Speaker 1: Guess what will What's that man go? So you know,
Speaker 1: I love spelling bees, right, and not actually being in
Speaker 1: them because I'm not a great speller, But after watching
Speaker 1: that movie spell Bound, I came away with this new appreciation. Man,
Speaker 1: there's so much fun to watch. I always watch the
Speaker 1: finals every year, and it's it's actually funny to see
Speaker 1: how much harder the spelling b words have gotten over
Speaker 1: the years. I don't know if you've noticed this, but
Speaker 1: I was. I was looking back at this list of
Speaker 1: final words from some of the early National Spelling Bees
Speaker 1: and their words like knack and croissan. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so much harder these days. I know, it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like you should win a National Spelling be off the
Speaker 1: word knack, especially since the words today are things like
Speaker 1: uh I think I saw feldon christ and guestl shaft,
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know how to say these words.
Speaker 1: Little But did you know the first televised game show
Speaker 1: was actually a spelling be It premiered on the BBC
Speaker 1: in night and people called it the most boring show
Speaker 1: on television. Ouch. Yeah. The funniest part is that critics
Speaker 1: say one of the few happy consequences of World War
Speaker 1: two was that it took the spelling Bee off the air.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there were some other good consequences
Speaker 1: of World War Two, but apparently helping to cancel that
Speaker 1: game show ranks right up there. And that's just one
Speaker 1: of the many game show facts we'll be talking about today.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in a their podcast listers. I'm Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangues
Speaker 1: shot Ticketer and sitting there behind the soundproof booth motioning
Speaker 1: that he wants to buy a vowel as our friend
Speaker 1: and producer Tristan McNeil. And today we've got researcher Gabe
Speaker 1: in studio as well, although Mango and Gabe are actually
Speaker 1: out in How Stuff Works l A Studio. How are
Speaker 1: you guys today? Doing great? Yeah? Happy to be here? Awesome.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to chat game shows now. Mango, I
Speaker 1: know we're both huge who wants to be a Millionaire
Speaker 1: fans when that show came out and aviad Jeopardy Watcher,
Speaker 1: But you should tell the listeners that you were actually
Speaker 1: on a game show. Was Cash cab Ones? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I was terrible on it. Luckily, my my wife is
Speaker 1: way smarter than me, so she wanted the money, and
Speaker 1: we actually put that money towards our honeymoon. But weirdly,
Speaker 1: my my college roommate was on that show once too,
Speaker 1: and I was his phone and friends, so I've technically
Speaker 1: been on that show twice. I'd forgotten about that. All right,
Speaker 1: that's pretty awesome. Well, let's get started. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to kick this off with a fact about Jeopardy since
Speaker 1: it's one of my all time favorite shows. So the
Speaker 1: first one that I want to talk about is MERV Griffin. Now,
Speaker 1: I had heard several times that Merv had made a
Speaker 1: ton of money off of the Jeopardy theme song that
Speaker 1: he wrote, and I wanted to see what that was exactly,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know exactly what it was. But he
Speaker 1: earned seventy to eighty million dollars in royalties from that
Speaker 1: theme song alone by the time he died in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. Did you know this? It's crazy. So it
Speaker 1: was actually originally written as a lullaby for his son
Speaker 1: Tony and and was first called a time for Tony.
Speaker 1: So writing this little lullaby ironed him more than seventy
Speaker 1: million dollars. And actually, one other fact that that Stacy
Speaker 1: had told me when we were talking about Jeopardy. She
Speaker 1: said that the maximum amount of money that can be
Speaker 1: one in every Jeopardy game. That's if you answered every
Speaker 1: question correctly, landed on the daily double questions, last in
Speaker 1: each round, and bet the maximum amount. In Final Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: The most you can win in a game is five
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty six thousand, four hundred dollars. I take that,
Speaker 1: all right, So that's my first fact game. You want
Speaker 1: to go next? Yeah, sure, this is a price is
Speaker 1: right fact? So another long running game show, and you know,
Speaker 1: the most popular pricing game they play on there is
Speaker 1: a game called plink Oh where you take the plastic
Speaker 1: chip and you set it against the board and kind
Speaker 1: of let it go and it knocks into all the
Speaker 1: pegs and hopefully winds up in one of the high
Speaker 1: dollar marks. Um, but it could go in zero, which
Speaker 1: is in the center too. And what I thought was
Speaker 1: funny about this was there are actually only ten Plinko
Speaker 1: chips in existence, and yeah, and they only use a
Speaker 1: maximum of five per game, which keeps you know, just
Speaker 1: five in uh in storage. And those are the original
Speaker 1: Planco chips that they've been using since the games started
Speaker 1: and there's just the one set and they're actually protected
Speaker 1: under lock and key in between games. But the thing
Speaker 1: is the prices right did donate one of the chips
Speaker 1: to be included in a CBS time capsule a few
Speaker 1: years ago, so now they're only down to nine. Ah,
Speaker 1: that is terrifying. They they should at least keep another
Speaker 1: set off site somewhere. That's uh, that's crazy. Alright, Mango,
Speaker 1: you want to go with your first Yeah? So you
Speaker 1: guys know, I love weird game shows, like Johnny Carson
Speaker 1: had this old one called do You Trust Your Wife?
