on the insane PTSD inducing preparation that prospective contestants go through, and reveal whether or not Alex Trebek ever met Hiss SNL celebrity Jeopardy nemesis Sean Connery in real life. Without further ado, here's everything you didn't know about Jeopardy. Well, curse things. First, we're gonna go back to the pre Trebec era. Now, a lot of people don't realize that Jeopardy actually first premiered way back in nineteen sixty four with a gentleman by the name of Art Fleming as the host, and the game was derived in response to a very famous controversy in the late fifties when it came out that a number of really popular prime time quiz shows were rigged. Contestants had gotten the answers beforehand, and this created a huge scandal. Today, it would be like if TMZ did an expose on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune in Family Feud all being faked and fraudulent. Half a dozen of the biggest quiz shows on television were all canceled within a few months of each other, and even or not there were actually congressional hearings about all this, like nothing else was going on in the fifties, like they could just table everything else and work on the game show problem in the middle of the Cold War, the insidious problem of read game shows was given set a time. But but this was a serious thing, like people's reputations were ruined, and new legislation was put into effects. So this was kind of a big deal, and for a number of years TV networks were scared of putting new quick shows on the air, and by the dawn of the sixties, the genres sort of disappeared from the airwaves. The dark days, right, this was a sad time for trivia nerds like me. This didn't sit well with Merv Griffin, who was a TV host, a producer in a game show developer at I think NBC, and he was on a flight to New York in nineteen sixty three, and, uh, he was discussing with his wife. You know, I really want to make a quick show, but the networks really going for it. They're really nervous about, you know, all the rigging and the whole scandal. And his wife said, what what if you just give contestants the answers to start with? And she was totally kidding, but Merv's eyes just lit up. That was his Eureka moment. It's the most like stoner, what if you just gave him the answers instead of the questions? Man? And that is where jeopardy. Uh, you know, the whole crux of jeopardy is that you are buzzing in with the question that you were given the answer, and you give the question. So he goes back to his office and he makes this template. He's got ten categories with ten answers, a piece of varying difficulty with the dollar value assigned to each and you know, with increasing difficulty. He has all his friends over to his apartment to sort of play this makeshift game. Uh. He goes into NBC has a meeting. He has like a whole cardboard thing up on the board with like envelopes with questions on the inside. He makes his whole cute presentation and he does it for the game show executives, and the executives were into it, but they weren't sure that it was compelling enough. And I guess one executive said, you know, I think that the show needs more jeopardies, and that became I mean again, this is like you can't write this. I mean, this is where he's really he's pulling it stuff from left and right, because initially he was going to call the game What's the Question, which is, you know, a little on the nose, but Jeopardy a lot more drama to it. It's a great name. So after months of tinkering, he's presenting it for final approval to show the as approved of concept to the executives. He played like a little ad HOWC game in the boardroom and they went for it, and so MERV Griffin. One uh I don't thin about MERV Griffin was that he actually got his start as a musician when he was like nineteen. He was like singing on radio with an orchestra, and you know that song I've Got a Lovely bunch of Coconuts? Do you know that? In the in the in the Lion King. I think, um, somebody sings it. I forget who sings it? Was his song, I guess like he made it big in the fifties. He sold like millions of copies of this song. So we got to start as a musician and he never stopped. I love the novelty, the novelty songwriter era, Like what's the equivalent of that today? It's probably like dumb ship like TikTok talent. We didn't get anything good. I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts. That's a great song. That's a great song, but you know it's an even better song the theme to Jeopardy, which MERV Griffin wrote. MERV Griffin wrote this song. It has a title. It was was initially written what is It? It was written as a lullaby for his son Tony. It was actually called that makes a Time for Tony, and then once he you know, decided to put it to use in the game show he's developing, he changed the title to think and apparently this is really weird. He wrote it on Marlon Brando's old piano, the Jeopardy song the Dude Do Do Do? I can't I can't tell you I can't help anymore because we'd probably have to pay. It was apparently he and Marlon Brando used to live in the same apartment building and and Marlon moved out. He gifted his piano to Merv, so he wrote the Jeopardy song If I want you to well, I want you to have this piano. I want you to take this piano and want you. I have a vision for you. You're gonna write you're gonna write a game show theme, it's going to be beautiful that turns into I was gonna it was the whole spectrum of the whole spectrum of dysfunctional men that I can't quite identify it, but it was good. I like. So Merv wrote the song. It took him basically as long as it takes to sing it to write like it took him less than a minute, he would later say. And that minute earned him around eighty million dollars in royalties by I think ten This is according to mental flaws um. He sold the rights to MERV Griffin Enterprises to Coca Cola in nineteen eight six for two undred and fifty million dollars because he developed all sorts of other shows, including Wheel of Fortune, but he retained the rights to think the Jeopardy theme and received the royalty every time it was played in syndication, you know, all around the world and reruns. And he made a stupid amount of money from that song, so it was definitely a well spent I love MERV Griffin. Uh, he's just like if he had a talk show in the sixties and seventies too. It's just a real, real genial guy. Great interviewer. Uh, you know what's on his tombstone? What I will not be right back after this message? Is that great? That's great, great guy, I do it's it's funny. It does sound like thinking about the Jeopardy theme song. It does sound like exercises like innerval innerval intererval uh. I had a professor who used to when he was teaching the Bebop scale, he would always play the Jeopardy theme song chromatic run at the end. No no, no, no no, no, no no no. He's like, this is how you this is this is how you make eighty million dollars in one minute? Yeah right, No, not playing jazz baby. So I mentioned earlier. The first episode of Jeopardy premiered on March thirtieth, nineteen sixty four, and the original host was Art Fleming, who was something of a game show legend. This was on during the day and it was an instant success. I think only Hollywood Squares had more viewers in the