Hardest/most unfair question on a game show?

[aaron sica]

Took in an episode of "Pass the Buck" over the weekend on YouTube. In case you've not seen it, it's based around lists, with 4 contestants answering a question like "Name a section of the newspaper" and dropping out when they can't answer. The bonus round consists of 4 items, then 3, then 2, then 1. Naming all of the items in the list nets you $5,000, but if you can't name all of them, naming at least 1 will allow you to advance.

The contestant got all the way to the top tier, where there is only 1 answer. The question? "Name a word starting with Z". They must have *really* been strapped for cash!

[Jay Temple]

A couple candidates ...

• A contestant was brought back on J! because she had faced a Daily Double that Alex admitted was terribly obscure. I remember that the category was something close to GIRLS IN SONG, and the clue was, "Any of the 3 artists who hit the Hot 100 with the song heard here." ISTR that none of the three had cracked the top 60.
• On Remote Control, one of their survey questions was "Pick a number from 1 to 5." (One of the contestants even said, "That's the question?") By definition, there are fewer possibilities for this than for the question you cited, but your contestant had time to give multiple answers.

[SamJ93]

So...which answer ended up being in the top box?

[aaron sica]

So...which answer ended up being in the top box?

Zany.

[TLEberle]

Aw, dang. I said "3."

[Jay Temple]

I don't know how I managed to forget this one, from Greed. It was the first, maybe the only, question for the top prize: Which of these (nine) smells are the most recognizable?

[Kevin Prather]

I don't know how I managed to forget this one, from Greed. It was the first, maybe the only, question for the top prize: Which of these (nine) smells are the most recognizable?

The fact that Dan was able to nail three of them was amazing.

[Bob Zager]

Some of my buddies thought a "bonus" question used on the 30th Anniversary College Bowl special (w/Pat Sajak), wasn't properly worded:

1.  Take the total number of dots that appear on a pair of dice.  42

2.  Subtract the number of players each team sends out in a professional football game.  11

3.  Then, multiply the difference by the number of squares on a checkerboard.  64

4.  Look at the final result, and tell me--Where were the Winter Olympics held that year?


The answer:  Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (the final number should be 1984)

[TLEberle]

What's the way it should be worded? I see just a viciously hard story problem.

[SamJ93]

I'm guessing it may be confusion over the exact meaning of the word "difference." Though it does seem to be used in the proper mathematical sense in the question, assuming it was worded exactly the same way as above.

[Bob Zager]

Some thought that the part about the football players was misleading, but the keyword in that portion is "each."  Some didn't seem to understand that when they say "each," that doesn't mean the combined total of the two teams in one game!

With that being a "Bonus," question on College Bowl, I'm sure it was only meant to be a humorous, tricky question, and with very little time to come up with the answer, remember, you had to name the location of the Winter Olympics, not the year.

[weaklink75]

I'd think the "See-Saw" incident on the 70's version of Jackpot! was pretty unfair: It was a Super Jackpot riddle, and it was worth $50,000: "My first name is present tense, my last name is past tense- what am I?" Allegedly after the answer was revealed the audience started booing and continued to boo for several minutes...

[trainman]

Some thought that the part about the football players was misleading, but the keyword in that portion is "each."  Some didn't seem to understand that when they say "each," that doesn't mean the combined total of the two teams in one game!

I thought "sends out" was actually the more misleading part. (Sends out of the locker room? Sends out onto the field of play?)

[MikeK]

Maybe this is the math teacher in me talking, but when you get to the second to last step, quick mental math comes into play.  30 x 64 is 1920.  Adding 64 takes you to 1984.. So you have a 50/50 shot.  If you knew that the Winter Olympics weren't played until 1924, you get the right year pretty easily.

But it's fun to say this over 3 decades afterwards and at 3:30 AM local time while in a hotel room 2250 miles from home.

[CeleTheRef]

We had one of these in Italy some years ago:  "What is the past participle of splendere (to shine)?"

the contestant took a shot with "spleso", but the host said it was "splenduto"

according to most grammar books, it doesn't exist.