Speaker 1: And uh, And there was one in the US called
Speaker 1: Oh Sit, which was kind of like adult musical chairs
Speaker 1: with a big obstacle course in front of them. But
Speaker 1: the one I love the most is this one from
Speaker 1: Russia called The Intercept, where you get to drive and
Speaker 1: keep a brand new car, but what they don't tell
Speaker 1: you is that it's stolen. So the says, you get
Speaker 1: this car, you get to drive it off a lot,
Speaker 1: and then you have to play keep away from the
Speaker 1: cops for thirty five minutes. It's basically Grand Theft Auto
Speaker 1: in real life. And the weirdest part about the show
Speaker 1: is that it was pitched as propaganda from the Russian
Speaker 1: authorities to show how good their police forces. So not
Speaker 1: that many people win. But one of the funniest things
Speaker 1: is that crimes actually went up after the show aired,
Speaker 1: and uh, and the police were totally baffled by this. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty great. Well, we'll speaking of crimes and things
Speaker 1: that are scandalous. I think we should do around where
Speaker 1: we all talk about something scandal related in game shows.
Speaker 1: And I'm mainly saying that because I've got one here,
Speaker 1: so you guys do as well. So, uh, the one
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about, and I Gabe already talked
Speaker 1: about one of the shows that I would watch during
Speaker 1: the summer as a kid, but one of the other
Speaker 1: ones was Press Your Luck. The number of times I
Speaker 1: screamed Noammy, Noammy stop at the TV as a kid,
Speaker 1: but I was looking at there was another story I've
Speaker 1: heard before, but it was a really interesting story about
Speaker 1: how Michael Larson memorized the light sequence on Press Your Luck.
Speaker 1: And this was back in nine six, and he figured
Speaker 1: out a way to analyze the show and he discovered
Speaker 1: that no wham He's ever appeared in certain squares, so
Speaker 1: by avoiding those Squares. He was able to continuously play
Speaker 1: and rack up prizes for so long that the producers
Speaker 1: actually had to split the game into two episodes, and
Speaker 1: so he ultimately took home something like a hundred and
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars and because of this, they reprogrammed the
Speaker 1: board after Larson's win, including expanding the five random light
Speaker 1: patterns to thirty two light patterns, just to be able
Speaker 1: to stop this in the future. Okay, so that's my
Speaker 1: scandal story. Mango, you got one, Yeah, I've got one.
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, it's about Carmen San Diego or where
Speaker 1: in the world is Carmen san Diego. And apparently there's
Speaker 1: one episode of the show that never aired, and it
Speaker 1: should have been a good one. The case involved the
Speaker 1: character Patty Larceny stealing the New Year's Eve Ball from
Speaker 1: Times Square, and then Gene Wilder was actually a special guest.
Speaker 1: But the reason it in air is that in the
Speaker 1: final game, where you run across a map at the
Speaker 1: end of the show and placed flags in the countries,
Speaker 1: the gum Shoe, who was the finalist, fell and fractured
Speaker 1: her arm running across the map of Europe. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think that's crazy. And I have to say
Speaker 1: the worst part about it is that when she was
Speaker 1: at school the next day, I'm sure everyone asked, how
Speaker 1: do you break your arm? And she probably told everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, I was in the final round of Carmen
Speaker 1: San Diego and then that show never aired. All right,
Speaker 1: that's a good one, Okay, Gabe, you got a scandalous fact.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you wanted a game show scandal, I've
Speaker 1: got a game show scandal. This is This goes back
Speaker 1: to a nine episode of The Dating Game and on
Speaker 1: that episode, bachelor number one Rodney A Cola he won
Speaker 1: the right to go on a date with a not
Speaker 1: so lucky lady named Cheryl Bradshaw. But despite choosing him,
Speaker 1: Bradshaw reportedly refused to go out with him after the fact.