sixties, and it was on the air. It's five and when the network canceled it, I think that there was just they wanted to appeal to more younger female demographic in the afternoon, and so they filled that time slot with with soap operas, and it came back briefly and I think nineteen seventy eight as the old New Jeopardy, and it was canceled like six months later. Daytime soaps kind of became the dominant force in afternoon slots, but merv never really forgot Jeopardy. I mean, he went on to have a lot of success with um Wheel of Fortune, which just based on his childhood love of the game hangman uh. And so by three, I mean, he was doing very well, but he really believed that his quick show idea deserved another shot, and TV execs weren't really feeling it. I mean, the Cold Quiz Show. Things seemed kind of past, say, at that time, But then he got some help by the popularity of a new board game. Yeah, so it's actually trivial pursuit had debuted in and quickly. Can you say something like taking the board game World by storm? Do things actually do that? Yeah, I mean I guess if if anything did, pursuit probably did would be trivial pursuit. Yeah, trivial pursuit coming straight out of Montreal, Quebec, Baby by a two Canadian journalists. Did you know Chris Haney a photo editor for the Montreal Gazette and Scott Abbott, a sports editor for the Canadian Press. So they developed the game in ninety nine in Montreal. They sell the rights in nine two, and it just exploded, you know, runaway popularity, and that is what ended up changing the minds of over at King World Auctions. But they were still down a host. Yes, that's true and enter enter, Well, you know, it's interesting trivial pursuit comes from Canada. You know who else comes from Canada? Who else comes from Canada? Baby? How's that first segue? Alex trippec the late but not really Alex Tack. That's that is absolutely right. Alex Trebeck's real name was George Alexander Torbeca. I feel like that's like a Canada English thing, like Paul McCartney's real name is James Paul McCartney. I don't know why, but I feel like that was such a thing in the in the British Commonwealth to to give you like name that was just for special occasions, like the front room that you don't go in. It was kind of like, yeah, but no, Alex Trebeck's real name was George. Uh good lord, what a legend the lake about. I have so much to say about Alex. I mean, go ahead, um. He actually he got recommended for the job on Jeopardy by none other than Lucille Ball. Did you realize that? That's no, that's that is pretty crazy. But let's just do a quick overview of his career. I mean, he got his start up in Canada, where he was like kind of something of a heart throb, Like he started hosting it Are you kidding me? Well, yeah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't shouldn't have phrased it with surprise in my voice. But he holsted a show on the CBC which was called Music Hop, which was basically the Canadian version of like American Bandstand. And there's some great footage on YouTube of like twenty four year old Alex Trebeck interviewing Gordon Lightfoot and stuff and his Canadian uh you know, up and coming pop stars and stuff. And he kind of was he was like a journeyman broadcaster. He kind of did whatever job he could find up in Canada in the late sixties. He was doing stockyard reports, horse racing, and I think he even did curling, um, and he was bilingual to he's He's French Canadian, so um. He was got a lot of use at the Canadian TV networks, um, including a Canadian high school quiz bowl called Reach for the Top, which I think was his first I know, I'm sorry that I should have given you a trigger warning there, um, But like I said, he was something of a heart throb and actually kind of edgy. In the nineteen seventy one, he was up for the gig of hosting Hockey Night in Canada, which is like Monday Night football times a thousand up there. It's this huge weekly tradition for our friends in the Great White North. But he was passed over, apparently because executive producers didn't want to hire a host with a mustache. Anti mustache discrimination is a very real thing. I mean. Style of fashion was apparently a big deal for Cheppec. He got kicked out of his military boarding school as a team for refusing to cut his hair. So he was like, you know, kind of a dandy in the in the early seventies, and you forget people forget that, Like he had these vibrant plaid suits and like permed hair and like he was kind of wild. I mean, I mean just usually, I mean he's not like you know, but not just a visually. It was a great story in his in his memoir that came out just before he died. I think it's called The Answer Is Where? Right. Soon after he got to he moved from Canada to Los Angeles. Um, he was actually incur just to move from Canada to Los Angeles by fellow Canadian Allen Thick. Uh, father of Robin Thick and the dad from Oh my God, what was he? The dad from Uh? Family matters, family ties, family something, growing pains, growing growing pains. I threw on the wrong track, right, they were because everybody in Canada apparently knows each other. But Trebette gets to l a. Uh, he goes to a party in Malibu where he ate four or five brownies. Turns out there were hash brownies and he woke up at the host house three days later. Um. But yeah, he was not exactly known for his hard partying lifestyle. I guess his favorite drink was low fat milk. Other fun fact, his favorite animal was the musk ox. Did you realize that anyway? So? Did note that that? How do you know that I mean, don't you have a favorite animal. I feel like it's like a rat. It's like I feel like your favorite animals. I like badgers a lot because I read because I had Red Wall grown up. Oh yeah, like Mrs Risby and the routes and them would have been a big thing for you. But oh sure. Anyway, he moves to California in the seventies. It's a bunch of hash brownies and he hosts a whole string of really short lived game shows. High Rollers was probably the you know, the biggest one of note. You know, Noammy, Noammy, everyone those high Rollers. Uh he was. He also a show called The Wizard of Odds, where he was the uh he was the Wizard. He hosted a game show called Malcolm, which he co hosted with an animated figurine. And that was, of course, all before he got the call to do a pilot for Jeopardy after his friend actually Arn't Fleming, the original Jeopardy host, declined to return. I guess he didn't agree with the creative direction of the show. So um Alex got recommended to uh to audition for this show because of Lucille Ball. I guess merv Griffin from his days as a as a band leader, presumably. I wonder if he knew Ricky Ricardo back in the early fifties, as you know, when Ricky's band leader days. But he and Lucy were tight, and Lucy was a huge fan of high Rollers, which was the game show that Trebek hosted prior to Jeopardy, and I think she even appeared on it once. I think there's no no video footage of it, but I think there's like a picture of something that floating around the internet, and she was on high Rollers and she really liked Trebek, so she recommended MERV Griffin check him out, and he did NTV history was made, but almost not because despite the fact that trivial pursuit had kind of made quiz shows more popular for TV executives, they still were really reluctant to give Jeopardy a primetime slot because initially the early versions were on during the day, and so some networks, including New York City, believe it or not, put Jeopardy on it two in the morning. I mean that kind of makes sense to like, I can imagine Alex Trebec soothing people after like a night out. This is the seventies or eighty four, like when New York is still in the I you come home and you know you're stirring a blackout. The Son of Sam is still problem around. You know, there's sorry Travis Bickle is out there, and you come back and it's just a better world. You just fall asleep to the sound of the bridges falling down, And Alex Trebek, did I I offend New York properly during that? Did? I mean? I mean, this is this is the time when like the Bronx was burning and stuff, the famous like you know World Series thing, whether they're filming the World Series and like above Yankee Stadium or something, and off of the distance you see fires in the Bronx. So no, that's that's probably a fair assessment. