Channel J Supplement: A Very Brief History Of Game Shows

As long as there have been people willing to compete for cash and prizes in front of an audience, there have been game shows.  The concept of the game show originated on radio, but competition in general has existed for centuries.  From jousting to the Olympic games, our history is full of friendly (and sometimes less than friendly) competition in the pursuit of prizes and glory.  The Olympic games are still held today, but as we live in a more civilized time, those of us who want to stick each other with lances will have to settle for telling Meredith Viera Cedric the Entertainer Terry Crews Chris Harrison that yes, it is our final answer.

Wow, how many hosts have they had?!  I miss the days of Regis Philbin.

The very first game show broadcast on television was a spelling bee literally called Spelling Bee.  With a title like that, it’s no wonder it only lasted for four episodes.  That said, if a spelling bee broadcast on television meets the definition of a game show, then the spelling bee I participated in when I was in Grade 4 and which was broadcast on small town cable channel RCTV means that I was once a game show contestant.  I placed third.  No, I’m not going to show you video of it.

Game shows like Truth or Consequences and Take Your Pick! garnered much more success than Spelling Bee ever did, but the rising popularity of the genre did not shield it from massive backlash when it was revealed that several high stakes shows were rigged.  Given the nature of the manipulation, it’s easy to see why audiences stopped trusting game shows.  One episode of Twenty One, for example, was rigged to end in three ties and so the next episode saw an increase in ratings.  This was one of the biggest reasons why people wondered if Jeopardy! was fixing some of their episodes during Ken Jennings’ unprecedented 74-win run in 2004, since his winning streak proved to be a great boost to the show’s ratings.

As a result of the scandals, new laws were passed and game shows voluntarily placed limits on their contestants such as retiring them after a specific amount of wins and imposing a cap on how much money they can win.  There were exceptions in the years immediately following the scandal, but possibly due to a lack of trust of shows with large cash prizes, ones like 100 Grand failed to attract an audience.

The original pitch of Jeopardy! was perhaps influenced by the scandals: the gimmick was that they would be up front about giving the contestants the answers, but the contestants would have to come up with the questions themselves.  The show proved to be successful enough that versions of it aired until 1979 and its current version (which still uses the original format of answering in the form of a question) has been on the air since 1984.

In the years since the scandal, new game shows began to slowly return to television, some of which survive to this day.  Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right, and Family Feud are regular fixtures, although Family Feud changes hosts every few years.

Rules governing winnings have been gradually relaxed, allowing for larger cash prizes to be awarded.  When Jeopardy! returned to television in 1984, it imposed a five-day limit on winners and a maximum of $75,000 that a player could go home with.  As players were capable of surpassing that amount, especially if they were five-time champions, the rest of the winnings would be donated to charity.  Gradually, the cap was raised until it was finally abolished.  Wheel of Fortune had limits as well, but those were abolished when a million dollar prize was added to the game.

Game shows exploded back into both the mainstream and prime time when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? debuted on American television in 1999.  Having been originally a British show, this lead to a number of foreign game and reality shows being imported to the US market including Weakest Link, Big Brother, Deal or No Deal and 1 vs. 100.  A plethora of American-developed shows like Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, Identity and Russian Roulette also competed for audience attention.  Most of these new game shows couldn’t hold a candle to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, with the majority of them quickly leaving American television, although the original versions of many imports are still broadcast in their originating countries.

Despite that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was British, very few of its brethren from the United Kingdom were imported to the United States.  Over the next several weeks, I’ll be giving a brief synopsis of several of my favourites, starting tomorrow with a game show whose theme song is probably the most iconic of all British game shows.