Dare to amend the J! format?

[SteveRep]

I'm not saying they SHOULD but more wondering if they could.

I tape the show and find my self fast-fwd'ing a lot through a single show. So I wonder, is there room for more or is the format so established that it would be foolish to mess with it?

There's only about 16 minutes of game-play in a given episode. When you add the necessary introductions, interviews and closing credits, it's still only about 18-18.5 minutes of show.

But what could you add? A seventh category or sixth dollar amount seems like it would take too much time and stand-alone 'bonus' questions just go against what Jeopardy truly is.

Even though the idea might be intriguing to some, my guess is that they add this extra time for local-access commercial time, which makes the show that much more attractive to the affiliate that shows it.

Did that make sense? Any thoughts or other ideas? Or did I just waste everyone's time?

[tvwxman]

Huh??

Cut the crap out of TPIR and it's a half hour show.

Cut the crap out of Wheel and it's 5 minutes long. Who needs to see that damned spinning wheel over and over? It turns. We get it.

I think Jeopardy, with 61 clues per show, is the best game show out there when it comes to minimizing excess and maximizing game play.

Or has Shop to you Drop become the standard here?

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'SteveRep\' date=\'Sep 30 2005, 12:05 PM\']I'm not saying they SHOULD but more wondering if they could.

I tape the show and find my self fast-fwd'ing a lot through a single show. So I wonder, is there room for more or is the format so established that it would be foolish to mess with it?

There's only about 16 minutes of game-play in a given episode. When you add the necessary introductions, interviews and closing credits, it's still only about 18-18.5 minutes of show.

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The funny thing is that in the Fleming days, with 22 minutes of program time, no visual clues, no Clue Crew and only one fee plug in the whole show (for most of the run), they rarely cleared a board and the game time was still roughly the same.  The factors I can think of are the practice of having the audience applaud correct bottom-of-the-row responses. the fact that the show's wrapup was much longer (there was another commercial break after Final J! and before the wrapup--if Final J! was a triple stumper, Art gave the correct response after the commercial) or if Art's interviews were a little longer than Trebek's.  The openings aren't that much different in length and Art's intros were about as long as Trebek's or even shorter, particularly he said pretty much the same things every day before "Let's play Jeopardy!"

On the other hand, it's been believed that Art talked faster than Trebek--but we still had few board clears.  Perhaps were there more stumpers because the material was harder on the original (allegedly)?  I don't know.

[SteveRep]

I hope I implied that I'm far-from-convinced that J! needs to be tweaked at all. It's already the leanest show out there. There's no 'crap' to be cut.

BTW, never seen the post-Finn STYD. You mean Pax still has game shows?

[calliaume]

Check out the 1978-79 format if you want to see a tweaked format.  In my mind, it's a cross between Jeopardy! and The Big Showdown that didn't really work (end game was too challenging, and could be lengthy).

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'SteveRep\' date=\'Sep 30 2005, 11:22 AM\']BTW, never seen the post-Finn STYD. You mean Pax still has game shows?

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Put it this way: you thought the FINN version ate ass....

[Ian Wallis]

The funny thing is that in the Fleming days, with 22 minutes of program time, no visual clues, no Clue Crew and only one fee plug in the whole show (for most of the run), they rarely cleared a board and the game time was still roughly the same.

In watching first-season Trebek episodes which have run on GSN in the past, the board was very seldom cleared then either.  I believe it was on the second-season opener when they introduced that light around the board that alerted contestants when to ring in.  There seemed to be fewer wrong answers after that and the board was cleared more frequently.

[Steve McClellan]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Sep 30 2005, 01:17 PM\']There seemed to be fewer wrong answers after that[/quote]
Amazing what knowing what they're asking before you ring in can do...

[bossjock967]

I don't know.  Like I was always told...

"If it ain't broke... don't fix it."

[FeudDude]

I actually thought the contestant elimination as seen in the '78 version and Super J! (the show) was a pretty neat idea.  But the bonus round in the former and the point system in the latter?  Not so cool.

[tomobrien]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Sep 30 2005, 02:17 PM\']

In watching first-season Trebek episodes which have run on GSN in the past, the board was very seldom cleared then either.  I believe it was on the second-season opener when they introduced that light around the board that alerted contestants when to ring in.

There definitely wasn't such a light in the first season.  I remember trying to watch the podium lights of the players on either side of me to see when to ring in, because they were easier to see through my peripheral vision than trying to see my own.  And the board was seldom cleared, perhaps partly due to (as someone said earlier) the audience applause after the bottom questions of the categories.

[zachhoran]

If too much more commercial time gets added to shows, I could see them being forced to cut the J! and DJ! rounds down to five categories per round. Isn't more commercial time these days the reason Osmond Pyramid went from 7 in 30 to 6 in 20 seconds in the maingame?

[rebelwrest]

This format has lasted 41 years (33 years on Television), so the format, # of questions,  and # of categories shouldn't be changed.  

The one thing I thought can be added is a run the category bonus. If you correctly question all five answers in a category, you get a cash bonus that isn't added to your score, it is added to the money to take home ($2,000 in Jeopardy! and $4,000 in Double Jeopardy!).  

So if you end up in second place  and you ran a category in Jeopardy! and Double Jeopardy! rather than taking home $2,000 for the day, you take home $8,000 for the day.  A cheesy idea I know, but it doesn't impair the game.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'SteveRep\' date=\'Sep 30 2005, 12:05 PM\']

But what could you add? A seventh category or sixth dollar amount seems like it would take too much time and stand-alone 'bonus' questions just go against what Jeopardy truly is.

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They did add an occasional "bonus" category to DJ! in some episodes of the 1997-98 season. THis essentially added a seventh category to the DJ! round. The responses in that category had two possible answers. A contestant buzzed in and tried to guess one, and if correct, they could then risk the money they earned for their first response to try to guess the second correct answer. They would win double the value of that clue if they guessed the second answer, but would lose the money earned if they got it wrong. If a player got it wrong, as usual, another player could buzz in and answer whatever remained. A Daily Double never appeared in such "bonus" categories.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'rebelwrest\' date=\'Sep 30 2005, 09:26 PM\']The one thing I thought can be added is a run the category bonus. If you correctly question all five answers in a category, you get a cash bonus that isn't added to your score, it is added to the money to take home.  [/quote]
Late in its run, the Fleming version did almost exactly that.  It was a progressive jackpot that would increase $500 each day it wasn't hit.  (This was around the time that The $10,000 Pyramid was raising everybody's stakes, and the $1000 for a typical J! win wasn't cutting it anymore.)

Thing is, it did disrupt the game, because Fleming would stop and mention when someone had gotten four in a row that the jackpot was at stake, and it seriously messed up the momentum.