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, game shows were known more as like a daytime thing. I mean, the Price is Right in Family Feud. I mean those were like mass audience shows. But yeah, Networks, because this was a syndicated show, a lot of major markets really weren't willing to take a gamble on primetime with Jeopardy, so they put it in you know kind of of ratings waste land at two in the morning. Which you know, I mean, sure, it's probably a great thing to watch before bed, but like, how many people are really watching TV at two in the morning. And network suits really thought that a way to help sell the show was the dumb down the questions. They thought that it was the show was too smart, and uh, Trebec really took the time on or tactic of just saying yes and then doing whatever the hell he wanted. He basically said, oh, yeah, sure, well we'll ease up on the material and then he just completely left alone, which, you know, I think it's one of the things that's so great about the show is that it really doesn't talk down to anybody. I mean, you know that we will talk more about how clues are written in a moment, but I mean I think that the the head writer was interviewed, the head clue writer was interviewed as saying, you know, we want you to have three responses. I knew that, or darn I should have known that, or wow, I had no idea, but now I'm really glad I do. And that was kind of the you know, that was the litmus test for writing clues for this um for the show. But speaking about the clues, the show is written by a team of eight writers plus a head writer, and I think seven or eight researchers are on staff. And they produced two and thirty games of seasons, so that's, if I did my math right, four thousand thirty clues a year, which is too It's pretty insane, and usually the way it's done as they start by coming up with a category and from there they kind of start crafting clues that would fit in that category and weed out the ones that you know aren't strong. Apparently the toughest part is coming up with a question that only has one answer. They call that pinning a clue, where it's like you really try to look at it from a million different size to figure out if there's, you know, any different ways that you know you can answer this one thing, because that's do you think it's a very I'm gonna I'm gonna play the role that the deer Departed Fred Willard plays in Best in Show when you're just like giving me all this information and I'm gonna ask utterly ridiculous questions. What do you think the sexual tension in the Jeopardy writer's room is? Is it like as bad as like S N L? Or how much cocaine on the scale of to Lindsey Buckingham making tusk. What do you think they're doing? Um, I'd say more more than who Wants to be a Millionaire? Um, but less than well, maybe somewhere in the middle. All right, okay, okay, cool. And while we're talking about clues and categories. Um, so there's actually like a whole calculus that is a little in the weeds that we were going to skip about this, but there's a whole you know, number of they have to do a certain number of clues for a category. But here's an interesting condition that they put on the final Jeopardy questions only, which is, each writer comes up with our own final Jeopardy questions, but their condition for those is that at least one of the members of the writer's team has to be able to answer it. Is that accurate? I feel like that's a fair you know that that should probably be a condition of like all these questions. Really, it does make it does make sense. Uh. One of my favorite factoids about Jeopardy is that, well, they film five episodes in a single day, but it's all done on the same lot where The Wizard of Oz was filmed, which is interesting because Alex Trebek hosted that short lived game show The Wizard of Odds. So there's I see what you're doing. They got five episodes a day. How what is that over an eight hour shooting. Yeah? Yeah, I mean if you think about it without the commercials, and I think without like the personal anecdotes and stuff. I think I read somewhere that it's really only like thirteen minutes of game time something like that. I mean, if you think about taking the commercials out, that's like twenty two minutes and then personal anecdotes and Trebek's intro in the beginning or whatever, it's not a lot. Also, I want to ask, I feel like there are two kinds of people in this world. People who love the personal anecdote moments on Jeopardy and then the people who fast forward through them when they have it on DVR. I don't know. I feel like it's like you're feeling on the personal anecdotes of Jeopardy are sort of really says a lot about are you endlessly fascinated by the diversity of the human experience or do you just want to know more potent potables? Yeah? Skip it. Take me to the potent potables. I don't give a shit a but I don't care. It's it's no personal deed, no real names, no eye contact, no real names. Come on to Jeopardy. It's about the answers. It's about the facts. It's about the love of the game. It's about the white hot crucible of person to person competitions. I don't give where you're from. Cut to this chase, baby, that's my that's my tan. Yeah, good luck, good luck cutting around that runtime. Wow, you can try it. You evoking, no kissing, no eye contact. Describe Jeopardy is bone chilling names Yeah. Mr Pink, Mr Orange. That's what they come on as. And it's just I want if games only last minutes of like playtime, it should be like deathmatch, like you should film tenant to film twenty of these a day, More and more people in, the more meat that the Jeopardy machine threshes through. That's what's honorable to me about it. You know, Um, okay, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more. Too much information in just a moment. Well well, according to the Jeopardy website, which does not heard of their contestants, as meat. Um. The show tapes five episodes a day, around forty six days a year for regular season episodes, which means there's about twitter than thirty new episodes shot every year. Um. And Jeopardy shoots on the Sony Pictures lot, which is where not only We Loove Fortune shoots, but also