Come on Down Trivia Quiz

Answer: What's My Line?

Although the exact format of 'What's My Line?' changed over the years, the general setup always involved a guest player whose occupation the four panelists had to guess by asking yes-no questions. For each question that did not lead to a correct guess from the panel, the player earned an extra five dollars. If they didn't guess it correctly after ten questions, the player won $50 - it was a game played not for big prize money, but for the intellectual challenge. Host John Charles Daly kept proceedings on track, although once he involuntarily gave the occupation away. Dorothy Kilgallen asked the standard "Is it bigger than a breadbox?", and Daly collapsed into laughter. Steve Allen immediately guessed that the contestant manufactured breadboxes.

Answer: I've Got a Secret

The contestants' secrets could be about something they owned, or something they had experienced. Bobby Fischer appeared with the secret "I am the US chess champion", and Pete Best confided that he had once been a member of the Beatles. Panelists were given a set amount of time in which to ask as many questions as they could to try and determine the secret, with the contestant earning more money for each unsuccessful panelist. With a maximum prize of $80 to be earned if all four panelists had two rounds of questions without anyone guessing correctly, this was once again a game played for the fun rather than the money.

Answer: To Tell the Truth

This show had three contestants, all of whom pretended to be the central character who had an unusual occupation or achievement. The real one was required to answer all questions truthfully, but the impostors were allowed to lie. The celebrities (and the home audience) were told some relevant information about the central contestant, and then they tried to ask questions of the three contestants to help them determine which one was the real one.

After the celebrities had each made their choice, the real one stood up, usually after a certain amount of false-starts to keep the suspense playing for a while longer.

Answer: Jeopardy!

The hook for the game show 'Jeopardy!' was that the host offered the answers, and contestants had to come up with an appropriate question. There were two rounds with five questions in each of six different categories (often with highly playful titles); the value of questions increased as you moved down the category, and doubled between the rounds.

The Jeopardy! round included one Daily Double - the player who selected that answer could bid as little or as much as they wished (up to the amount they had already scored, or the maximum question value for the round if they had less than that much); wagering all your money was called "a true Daily Double" on the show.

The Double Jeopardy! round included two Daily Doubles.

Answer: Let's Make a Deal

Members of the studio audience came along with objects they were prepared to trade. If selected, they would be offered an object of moderate value, and (of course) eagerly made the trade. Then came the crunch - even if they had not yet seen their first object (which might have been concealed inside a box), they would be offered the opportunity to trade it for a hidden object. This could be of any value, from a new car down to a joke prize (called a Zonk on the show) such as a set of hair clips. The actual details of the game structure varied over the years, but the end of the show always included the Big Deal, in which one or more players had the chance to choose what was behind one of three doors, behind one of which was hidden the Big Deal, a prize whose value exceeded that of any other prize on the show. 'Let's Make a Deal' has been produced under license to in over a dozen countries, under various names. In the UK, it was called 'Trick or Treat', in France 'Le BigDil', and in Germany 'Geh aufs Ganze!'

The Big Deal is the basis for a popular mathematical problem called The Monty Hall Problem. It postulates that you are a player who has picked one of the doors, at which time one of the two you didn't choose is opened to show that there is a mediocre prize behind it. The question is, should you change doors to the other unopened one, or stay with your first choice? The answer, which is definitely counterintuitive for most people, is that you should change, as that gives you a two out of three chance of winning, as against the one out of three chance if you stay with the first door. (Please do not send me discussions of this - look up the problem and many available explanations of the theory behind it.)

Answer: Wheel of Fortune

Players spin a wheel to determine how much money they will gain if they correctly guess a consonant in the mystery word or phrase. If they guess correctly, they get another spin; if they are incorrect, play passes to the next contestant. The first player to correctly solve the puzzle wins the money they have accumulated. To help make things clearer, a player with sufficient money can 'buy a vowel' by spending the appropriate amount and then guessing a vowel.

The final round involves the player who has attained the highest score to that point playing a bonus round in which they are allowed to guess a certain number of consonants and vowels (determined by how much they had already won), and try to solve the puzzle for a big prize. Details of game play have varied over time and space, but the fundamental has remained in place.

A number of home games have been developed over the years, starting with early versions that had an actual wheel to spin, and including a number of video/DVD/PC versions.

Answer: Family Feud

This show has been adapted into local formats many times around the world, and the details of game play vary. In essence, there are two teams of people who are related in some way (except for celebrity versions, where the link may be that they acted together on the same show, or played on the same sports team, etc.), each of whom tries to guess what 100 people answered when asked a certain question in a survey.

The most frustrating thing about watching this show was the fact that so many WRONG answers appeared on the survey, and you couldn't clear the board unless you guessed them. I still remember that a question about naming Disney characters once had Bugs Bunny as the top answer (on the Australian version of the show).

Answer: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' also brought the concept of 'lifelines' to popular parlances. As each contestant attempted to answer a series of multiple choice questions whose difficulty increased along with the amount of money to be won for a correct answer, they could choose from one of the available modes of assistance.

These have varied in different times and places, but commonly included: phone a friend (make a telephone call to a previously-nominated acquaintance to ask their advice), fifty-fifty (have two of the four options removed - and it was usually the two least likely ones), and ask the audience (audience members were asked to post their answers, and the contestant can see how many chose each option). Eddie McGuire often replaced "Is that your final answer?" with "Lock it in?", and other variants were used in international versions. All included a question from the host to verify that the contestant had made their final choice before they were told whether it was right or wrong.

Answer: The Weakest Link

'The Weakest Link' first appeared on BBC2 in 2000, hosted by Anne Robinson. Unlike most game show hosts, who tend to be friendly and inclusive, she made a point of being stern and severe, dressing in black and showing little emotion. In each round of play, contestants took turns answering trivia questions; if they got it right, money was added to the pool for the final round, but if they got it wrong the round returned to zero. Players could bank at any time and make the money scored to that point safe.

The round stopped after a set time, or if they banked the target value for a round. (The target value was not consistent, but depended on the size of the original group, which has varied in different versions.) At the end of each round players nominated the contestant whom they wanted to see leave the game.

This might have been the one they perceived as weak and not helping the team accumulate money, or the one they perceived as being too strong and likely to win in the final round.

The player who received the most votes had to leave, and was told that they were "the weakest link". The final two players confronted each other one-on-one. The winner took home all the money accumulated during the game; all the others left with nothing.

Answer: Eggheads

Originally there were five Eggheads: Kevin Ashman, C. J. de Mooi, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes and Judith Keppel, all with impressive records in television quiz shows. Later additional members were added to the pool, so that all five were not required every week.

The game structure required that the challenging team, informed of the category of the first set of questions, select one of their players and one of the Eggheads to fight it out in a series of three multiple-choice questions each. In the event that they were level at that point, they proceeded to questions for which they had to supply the answer, until one player had answered fewer questions correctly than the other at the end of a pair of questions.

The loser was eliminated. After four preliminary rounds, each team would have between one and five players remaining for the final round, which had the same format, except that players could confer instead of being isolated to answer on their own as in previous rounds. If the challengers won, they received the money in the pool, which started at 1,000 pounds and jackpotted every day that the Eggheads won.

In Series 8, Episode 14, the team Beer today, Gone tomorrow won 75,000 pounds.