Speaker 1: And that means that Cheryl had pretty good instincts, because
Speaker 1: a few months later, a Cola went on a murdering
Speaker 1: spree that eventually included at least five victims. Of the
Speaker 1: testimony at his trial what Yah and some investigators believe
Speaker 1: he could have been responsible for the deaths of up
Speaker 1: to fifty women. But don't worry. He's now serving a
Speaker 1: life sentence and has been on death Row a couple
Speaker 1: of times. Now he keeps appealing, but in sen he
Speaker 1: was charged with murdering a woman in nineteen seventies seven.
Speaker 1: If guilty of that, that means he actually appeared on
Speaker 1: the Dating show during his killing spree. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: that that was a little dark, So why why don't
Speaker 1: we light it up again? Mango? You want to help
Speaker 1: us wrap up with your last fact? Yeah, definitely. So
Speaker 1: I know Will knows this, but I was a huge
Speaker 1: Double Dare fan when I was a kid, and in
Speaker 1: third grade, the kids in my neighborhood wasted our summer
Speaker 1: training for Double Dare. Like we'd give each other trivia
Speaker 1: questions and practice obstacle courses in the backyard, and I
Speaker 1: think we're just expecting that the phone would ring one
Speaker 1: day and we'd be called in to play the game show.
Speaker 1: But here's something I didn't know about the show. So
Speaker 1: apparently Dana Carvey was almost the host. He got offered
Speaker 1: the job the same day. He also got offered the
Speaker 1: job for a side of Night and Live, so he
Speaker 1: ended up turning down Double Dare, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: And also, Stacy looked up some Double Dare stats and
Speaker 1: for each taping session. Uh, this is what they had
Speaker 1: on hand, fifty gallons of whipped cream mixed with geladin,
Speaker 1: thirty gallons of green slime, a hundred cubic feet of popcorn,
Speaker 1: several dozen eggs, and twelve dozen balloons. And also they
Speaker 1: tried to use outdated food to cut down on waste.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable. I was always so jealous of those kids
Speaker 1: that got to be on double there. I've never heard
Speaker 1: that about Dana Carvey though. Alright, Gabe, you got one
Speaker 1: more fact than you. Oh yeah, this is a good one. Um.
Speaker 1: Game show audiences can't always be trusted. You know. In
Speaker 1: some game shows, perhaps most famously Who Wants to Be
Speaker 1: a Millionaire, the contestant is able to ask the audience
Speaker 1: for help. And apparently this may not be a good idea,
Speaker 1: because studies have shown that audiences in certain countries, especially Russia,
Speaker 1: the Ukraine and sometimes France, they give the wrong answers
Speaker 1: on purpose. Yeah. So in the case of France, uh,
Speaker 1: French audience members tend to give misleading answers only if
Speaker 1: they think that the question is an easy one that
Speaker 1: the game show contestant should have gotten right, even though
Speaker 1: the contestants asking the audience for help. They the audience thinks, well,
Speaker 1: they should get it right. It's like they think it's
Speaker 1: you know, they don't deserve to win because it's an
Speaker 1: easy one and they should have gotten it. Oh, that's
Speaker 1: pretty good. All right. Well I've got one more for
Speaker 1: us here, and it's it's just because it's a game show.
Speaker 1: I mentioned two games shows that I really really loved.
Speaker 1: One game show that I couldn't stand as a kid
Speaker 1: because my grandparents watched it every day was Wheel of Fortune.
Speaker 1: And so, but this is a pretty cool fact that
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen, Vana White was awarded the world
Speaker 1: record for the most frequent clapper thanks her duties, of course,
Speaker 1: on Wheel of Fortune. So as of January thirty one,
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, so think about how many more times
Speaker 1: she's clapped since then. But as of January thirty one
Speaker 1: and two thousand thirteen, she had clapped approximately three million,
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty thousand times, at an average of
Speaker 1: six hundred and six claps per show. I would imagine
Speaker 1: her hands are probably actually a little bit sore after
Speaker 1: each episode. So I feel like that deserves a plase
Speaker 1: it song exactly thank you very much. Guys. Well, I
Speaker 1: did like that fact, but I have to admit I
Speaker 1: think Gabe really took it to another level with his
Speaker 1: plinkoh fact. I had no idea about those facts. He
Speaker 1: made it really dark for us and then brought it
Speaker 1: back with the Russian audiences. So I don't know about you, Mango,
Speaker 1: but I kind of think Gabe deserves the trophy today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I brought it to him in l A.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I hope you guys enjoy working on
Speaker 1: some of our upcoming projects. We can't wait to tell
Speaker 1: the audience about those in the not too distant future.
Speaker 1: But that's it for today's nine Things. We'll be back
Speaker 1: with a full length episode tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening.