General, long-nagging Final Jeopardy! Question

[HYHYBT]

This is just something that's never made sense to me. The wager is a single number; seven characters max, if they use both a dollar sign and a comma, and I've never yet seen one crossed out and re-written. (I assume that if someone writes illegibly or makes a mistake, it's erased.)

The question, on the other hand, is three words minimum (often much longer, sometimes involving multiple parts), needs to be legible, and sometimes is altered before time runs out. Where, then, did they get the idea that 2/3 or so of the available space should be reserved for the wager? Who in their right mind, in designing this in the first place, wouldn't have done it the other way around, and why has it never been changed?

(And if it *has* been changed, I apologize for saying otherwise... but would still love to hear why.)

[chad1m]

(And if it *has* been changed, I apologize for saying otherwise... but would still love to hear why.)

I'm pretty sure, if I remember correctly (and this was November 2002), that I wrote my wager separately from my clue. I wrote my wager, that "screen" went away and now I had the full display on which to write my response. I believe the two are combined graphically on-screen.

[HYHYBT]

I've never, of course, been a contestant... but if you really do have the entire screen available for the response, how do people who get cramped for space fit it so well into what we see at home, both in the on-screen graphic and on the physical monitor below the score? You can tell by the writing that the image hasn't been squashed or stretched. (Tonight's that reminded me to ask was a good example, but I won't elaborate this soon.)

If it's only the audience that sees it that way, that's more puzzling, not less. Why go out of the way to make it *look* like there's so little space for the question and so much for the wager at all, but especially if it's not true?

[Matt Ottinger]

If it's only the audience that sees it that way, that's more puzzling, not less. Why go out of the way to make it *look* like there's so little space for the question and so much for the wager at all, but especially if it's not true?

As a contestant, I can tell you that nobody went out of their way to tell us that the wager had to fill up a certain percentage of the screen.   The wagers are, of course, written first.  Given an entire blank screen to work with, I guess it's not surprising that some people would write their wagers large.  Also, you're never going to see a tiny, illegible wager because TPTB can just have you re-write it, and there needs to be no question about what the wager is.

It's also possibly I don't understand your question.  There's only one screen, and a player has already written the wager at the bottom of it when the clue is revealed.  Obviously, you're told to write your response as clearly as possible.  So the player knows how much screen he has to work with, and you'll tend to fill that space almost instinctively.  I really don't see the great mystery here.

[TheLastResort]

When they reveal the contestants' answers, the director does a partial horizontal wipe, stopping just above the dollar amount.  I guess the question is whether that horizontal division line is predefined on the contestants' monitors, or if the director is doing a manual wipe and just stopping at the appropriate point.

[Matt Ottinger]

When they reveal the contestants' answers, the director does a partial horizontal wipe, stopping just above the dollar amount.  I guess the question is whether that horizontal division line is predefined on the contestants' monitors, or if the director is doing a manual wipe and just stopping at the appropriate point.

That's a point I hadn't considered.  Again, I don't recall that there were any specific instructions or pre-determined "zones", but honestly, that's the sort of thing that would have been so irrelevant at the time that it may have happened and I just didn't retain the memory.

[JasonA1]

When they reveal the contestants' answers, the director does a partial horizontal wipe, stopping just above the dollar amount.  I guess the question is whether that horizontal division line is predefined on the contestants' monitors, or if the director is doing a manual wipe and just stopping at the appropriate point.

Once upon a time, this was true. In the earlier days of the Trebek run, there was an ugly telestrator line drawn (by the contestants?) between the two, and this was exactly how they did it. I seem to recall one of the stills in "The Jeopardy Book" showing a physical line on the monitor for the contestants to distinguish between the two areas. Now I would wager (pardon the pun) that it's done in a rather idiot-proof way like Chad describes.

-Jason

[BrandonFG]

It's been awhile since I've been able to watch, but I'm pretty sure the question/response box is one large rectangle, while the wager is displayed in a skinny horizontal window. The two windows are now separate.

[Kevin Prather]

Before the move to HD, the ratio between the response space and wager space was greater. I have to imagine they could scale things to fit if they had to.

[HYHYBT]

This thread has certainly gone in an unexpected direction...

All right, let me try putting it the other way around: on yesterday's show (Monday, April 16) one contestant was clearly squeezing her revised answer in in a manner that would make no sense whatsoever if she had the whole screen to work with. Why would she have done that, if not because the skinny window we see at home is all the space they have available?

(Alternately: regardless of how it's done now, my initial question is, at the very least, a valid one for 80's episodes.)

[gameshowcrazy]

This thread has certainly gone in an unexpected direction...

in a manner that would make no sense whatsoever if she had the whole screen to work with. Why would she have done that, if not because the skinny window we see at home is all the space they have available?

You seem to feel contestants will always do what makes sense, but just look at many of the wagers themselves to realize contestants are not all about logical thinking.

[TLEberle]

Why would she have done that, if not because the skinny window we see at home is all the space they have available?

Because she wrote answer x without space as a concern, thinking she had the right answer already, then she realized "oh crap, it's answer y, I wish I would have left more room?"

Those who have won commission on the field of battle: are you instructed as to how to write your responses on the magic pad? In the early days of Survivor, Jeff would say "write the name of the person in big block letters on the parchment", so I wonder if Jeopardy players are coached to fill up the space.

[chad1m]

I accidentally deleted my post which Travis quoted, but I did indeed say that.

are you instructed as to how to write your responses on the magic pad?

I don't believe so. The only help we were given was we were told to write down the first word of our question ("who," for me) so that we didn't lose because of a lack of phrasing.

[tomobrien]

The only help we were given was we were told to write down the first word of our question ("who," for me) so that we didn't lose because of a lack of phrasing.

We were told to "write big" (by the big A himself).  Of course, this was first season, and I think we were chiseling on stone tablets....

[curtking]

(Alternately: regardless of how it's done now, my initial question is, at the very least, a valid one for 80's episodes.)

When I was on the show (1987), the staff put a piece of plastic (1/4" thick or so) over the top half of the screen.  We were instructed to write our wager on the bottom half of the screen.  Once we had written our wager, the plastic was moved down to cover the wager, leaving the top half free to write our answer.

Incidentally, at the time there was a button on the top side of the screen that would erase the entire screen.  We were told not to touch it. :-)

Curt