What an Idiot!/Game Show

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Ah, game shows. One of the most popular forms of entertainment, where contestants display their knowledge and smarts to the entire nation. ...Or, as often is the case, for the contestant to make a complete fool out of him or herself and give a completely incorrect, illogical answer that not only dumbfounds the host, but causes the audience to break out in complete hysterics. These examples are classic instances of a contestant blowing it...big time.

To be fair to said players, just like with the separate Game Show pages in What an Idiot! (for longer-running programs), many contestants are indeed trying their best to perform well. After all, they're in front of cameras and (possibly) a studio audience, plus they may be under a time limit and the show is taping to be aired sometime in the future to a local (if not national) audience...thus, it can be expected for some to be unusually nervous and simply not perform as well as s/he would've liked.

Others earnestly are stumped or give an obviously incorrect answer, truly believing said response to be correct, or going on the advice that "something said is better than nothing at all", to what many viewers would think is an easy question. Pat Sajak has said many times (usually after a failed solve of a seemingly-easy bonus round puzzle) that playing the game at home or from the studio audience is far different than it is for the contestants, who are under stress to do well.

A peculiar phenomenon, observed on many university-level exams, should be noted here. Many students, who have no problems with answering advanced, complex and difficult questions, have serious difficulty with seemingly simple and trivial questions (during face-to-face oral examinations, some professors tend to start with easy questions; the idea is that quick and correct answer will boost the examinee's confidence, release some pressure and make the rest of the exam go more smoothly). A likely explanation is that an examinee simply does not expect the questions to be so easy and straightforward, and subconsciously starts to look for hidden tricks and nuances that, actually, do not appear. Similarly, during a TV contest, when one plays for money in front of the cameras, an easy question can be considered tricky - the obvious and simple answer can be instantly dismissed because it seems too simple and too obvious for a prized, TV-broadcasted contest.

Then again, some contestants do give the wrong answer on purpose, just for a few laughs or simply to show off. That doesn't make them any less stupid, mind you, but instead become far more worthy of being here.

Subpages

Face The Music

A cult favorite musical identification game from 1980-81 had a mini-game asking contestants to identify a tune and match it with a famous person, celebrity or fictional character, whose pictures they had just seen in a brief montage. In the case a round ended in a tie, any tying contestants played an abbreviated version of this game, with three pictures instead of six.

  • A 1980 episode had a tie game after a round. The two contestants (Dorothy, a 60-ish woman who stammers most of her answers and Michael, a young Asian-American man in his 20s) are shown pictures of Lawrence Welk, Catherine Bach, and Carroll O'Connor.
    • You'd Expect: Even on a game show where intelligence isn't a prerequisite, for one of them to at least recognize three well-known popular culture figures – including the bandleader of a top-rated syndicated TV series, an actress from a show that was currently in the top 5 of the Nielsen ratings, and the star of probably the biggest show of the 1970s – bringing an end to the tiebreaker round after the first song.
    • Instead: A comedy of errors.
      • Dorothy rings in, spits out (after reciting most of the lyrics) "The Band Played On". She matches it with "Archie Bunker". (Her opponent, Michael, claps gleefully and hyperactively jumps up and down like a little kid when she gives the wrong answer. Correct answer: Lawrence Welk.)
      • Dorothy immediately identifies "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody". Even she should be able to identify Catherine Bach, or give a reasonable guess, but all she can say, "The girl in the picture but I don't know her name." (Michael tries to ring in but is denied.)
      • With a correct guess of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall", Michael answers Archie Bunker. Unfortunately, the producers were looking for the actor's real name: Carroll O'Connor (which Dorothy gets right, but since she didn't ring in first, she wasn't credited with the answer).
    • With all three pictures exhausted, a new montage is shown: Andy Williams, Lindsay Wagner and Telly Savalas. Again, You'd Expect: With three well-known celebrities, a hastened end of the round upon a quick correct answer:
    • Instead: More bungling:
      • After Michael easily identifies the Bee Gees' "More Than a Woman," he answers Cheryl Ladd. Host Ron Ely is in disbelief: "I don't believe this!" as the audience is beside itself in laughter. (Correct answer: Lindsay Wagner.)
      • After Dorothy spits out reasonable guesses – half of them incoherent – before saying "Zorba the Greek" she finally gives a correct match: Telly Savalas.

The One Million Chance of a Lifetime

  • Late during Season 1, two couples (already struggling during a bad day on the show) were faced with a puzzle whose clues led to IMELDA MARCOS.
    • You'd Expect: With numerous clues, including "shoes" and "Philippines" showing, for at least one of the four contestants to recognize the name of the widow of the Filipino dictator, who was constantly in the news at about that time.
    • Instead: Both couples are completely stumped, and both admit they had never so much as heard of Marcos.
  • In another episode, all but the M's are showing in the puzzle "MOUNT RUSHMORE".
    • You'd Expect: At least one of the couples to recognize the name of a well-known national landmark.
    • Instead: No one is able to solve it.

Scrabble

  • Early 1985: The most memorable example came on an episode during the short-lived "spelling" format (requiring players to spell out the answer by filling whatever blanks remained), an incident that has been shown repeatedly on game show-related and Dick Clark bloopers specials. The clue was "They love to fly over nudist camps.", and the portion showing was "M_SQU____".
    • You'd Expect: With the female contestant (Von?) possibly unsure how to spell "MOSQUITOS", for her to continue selecting tiles/letters to fill in the blanks (especially since two colored squares, which offered cash bonuses for solving the puzzle immediately after filling them in, were still available).
    • Instead: A chain of at least four incorrect answers, beginning with Von saying "U" as her first guess.
    • You'd Then Expect: The opponent, Chris, to pick two tiles and continue filling in the blanks to make sure he can correctly spell the word.
    • Instead: He immediately rings in and says he knows the solution, says "I", and is buzzed.
    • Later: Von fills in a remaining blank with the other "S" to get M_SQU___S. You'd expect: With the cash bonus squares still available, and maybe still unsure about the second letter, that she would draw two more tiles.
    • Instead: She goes for the solve, saying "A". The buzzer sounds, and at this point the audience is beginning to laugh. Host Chuck Woolery: "I've never had this happen before. (Beat) This is the first time."
    • Immediately Thereafter: Chris rings in and finally fills in the "O" in the second blank, and I and T in order to get MOSQUIT_S...then says "E". Woolery is dumbfounded as the audience is now in hysterics. "I'm going home! I don't know about you." The word went unsolved.

Cash Cab

  • From the Canadian version with Adam Growe:
    • One particularly memorable incident:

Adam: What relative of the seal has external ears and can rotate its hind flippers?
Contestant 1: *deliberating* Is it...penguin?
Contestant 2: I think it might be sea lion...
Contestant 3: Probably sea lion...
Contestant 1: I dunno. Maybe penguins aren't really seals after all.

    • When shown the video bonus question at the end and asked to identify what this creature was:

Contestant: Are those jellyfish?

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