Art Cards or Video Monitors

[TLEberle]

I just realized my second question was kinda dumb, so I'll just put up the first one.

1a) How much do art cards cost?  When you have to go through a bunch of category or question cards (like old Jeopardy, WBSM, or Debt, which had a bunch of them), it seems like it would make a lot of sense to change to monitors if at all feasible.  Is there one specific company that makes 'em, or does that fall under the task of the show's Art Department?

[chris319]

Electronic graphics are cheaper to operate and they don't necessarily have to be monitors (Classic Concentration).

Try this exercise: Count up the number of "answers" used in one Jeopardy episode and multiply by five shows per day over two consecutive taping days (multiply by two for Concentration). Say it takes three minutes to typeset and print and old-style Jeopardy! art card (for a piece of art which will be on screen for maybe five seconds tops).

The answer is ...

[davemackey]

For the NBC shows that originated from Burbank, the graphics were all done in-house (by the same bunch that did Johnny Carson's "more to come" cards, NBC Graphic Arts West Coast), which explains why everything had that same font.

[geno57]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Nov 19 2004, 10:55 PM\']
Say it takes three minutes to typeset and print and old-style Jeopardy! art card (for a piece of art which will be on screen for maybe five seconds tops).

* * * * * * * * * *

As someone who had TV graphics experience in the pre-computer age, I can tell you ... A card full of a wordy Jeopardy question would have taken much longer than three minutes to set.

Not sure which system they used for the show's graphics, but it prolly would have been one of the following:

A) What was known as a "hot press". Metal type is set into a tray, letter by letter. The whole thing is then slid into a heating mechanism. After a few minutes, once it's hot enough, a sheet of a special type of plastic -- which is the desired color of the text -- is placed over the blank card. Pull the lever, the tray comes down, the hot type is pressed into the plastic, and held there for a few seconds as the text melts into the card. Voila!

Or ...

B) Adhesive paper or vinyl letters, removed from a sheet and stuck to the art card, letter by letter.

I'd guess six or eight minutes per question, at least.

[JasonA1]

B) Adhesive paper or vinyl letters, removed from a sheet and stuck to the art card, letter by letter.

The way they appear in the episodes on the circuit (60s and '79 revival), this would be the Fleming J! method.

-Jason

[chris319]

Three minutes is probably way too optimistic. I wonder if it would have been faster to simply hand letter the cards.

Refresh my memory: were the lines centered or flush left on the old Jeopardy! answer cards?

[TimK2003]

Based on all the shows I've seen which used Art Cards, it looks to me that "Whew!" printed the most for naught.

Take one 3-round match.  There are 28 Art Cards per category to start.  Either 6 or 7 are thrown out right off the bat when blocks are placed.  In an average round, you may see an average of 8 questions actually used, leaving 20 cards to waste per round for a total of 60 or so wasted cards per match (unless the unseen questions were recycled and used in future games as each board was devoted to a single topic).

Were there any other shows that would go through and/or waste more art cards in a single episode than "Whew!"?

[TV Favorites]

Whew! could have used the unrevealed bloopers later on so they wouldn't have been wasted.

[Jimmy Owen]

Besides showmanship, what is the reason for having J! answers on art cards or monitors?  One show that puzzled me was Wordplay of 1987.  The main game was done on a monitor, yet the bonus round was done the old fashioned way with printed out art cards and a mechanical board.

[Adam Nedeff]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Nov 20 2004, 08:27 PM\']Three minutes is probably way too optimistic. I wonder if it would have been faster to simply hand letter the cards.

Refresh my memory: were the lines centered or flush left on the old Jeopardy! answer cards?

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[/quote]
Centered my friend, ensuring that as much time as possible was wasted making them.

[Desperado]

Interesting topic.  How about on $25,000 Pyramid?  The categories were printed on transparencies and lit from behind when selected.  Were the transparencies ever recycled...ie, could the letters be removed?  Or were new transparencies created for each new category?

[chris319]

Centered my friend, ensuring that as much time as possible was wasted making them.

They probably used a hot press. It's much, much easier to center type in a chase.

[geno57]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Nov 20 2004, 08:27 PM\']Three minutes is probably way too optimistic. I wonder if it would have been faster to simply hand letter the cards.

Refresh my memory: were the lines centered or flush left on the old Jeopardy! answer cards?

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[/quote]


I think hand-lettering would have been faster, but they didn't appear to be done that way, to my recollection.

I think they were centered, line by line. Don't quote me on that, though.

[Ian Wallis]

Besides showmanship, what is the reason for having J! answers on art cards or monitors? One show that puzzled me was Wordplay of 1987. The main game was done on a monitor, yet the bonus round was done the old fashioned way with printed out art cards and a mechanical board.

Maybe they were trying to embrace both the old and the new?

One thing I've always wondered:  when a show like "Jeopardy" has answers unrevealed, next time they use the category are those exact same answers used, or are they re-written?  On one of the "behind the scenes" specials it mentions that "Jeopardy" never re-uses the exact same answers - they always "repackage" it in some way - but I wonder if it also applies to the answers never seen on air.  

Anyone know?

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Nov 21 2004, 01:34 PM\']One thing I've always wondered:  when a show like "Jeopardy" has answers unrevealed, next time they use the category are those exact same answers used, or are they re-written?  On one of the "behind the scenes" specials it mentions that "Jeopardy" never re-uses the exact same answers - they always "repackage" it in some way - but I wonder if it also applies to the answers never seen on air. 

Anyone know?

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Hence the significance of the Leftovers category--it supposedly is and always has been unrevealed clues from previous shows--although it also allowed for another name for a general knowledge category, joining Potpourri, Goulash, Odds and Ends, Bits and Pieces, etc.  (Nowadays, when they do general knowledge categories, which isn't that often, they just seem to use the most familiar Potpourri, which seems to be one of the most enshrined Fleming-era categories, along with Don Pardo's favorite Potent Potables (no one seems to remember Alphabet, or as it was akways shown on the board, A.L.P.H.A.B.E.T.).