where Wizard of Oz was filmed, I believe, on the same sound stage. Um, you think, oh absolutely. I mean, isn't there that that myth about the about the Munchkin, which is which is not just a bird in the background, but at least definitely the ghost of Judy Garland's childhood is probably still haunting that place. I thought, I really thought this would be like the most lighthearted Fawn episode. And yeah, for I mean, speaking of you know, they do five episodes of Jeopardy. We just taped three episodes. The third episode that we've taped today. We've done rumors with you know, the Blizzard of Cocaine. We've done the Royal Tenembounds, which involves somebody's finger getting sliced off, and you know, it's somehow Jeopardy was was not the one that I would have pegged as the one with you evoking you know the law of the Blade. Yeah, my my cone in the barbarian esque take on competition. Well, you know, it's just the it's just my quizzble killer instant coming back. Baby. I was gonna say, now, I'm starting to see why this was so painful for you when he lost. Wow. Well, taking it to game day, contestants and games are chosen at random to ensure there's no cheating, and for each clue selected by a contestant, like you know, whenever they say I'll take potent potables for four hundred or whatever, they actually have a dedicated person whose job it is to manually activate the game board backstage. So there's no robotic anything involved with this production. It's all compliance officers and people. They're like really strict about this. Um Alex Trebeck because he shoots so many Because he shot uh so many episodes a day. Uh, he had to change his suit five times a dating for the keep up the illusion that it was a different day. He supposedly had at one point over a hundred suits UM, which is pretty impressive. On game day, he would wake up at five fifteen in the morning and arrive at studio around six, and he guess He had a whole series of pre show rituals, reading the newspaper, doing the crossword, all the kind of chill out stuff you'd probably imagine for a man of Trabec stature. Uh. And he reads through all the scripts and would read through all the game boards. I guess they had it like printed out on like a piece of paper, like the game board, and he would, you know, read through all make sure you all the pronunciations right and everything. And you would notice when he was at his podium in the middle of the game, he looked like he was writing stuff. He would scratch off questions as he went on on his little paper game board in front of him, just so um, you know, so he just to keep it from being confused. But yeah, there's something really sweet. I guess after he died. Um, the suits were donated to something called the Dough Funds, which gives UH formally incarcerated men uh suits to wear on on job interviews. Is there that's some good mojo to bring in? By all accounts, Drabek was. I mean, we'll get to more of this later, but by all accounts, Drabek was just just the best, and like you know, friends of mine have interviewed him and stuff, have said that he was just a magical guy. Um. But yeah, after he would arrive with a lot at six am and he was usually on his way home by like four good gig. You know, he's just like he's like I just go to work. He's a craft dedicated to his craft. Oh yeah, so we got some game time secrets from contestants. There's been a lot of contestants over the years who have you know, written blog posts and you know, started websites and stuff about you know. Um. Contestants usually watch from the audience before they're going up to play, which is gotta be nerve racking. Like when I was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I can't imagine they kept me backstage, Like I can't imagine watching other people do what I was about to try to do. Like that's got a mess with your head. Purpose They're like, we got with these people. Um, but during gameplay, you get it's approximately thirteen minutes to answer fifty questions and apparently contestants are not allowed to acknowledge family members or anybody in the audience in any way. You can't shout. But apparently there was a time when one contestant, during their personal anecdote moment, proposed to his girlfriend from the stage. She was and she was in the audience, which you know, I imagine Trebek had a hand and in helping matt Um no real names and shed She replied, what is yes, because nerds beget nerds. That's when we have like the audience. The audience goes, oh, that's not even yeah. I was gonna say, that's not even the first time that happened. Maybe No, I guess there's somebody else who proposed is of their girlfriend. They were just like in the audience and during a commercial break, he got down on one knee. Uh, which I admire the extreme fandom dedication, but there's something about proposing in the middle of a commercial break, just that that inherent fact kind of takes me out of it. But I wasn't important enough to be on the air. Well, I guess like when they came back, Trebec said something like, you know, we had a little bit of happy news from all the audience, and they I think they showed a picture of the guy, like, you know, on his own one knee or something. But after the game is over again, they're shooting five thirty minutes shows in a row with really kind of minimal breaks. Uh, the winner doesn't really have a whole lot of time to do any kind of major victory lap. So really you only have about ten minutes to after you know, the thrill of victory to go backstage, change your clothes, get your makeup replied, and then go back out there behind the podium and uh get back in the in the gladiatorial thunderdome, back into the thunderdome. You know, Jordan, I don't know if you know this about me, but I love podium PODi. I I love PODII, I love platforms, I love stages, I love dais is, I love rostrums, I love soapboxes. So about the podium that some stuff to tell me about for a uh, so we're under a little segment we like to call Secrets of the Podium, which the first is Risers, which is probably it seems pretty obvious you want them all in the same shot. So rather than doing the classic thing that they do with Tom Cruise or key for something, and when they put them on an apple create uh, they do that, they actually do just that they put them each of the podiums has risers, so they get all the contestants roughly up to the same height. It's like in Taxi when Danny DeVito comes out from the stand the first time and he's like half as tall as everyone thought he was. And so moving on to another great aspect of the PODi I, there's one visual aspect of the podiums. It's actually a way for people to keep track of what's going on in the game. There's a little white light in the lower left hand corner that will turn on and that indicates, um, the competitor who answered the last clue correctly tribec to know like who's got the who's got control of the board, and stuff like that, just so he doesn't have to like keep track of everything that's going on and to avoid some of the all important sight lines of the podium. The PODII what is the plural podium? I don't think there's ever been more than one podium in a give in space. Ever, two more podiums actually exist in a state of superimposition at the same time. Um there is speaking of speaking of things that exists in a state of quantum superimposition. There's two scoreboards going on at the same time. In Jeopardy, there's the scoreboard behind or to the side of the contestants, and then there's one in all of their line of sight, so that that helps them determine how much they're waging in the Daily Doubles and Jeopardy, But so they are not constantly creating their necks to find out what's going on in the game. And then oh, this is my favorite when I do this one. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, we'd be remiss if we didn't get a chance to talk about the screen pen. Yes, the screen pen. I mean a lot of contestants have complained about, you know, how awful their handwriting looks and penmanship looks, you know, when they're writing their name and on on their their final Jeopardy answers and stuff like that. Uh. Ken Jennings, writing an article for Cracked, wrote that it's like writing with an icicle on class. It's apparently very hard to to use. Uh And producers of the show apparently really go out of their way to make sure that contestants know the difference between the pen and the buzzer, because apparently there was an incident where a woman was on the show and she was unable to buzz in for a single question during the entire first segment of the game. And when she complained during commercial, Uh, someone on the set walked over and looked and realized that she'd been trying to buzz in with pen the whole time and just like clicking it furiously, which like is heartbreaking too. I mean, think about you know, I mean, think about how many rounds of auditions and stuff that you've got to go through all the I mean when people and we'll get to this later, like contestants, when they know they're going to get a shot on Jeopardy, they spend like months preparing and all that. I mean, it's just that that that broke my heart. So if you ever do get to be on Jeopardy, make sure you know the difference between the pen and the buzzer. It may save your life. But while we were talking about the the audition process, it is so hard, and I can confirm this because I've tried to take the online test and did not get anywhere near it. Uh, it's so hard that you have apparently, you have a greater chance statistically becoming a New York Times best selling author than a contestant on Jeopardy UH. Jeopardy, according to its website, has a point for acceptance rate. I guess more than a hundred thousand people take the online application quizz each year. Of those, I think three thousand would be contestants are chosen for an interview and then they're also subjected to a fifty question written test and I guess like a run through live round of Jeopardy UH, and they have to complete all of those steps before they're being they ever ever asked to appear on air. The annual the actual number of contestants annually varies because you know, you never know how long a winning streak might go, so there was no set number per year of contestants, but it's usually less than a thousand and so for you know, a hundred thousand people trying out annually, that's that's some crazy odds. Now, before you try to audition, there are some things that can get you just qualified. People who have appeared on a nationally broadcast game show in the past year are ineligible, so are people who have appeared on three game shows in the last decade um. And most importantly, you can't be on Jeopardy if you've been on Wheel of Fortune. I didn't realize there was. The Jeopardy was so spiteful towards really the same they're owned by the same. I think it's like a conflict of interesting or something. They're owned by the same. Which one would you rather be on? Oh, Jeopardy? I watched Jeopardy so often that I when Travec was alive, I could predict the daily double because there was an imperceptible pause in his voice, and I knew it every time, and like, oh, I I loved it. That would have that was my I deeply regret not being smart enough to mean you know you you you might have dodged a bullet, like considering considering, had you made it, you would have been put in the position of lying to everyone that you do like, go ahead and explain what happens if you're actually selected. But that is true, um I mentioned this earlier. Jeopardy is sort of like Fight Club. Winners really can't talk about where they're going. They're very secretive, and a lot of game shows are like this too. You can't really tell people that you're about to go on do a game show, and it gets really hard when you win as much as someone like say Ken Jennings did when he had seventy four wins and he'd recorded forty eight shows before his first episode aired, because they take these way in advance, and so he was missing from his work of his job like every other Tuesday and Wednesday for like months on end. And um, I guess, I guess he did tell his boss. I think it was in his interview with Cracked, which is a great piece where he talks all about, you know, his experience on Jeopardy. He said, my boss told my co workers a series of increasingly implausible lies about my whereabouts every other Tuesday and Wednesday. Sorry, this is on his website. You think computer programmers are all geniuses. No one ever caught on. I think it's gotta be one of the more innocuous things to get caught doing in secret. Yeah, you're secretly on Jeopardy. Now, that's that's fair. Um there. I mentioned this earlier. The way that people prepare not only for the you know, auditions, not only to be on the show, but the auditions. There's pretty elaborate methods to do so. And then there's a massive internet archive of I believe every Jeopardy question ever, and it's called the j exclamation mark archive. Um archive uh, and I guess they filed transcripts for I think every episode of Jeopardy that exists. I haven't checked it in a while, but as of like, I think it had I think almost everything out there. According to an article on Slate, and again, this was in eleven, so I'm sure that this number has increased significantly, there were four undred and twelve thousand, eight hundred and eighty three clues that you can study, and I guess a computer programmer ram them all through some kind of a program looking for patterns and commonalities and all the categories and questions. And you know, as I said, this article is a decade old, so the ratio might have changed, but at least back in twenty eleven, the most common category was before, after, it was before and after which I hate. I am so bad at all the word game things. Um. I mean again, there have been hundreds of categories that have been included on the show over the years multiple times, but this one appeared as of a hundred and fourteen times, so that's that's pretty frequent. What is its incidents? It accounts for? According to the Slate article point to six percent of all categories, and that's one out of every three and eighty seven categories. So you have a one in three to eighty seven shot of you getting a before and after, which is like part of being a contestant, like you have to like run the numbers on this kind of stuff like black jack. Well, I mean sort of. I mean I don't know about that. But the way that people prepare for this is nuts. You can get into that now, I mean, Ken