Host: “In which country would you spend shekels?” Contestant (on the phone): “Holland?” Host: “Try the next letter of the alphabet.” Contestant: “Iceland? Ireland?” Host: “It’s a bad line. Did you say…ISRAEL? Contestant: “No.”
This is perhaps my all-time favourite exchange between a quiz show host and a contestant. The contestant not only doesn’t know the correct answer, but so doesn’t know it that when they’re actually given the correct answer they still don’t know it. I’m an avid reader of “Dumb Britain”, the column in Private Eye, which, I think I’m correct in saying, may have started the craze for collecting these sorts of things. I can understand that being in front of an audience and being under bright lights in a TV studio can addle one’s brain. I’ve been there and done that, and found myself incapable of counting to three. Even so, when a contestant is asked where Cambridge University is, and is told, “There’s a clue in the name”, and they still answer, “Leicester”, then there’s something going on.
Same as when they’re asked, “What is the nationality of the Pope?” and they answer, “Jewish”. When a contestant is asked, “What word for an ancient Roman marketplace is also a site on the internet for open discussion?”, and they answer “chatroom”. Or when they’re asked what the word is that comes before “be thy name” in the Lord’s Prayer, and they say, “Howard”. Q: “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s …” A: “Clock.” Q: “Beauty is in the eye of the …” A: “Tiger.” A game show has to have a specific structure to produce these gems. It must have a format where contestants have to think on their feet. So the fatal flaw in a game show like “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” is that the players are given multiple-choice questions. It completely eliminates the potential for spontaneity, and therefore comedy. For this reason – not only this reason – “Family Feud” was much better.
“Name something a blind person might use.” “A sword.” “Name something that flies that doesn’t have an engine.” “A bicycle with wings.” “Something that comes in sevens.” “Fingers.” “Something made of wool.” “Sheep.” “A food that makes noise when you eat it.” “A really loud hamburger.” The “Weakest Link” has the right structure, too – so when a contestant is asked, “What ‘W’ has a brain the size of a cherry and can impact a tree at 1300 miles an hour?” they have scope to answer, without hesitation, “water buffalo”. (In fairness, I had to think about this one for a moment – the correct answer is “woodpecker”.) Or when they’re asked, “What insect is normally found hovering above lakes?” they can take the time to confound expectations by confidently asserting that the answer is “crocodiles”.
“Wheel of Fortune” is one game show that I used to watch, mesmerised, like some people watch motor racing for the crashes (which is the reason I also watch show jumping). I would wait for that moment when the contestant had all the vowels and consonants that they could in front of them, and faced the moment of truth (or MOME_ _ O_ TR _ T_) of solving the word puzzle by filling in the blanks. Faced with _N _C_ _F KI_DNE_S the contestant answers AN ACE OF KIDNEYS. Actually, it was AN ACT OF KINDNESS, but you kind of wish he could get points for just being weird. AN _ _ _Y CHILD becomes AN UGLY CHILD. That may or may not be the case, but the correct answer was AN ONLY CHILD. (Note: this contestant was a school counsellor.) Sometimes the answers tell us more about the contestants than they might want us to know – so _ISH L_ _ _ becomes FISH LOVE, rather than WISH LIST. And sometimes you simply wonder WTF?: YOUR _OOSE IS COOKED becomes YOUR MOOSE IS COOKED; A TEN-GALLON _AT becomes A TEN-GALLON CAT (in a similar vein, _T _ _ _ _T’S END became AT MY CAT’S END). The workings of the human mind are never less than fascinating, often illuminating, and in the right setting can also be hilarious. It strikes me that all of life should really be structured like one long game show.
