$0

[J.R.]

The talk about Jeopardy ties had me thinking.

Has there ever been an episode of anything in which a grand total of nothing was given away? (Things like consolation gifts don't count)

ETA: I'd like to keep this to American shows only. I know the UK has quite a few recent stuff with nothing won.

Appreciated as always.

[PYLdude]

The talk about Jeopardy ties had me thinking.

Has there ever been an episode of anything in which a grand total of nothing was given away? (Things like consolation gifts don't count)

Appreciated as always.

I'm guessing you mean flat footed zero ties where none of the players involved was a returning champion, right?

[JasonA1]

There were two three-way ties at $0 on Press Your Luck.

-Jason

[J.R.]

I'm guessing you mean flat footed zero ties where none of the players involved was a returning champion, right?

I mean just flat out nothing, ties or not.

Hope that clears it up a bit.

[TLEberle]

Has there ever been an episode of anything in which a grand total of nothing was given away?

Several episodes of Street Smarts ended in a 0-0 tie.

[PYLdude]

There were two three-way ties at $0 on Press Your Luck.

-Jason

And at least one instance where a champ won $0 because the other opponents whammied out.

[Matt Ottinger]

Like lots of questions of this type, it's not as simple as it sounds.

Consider Debt, for example.  Losing players got savings bonds of $200 and $500 respectively.  The winner played to get his entire "debt" of a few thousand eliminated, but then played "Bet Your Debt" for double or nothing.  "Nothing" still meant a $1000 or $1500 savings bond, but all those savings bonds could be considered consolation prizes.  So there could have been plenty of times where "nothing" was won as you're defining it.

[WilliamPorygon]

As for J! itself, the second Trebek episode ended with everyone betting it all on Final Jeopardy and missing.

[Jay Temple]

On freakin' Studs, each of the three women decided in advance which guy she'd like to go out with again, if either. If I remember it precisely, the two ways for a guy to win were: (1) He scores more matches and the woman he chooses also chose him, or (2) He loses, but the winner fails on method (1), and his chosen women does choose him. I know I saw a game where neither man won. It was possible to go through the entire game and find out at the end that neither woman wanted to go out with either man again; i.e., there was never even a possibility of a winner.

[That Don Guy]

There were two (that I know of) episodes of The Gong Show where all of the eligible acts were either gonged or interrupted for some reason (in one case, it was during the show's last week, so they had a lot of returning acts, including "The Worm"), so nobody won the prize.

There was one tournament episode of Jeopardy! - in the last seniors tournament, I think - where none of the players had a positive score at the end of Double Jeopardy, so they didn't even bother with the FJ question (the three players got whatever they paid first-round tournament losers back then - $1000, I think - but technically that was a consolation prize).


Those are the "definite" ones I can think of off the top of my head.  I can think of some "possible" ones:

It's possible that a couple on The Moneymaze won zero - at least one couple lost all of the first three rounds but ended up winning the game, and they could have won zero in the $10,000 Dash.

I assume a number of episodes of GSN's Friend or Foe had everybody saying "foe" so nobody won anything?

[Steve Gavazzi]

There was one tournament episode of Jeopardy! - in the last seniors tournament, I think - where none of the players had a positive score at the end of Double Jeopardy, so they didn't even bother with the FJ question (the three players got whatever they paid first-round tournament losers back then - $1000, I think - but technically that was a consolation prize).

So how did they fill the time at the end of the show?

[clemon79]

So how did they fill the time at the end of the show?

Musical guest.

[Ian Wallis]

There were two three-way ties at $0 on Press Your Luck

There was also a show where two players tied with $0 and the other whammied out; plus at least one other where two players whammied out and the third was left with $0.

The three-way $0 tie also happened at least once on Second Chance, as evidenced by a recently turned-up audio only episode.

[Kevin Prather]

Seems to me a 3-way tie at zero on PYL would be above and beyond relevant to the OP. No cash awarded, and since everyone's returning, no parting gifts on that particular episode.

EDIT: Travis corrects me by way of Bob Harris. Evidently, you get your Lovely Parting Gifts on a per episode basis.

[SRIV94]

There were two (that I know of) episodes of The Gong Show where all of the eligible acts were either gonged or interrupted for some reason (in one case, it was during the show's last week, so they had a lot of returning acts, including "The Worm"), so nobody won the prize.

The other was in the last show of the second Steve Martin week in 1977, but in that instance the "Worst Act of the Week" (later to become the "Most Outrageous Act of the Week") was from that episode, so $516.32 was given away.  (They stopped that award in early 1978.)