Jennings at least before we do what's the other what's the other statistical find from this? Oh? That's right. The most common answer, most common correct answer I should say on Jeopardy is what is China? Uh So, if you ever find yourself in jeopardy and for some reason you need to make a guess, which is usually not advisable because if you make a guess and you're wrong, you lose money. But if it's like an argument, you need to make a guess, say what is China? Statistically, that's most often the common response, or at least it was in so you know what counting cards? Baby, we're getting into this, but stuttying up on you know the statistics of questions is you know, it's only going to get you so far right, the probability of whether or not the answer is what is China? Maybe not as helpful as, say, learning how the buzzer works. Mastering the buzzer. Ken Jennings, you know, probably the biggest Jeopardy streak winner of the past recent whatever. He attributes his success to his reflexes and fans of the show obviously know that one of the inviolable rules of the game is that contestants have to wait for the host to finish the clue completely before they can press the buzzer. But that was not always the case. According to the show's official website, earlier in its history, contestants could ring the buzzer at any point during the clue, which obviously led to you know, people jumping the gun, giving quick guesses, a lot of negative scores, and general confusion. Um producers decided to silence the buzzers because the noise was too distracting and kept interrupting, but that still wasn't how they decided to tamp down on on this this wildly out of order, chaotic atmosphere of Jeopardy with cocaine and I'm sorry. So now there is a crew member, and this is Jeopardy is a really impressive jobs creator, because now there's a crew member whose job is to turn on everybody's buttons at the precise moment the host finishes reading the final syllable of the last word of the clue. Well, I guess if you if you ring in early, I guess it locks you out for like you get like a like a like a fraction of a second penalty for doing that, which I mean again is it's a cruel game Jeopardy. And you know the other time too is the other corollary that the discovered from that was by preventing people from buzzing in early. UM, great cave time for the home audience to be able to shout out the answers to UM. But some people have talked about like the physical lengths that they went to and there are you know, articles out there as you might expect proper thumb placement, your hand position, UM, but people practice with a fake buzzer. A pen, Yeah, I would imagine a pen clicking. Yeah. One contestant said I would stand up in front of the TV with a pen in my hand to simulate the buzzer um that got me used to the rhythms and speed of Trebec's speaking voice, which is such a people's yeah, getting in people's heads, like, oh man, this show is in city US. Other winners practiced by by this is insane. Other winners have practiced by shining, having a bright light shown in their face, and playing along with friends to mimic the added pressure that an audience brings. Like it's like it's like, uh, like the opposite of a sensory depth tank. You know that they're bombarding you with stuff to see how well you can hold up under pressure, trying to be a nassa when they like you and like a like a the G four and like, you know, I could steer yourself out of this, like yeah, it's I want to space camp And they didn't pull this kind of stuff. But you know, people have also developed strategies for for playing to go along with all this straight. I mean, how could you not. If you're going to prep the physical minutia, you better have a strategy for playing. So what are some of those? Well, there's really kind of two schools of thought with how to play Jeopardy. I mean there's the recommended the classically trained version, and this is the game. The method that the show recommends is basically the slow and steady route, where you just moved methodically down the category, starting with the easiest questions and working your way up to the hard ones. Ken Jennings later said it's easier to follow at home, and it helps players acclimate to a category before getting to the really hard clues. He said that an interview with mental flaws. But there is for the rebellious Jeopardy contestant, there's a technique known as Forrest bouncing, and it was named for a Tournament of Champions winner, Chuck Forrest, and it's basically you bounce back and forth kind of it ran the between categories, different levels of basically your prioritizing randomness to try to catch the other contestants off card to wrong foot the other contestants and increase your chances of getting a daily double. So apparently this is legal, but discouraged because it makes it harder for players at home to play along. So Forest bouncing maybe legal, but you know what's not legal? What's not certain bids for Final Jeopardy. Apparently contestants are not allowed to make certain wagers at the at the very end. Uh. One of them is sixty nine. They are not allowed to bid sixty nine dollars. They there are five band dollar amount sixty nine is one of them that was panned in eighteen. Uh yeah, that it made it a long time. But Ken Jennings said in a tweet in twenty nineteen that it was a very recent banning Jeopardy James, the famous thirty two times Jeopardy winner, James holes Hour. I think it's how you say his last name. He also chimed in on apparently this tweet thread about band Jeopardy bids, that there are four other band wagers. Uh six six six you can't pid six hundred and sixty six dollars. You can't bid which you know for alleged satanic reasons. And then I was not familiar with this. You can't bid fourteen dollars or eighty eight dollars or one thousand, four hundred and eighty eight dollars. I guess there's a white supremacy group connotation to one eight eight. I wasn't familiar with that, but that has been banned as well. So those are the five band Jeopardy kids. And speaking of Final Jeopardy, there has been a three way tie only once in the they really missed an opportunity to um score this to the end of the Good, Bad, and New Ugly just like had just a long protracted shot of at also setting it out in a graveyard. I have ideas if they ever tapped me. Oh yeah, they need a new host. Yeah we I go. We're not, by the way of anyone you know who still listening to this episode, Um we are. We're not going to get into the whole current debacle that is trying to find a new permanent Jeopardy host. We're going classic Jeopardy all the way. Um. But yes, it was March six, two thousand seven. All three contestants answered the final Jeopardy question correctly with matching scores of sixteen thousand apiece, and they're all invited to play again the next day or ten minutes later, depending on whether or not you were at home or in the studio audience. Uh, there's actually been one Jeopardy catastrophe that has mercifully never happened, and that's if all three contestants have negative scores before going in the final Jeopardy. I guess if that did happen according to the rules of the game. I think this is on the show's website. Uh. In the event all three contestants have zero or minus amounts at the end of double Jeopardy, no final Jeopardy round would be played. I wonder how they would fill that time. I almost wonder if, like, why don't you just give them my personal anecdotes person I don't know, give give him house money to play with, like you got you got add time, or maybe they're gonna maybe they're hoping that happens so they got a more ad time to sell. I don't know, but um, apparently their website suggests that they would make up a new rule like on the fly if that ever actually happen, kid will do it live. But yeah, that has never happened, and it's it's sort of statistically unlikely to ever happen. As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with more too much information after these messages, how I go, why don't you tell us what happens to the contestants and their prize money? Well? Uh, up until everyone received the full value of their cash winnings, even if they hadn't made the overall even they hadn't won overall, But Jeopardy quit doing that because people ruin everything. That was basically what happened. Jeopardy stopped doing that because he became clear that two contestants that if they weren't going to win, they would just start hoarding their money by playing conservatively or refusing to participate or guess wouldn't buzz in it, wouldn't play yeah yeah, and is running out the clock, and and there was an incident where contestant kind of rather sweetly needed money for an engagement ring and assume yeah an audience audience goes ah um, and so he just like stood in like mute silence for the rest of the episode after he'd made enough. And then so back then, if you one one, if you made it to the end of the show while still having negative money, uh, that just meant walking away with nothing. So then from two two the show started giving second and third place. There's non cash items like vacations and sponsor merch um. But then since May two thousand two and up till today, non winners take home a set amount of cash, So now you've got fixed prizes. Second place winners pick up two grand. Third place finishers get one thousand dollars. And the fashion now behind that is it's intended to at least cover their flight in their hotel since the show does pay for that. Um. I mean that would be a big expenditure if they're flying in people from you know, all around the country and everything. I mean, what's the money? What's the calculus behind Jeopardy like aside from tribec I guess there's a small army of people who work on this show apparently, I mean the buzzer person buzzer, that's sixteen sixteen writers, tribacing trereking cheap, you know, I mean it was worth every damp, every penny. Yeah, man, yeah, I do wonder what the calculus is there? They could afford it. I think they could afford it other way. Whatever days that's the other there there's I guess they shot what did I say, forty six days a year. I mean that's so many I don't know. I'm going to use my platform, my massive platform and the massive reach I have on social media all of my followers to engage and forced Jeopardy to pay for flights and hotels for contestants. I think that's just a small thing. So oh I did. I mean that's what I'm getting behind. You're going to die? Yeah, I will die on this hill and it can take closing finally getting back around him fighting a game show that you've never been on and have no desire to be. Don't watch. Um, it takes six months to get your cash. How about that, You've got a six months waiting period. What about that guy who was trying to get engaged? They take six months to give him? Ah Man, Jeopardy, you do people, dirty savage show. It's a savage show. All right. Let's talk about what happens when you win. Let's talk about some of the people who have won one. I already already we name dropped Ken Jennings. What happened to Ken Jennings? Ken Jennings, that's right, we name dropped him. He has the record for the most consecutive games one that's seventy four. That was in two thousand four. It's really sweet. Apparently when he finally did lose, he said that he saw tears and Trebec's eyes and like they got kind of tight during it. Yeah, and during his run he won two million, five thousand seven hundred dollars and in the regular season. I think that's the most anyone who's ever played playing Jeopardy Um and Jennings. He later said that the experience kind of gave him a mild form of PTSD. UH. He said he basically can't watch Jeopardy anymore, like comly changes really like he said, and this is a quote from I think this is his cracked article. I find that I have a hard time sitting on my couch and lazily shouting answers at Trebec like I used to. Everything about the show, the music, the graphics, the sound effects causes some fight or flight adrenaline spike in my blood and I become hyper aware of every detail of the show. Maybe I have post traumatic stress disorder. What about Brad rudder That's right, Brad Rutterer has one the most amount of money if tournaments are included. I think he's just like a recurring UH tournament winner. His all time winnings are almost five million hours, four million, nine hundred thirty eight thousand, four hundred thirty six and Jennings total amount of money every won, including his tournament to champions winnings is four million, three hundred seventy thousand, seven hundred dollars, So both have seen amounts of money, but Brad Rutterer edges him out. And then the most that someone could conceivably ever win on one episode of Jeopardy is UM five hundred sixty six thousand, four hundred dollars. That's like, that's like a score and bowling or something like. That's okay, It's like, you know, you're a contestant, would have to sweep both boards, find all three daily doubles, make them true daily doubles, and way go all in on Final Jeopardy. I mean, the statistics of that are just absolutely ridiculous. No one has gotten anywhere close to, you know, to that amount. The closest who yeah, I was gonna say count to the closest is Jeopardy James James holds Our. He's the current Hall of Famer with the highest single game winnings. He won a hundred and thirty one thousand, one hundred twenty seven dollars on April se He owns the list of the top ten highest single game scores. They're literally all him. I mean it's not bad for work, no, that's it's pretty amazing. Um. Do you hear about the lowest scores? I absolutely do. Oh yeah, the lowest scores. I mean they would make Sean Connery on sn I Celebrity Jeopardy blush um for a normal game. I don't even want to say his full name. A man named Patrick uh currently holds the current record for the lowest single game score of minus seven thousand, four hundred. That was just recently in July. I mean, you know, I see how it could have happened. It's it's it's it's easier than you would expect. If you're really like Dyan, the only way to dig yourself out is just to keep buzzing in. Just hey, I mean, because you can't, like, once you're in the red, you can't go low, like you know, it doesn't matter at that point. All you can do is that you could go bigger, go home, like just try for it. And so you know, obviously that didn't work out that great for this this gentleman um. Prior to that, the lowest score was by a woman named Stephanie in March, and that was minus nd um. She told Slate