Jeopardy! -- Why Bother Watching?

[SplitSecond]

Or you could just go back to the pure mechanics of why this show works and pit yourself against Ken, bragging to your wife or dog every time you get a correct response "before" Ken (knowing full well that he has to wait to signal, whereas you don't) - or even better yet, trash-talk the screen when you get one that Ken misses.

If the outcome is all you're interested in - on ANY show - there's no real need to actually watch the show in this day and age.  In fact, in the past five years, I've probably read more about game shows than watched them.

If only there was a discussion forum of sorts where people were lining up, just practically begging to give you the results of each day's shows, sometimes even before you'd get the chance to see them...

[MikeK]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 07:52 AM\'] [quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 03:43 AM\'] With all this talk on Ken's amazing run, it's no wonder I started my own Ken Jennings Watch last week after his 6th victory.  When he finally loses, that's where my watch will end at that point. [/quote]
Well thank heavens then. Someone alert the media. [/quote]
 Matt, you are the media.  Take the ball and run with it, man!

As I got home from class last night, during the first commercial break, my dad summed it up best--"He's a god.  He's immortal.  Nobody will ever beat him.  At the first break, the scores are 6800-0-(-200)."  (Thanks for spoiling the first part of the show, Dad!)  I threw out some Jeopardy! champions whose names he'd recognize like Eddie Timanus and Chuck Forrest.  He said Jennings would embarrass them.

[Jimmy Owen]

From what I understand, the Chuck Forrest strategy is no longer allowed due to camera placement issues, etc.  But do you think the game would change if the categories would be loaded bottom to top rather than top to bottom, with the big money available right at the outset?

[Steve Gavazzi]

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 04:43 AM\'] With all this talk on Ken's amazing run, it's no wonder I started my own Ken Jennings Watch last week after his 6th victory.  When he finally loses, that's where my watch will end at that point. [/quote]
Nothing annoys me more than people deciding that they have to give names to things that don't need them.

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\']From what I understand, the Chuck Forrest strategy is no longer allowed due to camera placement issues, etc.[/quote]
Okay, I'll bite -- what's the Chuck Forrest strategy?

[clemon79]

I _think_ he's referring to the strategy of bouncing all over the board with your selections, rather than working from top to bottom in a category and then moving along to another one.
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 09:19 AM\'] From what I understand, the Chuck Forrest strategy is no longer allowed due to camera placement issues, etc. [/quote]
I don't buy this. We've discussed that in certain specialized conditions, particularly where clues build on each other as they progress, players are required to play a category from top to bottom, but I refuse to believe this is an across-the-board policy. Otherwise, the fact that the board EXISTS would be one of the great shams in game-show history.

Also, the "camera placement issue" thing doesn't hold water if you know how the show is shot. I've never been to a taping, but I would guess it's a three-camera affair, cross-shot: camera 1 on the left is the wide shot of the players podiums, camera 3 on the right shoots the board, and camera 2 rovers between individual player shots and Trebek.

(And actually, since the board is a static shot, it would make sense for a Camera 4 to be mounted somewhere on the set that holds that shot of the board, freeing up 3 to shoot Trebek. and 2 to concentrate on getting the shot of whoever rang in.)

Jeopardy isn't exactly the most difficult show to block, camera-wise. The most movement happens when an answer "flies out" of the board when it's picked, and those are all added in post. (I suppose they could be done on the fly as a DVE effect as part of the board's programming, and in fact that would be pretty damned impressive.)

[JasonA1]

Also, the "camera placement issue" thing doesn't hold water if you know how the show is shot.

Additionally, the show doesn't even take close-ups of the individual windows anymore. It's simply a computer graphic representing a close-up of a monitor, so no more different than when the answer "flies up" - just with a fake TV screen border around it.

