Definitive of the "good old days"

drystyx

Jeopardy, the game show, is definitive of the "good old days".

It's no "frills or fakes", "no models walking across the floor". It was made to be a true game show. To win, you had to know real facts.

I wouldn't be smart enough to win, unless I played a couple of IMDb posters, in which case I'd be a shoo in.

There is a "Jeopardy of the past" and a "Jeopardy of Today". Sad to say, that's why the "good old days" truly were better.

In the past, you had to be knowledgeable about many subjects which required something besides pop culture or reading tabloids. In the past, the contestant who won "earned" a win. Only "Wheel of Fortune" can make the same boast. The other game shows were either sheer luck (spin a wheel, roll a dice, choose a curtain), sheer dorkiness (knowing each Hollywod celebrity's marital status), or sheer obvious cheating (Name That Tune-contestants naming a song in one or two notes, played by a band that sounded nothing like the original song. You do know there are only 13 notes? Only 13 combinations for one note, and only 169 for two notes, yet out of the tens of thousands of songs, contestants would name the right song-yeah, it was fixed).

But Jeopardy, you would score yourself at home, and lose, but you didn't feel bad, because you knew the winner "earned" it. The winner knew about Chemistry, Math, World History, American History, Sports, Drama, even the Arts, all in a nice proportion.

Then came the "clue crew", and it was shot to Hell. No longer could you feel you were beaten by someone more outstanding. Now, the winner had to be a superdork. Whereas before a tenth of the questions might be for dorks to get some scores, questions about the latest pop singer's vacation, about the latest movie's star's real name...now, 90% of the questions were for the dorks, and the nerds now have no chance.

I don't mind losing to a nerd. They have some degree of intellect. Losing to some dork just because the dork knows how many Coen brothers there are, but not how many great lakes there are, that would be unforgivable.

The "clue crew" ruined it in other ways. Jeopardy was once as much audio as visual. Now, if you have a small screen, you can't see what they are pointing to, and they can't enunciate, so you don't understand what they are saying.

The rating of 6 is a balance of "10" for Jeopardy before this date, "6" on this date, and "2" for today.

score 3/10

drystyx 11 September 2012

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2672133/