in an interview in that she has not rewatched the episode since it aired, but um, she has some theories about why she did so poorly. She said that the daily doubles were gotten by the other players and that's really key in terms of strategy. Um. She also said that she buzzed in and answered incorrectly on every two thousand dollar question. That's rough, but I guess. She said that Trebek tried to make her feel better afterwards by coming up to her and saying that was a really weird board, really weird. That's like, yeah, apparently that this woman's uh. Stephanie created an online community for female Jeopardy players because the Facebook group because um, and this is a quota, because it turns out the people who tend to get the most negativity on the internet are women, shocker, um. And so they have created what she calls sort of an Internet sorority of smart women who have opinions on lots of different things and support each other and care about each other and help each other and we're there for each other. And she said it's been a great support system and she's made some great friends that way from fellow female Jeopardy contestants. But I think is is uh, you know what. I also love the lowest Celebrity Jeopardy Uh Uh if you could while you see the answer of funny, I was gonna say, the person who has the lowest celebrity Jeopardy score was not the person I would have expected. It is Wolf Blitzer. Uh. He belying both of his names. He has the lowest celebrity Jeopardy score. Uh. He negative during the general Jeopardy rounds. Because it was all for charity, the producers gave him a grand so they can participate in Final Jeopardies so we could raise more money or try to raise more money. Like pity, He's like pity money about that? What? What do you remember what show it was that they had a bit about. Was that The Simpsons where they talk about it was taking away money. Yeah, it's like you got you got negative march pay up and they like take her up back. It was that actually him. I think it was actually surprised me doing the voice, yeah, because I know he he appeared. He did all sorts of guest spots on like he was on Baywatch. He was on I mean, as we talked about in Rugrats, he was a Trepek esque game show host and that like he was really game for a lot. I mean that he said in an interview, like, you know, being able to like laugh at yourself was kind of crucial at uh, you know, just for being a public fan. The best I'm gonna become inarticulate over this next category because it's so damn funny. It's one of my like even you know, when like when there was like that kind of wilderness era when you could just like Kazah or lime Wire like snl skits and just download the audio from it. Oh yeah, so now I have like that was like some of the stuff that I spent like the most time downloading. So I had all of these on like just on my headphones. So I was like going around and mowing the lawn for money in my neighborhood. So just like Will Ferrell as Alex Trebec just saying like and the show has reached like that's just burned in my head for forever. I love it so dearly. Yeah, his cadence on that was if I think it was and it didn't approach anything like Trebek actually sounded. That was kind of the best part was that it was just totally it's its own thing, and Trebek reportedly loved it because he guessed it. Yeah, he guessed it on it so but but yeah, I mean, what art imitating real life life image hating art? Did he actually hate Sean Connery? No? I mean somebody apparently asked Trebek like, have you ever met him? And he said no, no, but if I did a punch him in the mouth. No, no, this close. If I were ever to meet Sean Connery, I would punch his lights out. Um. He did make a cameo on the s Live Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. Um, sadly it wasn't all that funny. No, it's one of the ones that has kind of the flatter lines. Uh, it lands with the line has not aged. Well, yes, no that is true. But no, he apparently was a big fan of the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketches. Well, Trebek can afford to be self deprecating because I mean, obviously he's a national treasure and Jeopardy is I don't know if he knows the most decorated game show in history. Bam, what's the rack of giving the lightning around? What are the plot? It's I think it has earned four Guinness World Records. Announcer Johnny Gilbert, you know, the This is Jeopardy guy? Uh? He who is the record for the longest career as a game show announcer for a single show. Uh. And Alex treveca is is uh you know, he's the Who's the Baseball? Now? I was gonna make a yeah, he's the I Alex Trebek obviously the Cal Ripken Jr. Of of trivia TV shows. That is my one sports factoy. By the way, I remember the day he broke that record. My principal walked into the our elementary school classroom and wrote whatever number of games he played on the board and underlined it and gave this very stern face like this is a lesson in endurance. And I obviously I never forgot it, like thirty almost years later. But and here we are relating it to hosting a game show. But yes, yeah, exactly. So. That is one of the other Guinness records that the show holds. Um It also holds the most Emmy awards, most Emmy wins of any any game show at forty one Jesus. And it's also the Bananas the Bananza, although now it's The Simpsons. You have to update that reference. It's the Simpsons of game shows. It's the longest running quiz show of all time and it even yes it's it also want a Peabody Award, inn, which is one of the most prestigious awards and broadcasting. So well done Jeopardy, I think it deserves all of its honors. And trippec I cannot say enough about the guy. You know, truly one of the most beloved pop cultural figures. I'd like to end with a tribute to the late great Alex trepec Um. It's a story that, to me is really a testament to the man. He was big on April Fool's Day and used to use the show as a stage for these pranks, and in sten he pulled off what I think is kind of the most amazing April Fool's Day prank for a man of his stature. He walked out onto the Jeopardy set at the beginning of the show with no pants on, which I just think, is uh that that's my my favorite memory of the man. Yeah, even with all of those Emmy forty one Emmy wins. Well, I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm really happy with ending on the image of a pencils Alex Trebeck on stage at Jeopardy. I think that that's like, you know, it's like at the end of Butch casting a Sundance kid, but it's like a freest frame Like That's kind of how I would like to remember him and sum up this whole uh, this, this whole experience for probably if you were to pin me down, say my favorite show, I'm gonna go ahead and have a few potent potables in his honor. Well, uh, hi will thank you for for indulging me on this one. I know this this was probably traumatic for you to revisit the quiz Ball, but I thank you because I really had a great time doing this one. Until next time, I'm Jordan run Todd. Yeah, I'm Alex Oigo and this has been too much information. Too much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer was Mike John's. The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts on iHeart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.