-Jason

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 03:43 AM\'] With all this talk on Ken's amazing run, it's no wonder I started my own Ken Jennings Watch last week after his 6th victory.  When he finally loses, that's where my watch will end at that point. [/quote]
 Don't let it end there. Follow him around for a while. See how he spends his days. Learn his favorite toothpaste and where he banks. Give us a full report.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 12:19 PM\'] From what I understand, the Chuck Forrest strategy is no longer allowed due to camera placement issues, etc.  But do you think the game would change if the categories would be loaded bottom to top rather than top to bottom, with the big money available right at the outset? [/quote]
 I can tell you -- with some level of experience -- that you're only partly right.  (Hey, it's better than being completely wrong!)  There will be occasions when, for techincal reasons, the players are told before a round begins that one particular category must be played from top to bottom.  (We had such a warning in my game Monday.)  Even then, you could leave the category and come back to it later, but you had to go back to the next clue in order.  Other than that, and even that doesn't happen in nearly every game, players are free to jump around as much as they like.

As for your second question, I think loading the game from hardest clues to easiest would come across as anticlimactic.  You're supposed to be building to large totals, not knocking off the big ones and then picking up scraps at the end.

[Jimmy Owen]

I was just trying to come up with scenarios on how to beat Mr. Jennings.  Of course, Matt may have already figured that out.  Maybe they could put a rebus puzzle behind the board......

[chris319]

A contestant such as Ken might work better in a TOC situation where the competition is more formidable and some suspense could be worked up. Seeing lopsided match after lopsided match where he trounces two wooden posts to his left could get to be a snore.

Unless one of those wooden posts, er, I mean, contestants is Matt Ottinger, in which case we're all rooting for Matt.

[Gus]

Personally, I think that if there were never any appearance limit, some of the Jeopardy greats from way back when could definitely have pulled something akin to what Ken is doing now.

Going backwards a bit in the direction of this thread, I personally find Ken to be an interesting guy to watch. I've been watching J! every day this week, and I don't usually watch it at all. He's mesmerizing.

Unlike most people, I don't usually (read: almost never) notice certain aspects of a person's behavior until someone else points them out. Example: there was a thread on Fark.com about Ken, and one person said: "...notice how he sticks his chin to his right when he answers, EVERY SINGLE TIME? Bugs me more the more I watch it. *Beep* [CHIN THRUST] What is Ticonderoga? *Beep* [CHIN THRUST] What is the Hoover Dam?" I never even noticed that until I read that.

[rigsby]

[quote name=\'Gus\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 05:29 PM\'] Personally, I think that if there were never any appearance limit, some of the Jeopardy greats from way back when could definitely have pulled something akin to what Ken is doing now. [/quote]
 So...why not do what was done with the retired champions on Blockbusters after the winnings limit was doubled, and let 'em come back and try it?

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'rigsby\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 05:33 PM\'] [quote name=\'Gus\' date=\'Jun 18 2004, 05:29 PM\'] Personally, I think that if there were never any appearance limit, some of the Jeopardy greats from way back when could definitely have pulled something akin to what Ken is doing now. [/quote]
So...why not do what was done with the retired champions on Blockbusters after the winnings limit was doubled, and let 'em come back and try it? [/quote]
 I wouldn't mind seeing it myself, but J! has a heck of a lot more people trying out for it than Blockbusters did(in the early 80s, traveling contestant searches was a new thing and only the Barry-Enright shows and possibly Dawson Feud did it early on IIRC). Bringing back old school J! champs in the way Blockbusters did would limit the number of contestant slots available for more recent tryouts.

[starcade]

I mean, it's getting to the point of history...

(As of yesterday's show...)

It's not just Ken winning, but FJ is _routinely_:

$30,000 -- $8,000 -- $2,000

so it makes one wonder if this guy might win a mil the hard way.

He's already the biggest regular-season money winner in the history of syndicated game shows without a million-dollar payout.  (Rutter's was a tournament and the other 20 or so ahead of him were all million-dollar shows...)  That's history enough.

[Jimmy Owen]

Could Ken Jennings beat Ben Stein?