Improbable, Not Impossible Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jeopardy!

First things first, I must say that this is the 2001 version of "Jeopardy!" that someone can win $566,400. Between 1984 and 2001, the maximum amount one could win was $288,200. This is because the money amounts were half of what they were beginning in 2001. Besides, who's to say that in 6,000 years, the money valued won't be one million, two million, three million, four million, and five million? You never know. ;-)

There are a lot of scenarios that have to fall in place for a score of $566,400 in a single episode of "Jeopardy!" First of all, let's look at the board in round one.

200 200 200 200 200 D.D
400 400 400 400 400 400
600 600 600 600 600 600
800 800 800 800 800 800
1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0

We must assume that the player would answer every single question correctly. Therefore, if the Daily Double (D.D) was on the smallest money amount (in this case 200), AND it was chosen last, the total score prior to the daily double would be $17,800. Of course, after the daily double, there would be $35,600 banked.

Round 2 begins, and this time, the money amounts are doubles, and there are TWO Daily Doubles. Assuming BOTH the Daily Doubles are on low money amounts, the board would look like this...

4-00 4-00 4-00 4-00 D.D. D.D.
8-00 8-00 8-00 8-00 8-00 8-00
1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200
1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600
2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000

Remember, the player would have started this round with $35,600 already in the bank. So, assuming they saved the two daily doubles for last, and they were on the low money amounts, this round would bear $35,200 prior to the Daily Doubles. Of course, this means you add the first round to it as well for a whopping $70,800. However, two Daily Doubles remain on the board, remember. The first Daily Double, assuming that you again wager ALL of your money, would result in $141,600. Another Daily Double remains, and if you wager all of THAT money, you will end the round with a hefty sum of $283,200. Hold on, now, we have one final clue for Final Jeopardy to win. This would bring your sum to $566,400.

You might begin to think... "But wait, salami, if one person gets every question right, no one else has any money! There wouldn't even BE a Final Jeopardy."

And to that I say... "True, that is the case. One person could be allowed a 200 dollar win, in which case the $566,400 would be slightly less. However, it's still over $500,000, so it's a ton of cash. But it also behooves us to keep in mind the Celebrity Edition of "Jeopardy!" In this special, even a celebrity with no money is given $1,000 for Final Jeopardy. After all, it is for charity. So, should a celebrity pull off this feat, they would still get the entire $566,400 amount."

Of course, this feat is, though not impossible, so highly improbable that it might as well be dubbed as "impossible". After all, the one-day record set by Ken Jennings during his 72 day run on "Jeopardy!" was an impressive $75,000.

Answer: -$58,000

After learning that you can get, if conditions are right, $566,400 total for winning a game of "Jeopardy!", it would be easy to assume that, if you got all the questions INcorrect, you could have the exact opposite of that score, and is in fact -$566,400. However, the "wise guy" would see through my trick and realize that such a player would not make it to Final Jeopardy, and thus could not get the full amount, and instead only get -$283,400.

Of course, you don't even have to do the math to realize that both of these, as well as $0, are all incorrect. Let's take a look at the first round's board again.

200 200 200 200 200 D.D
400 400 400 400 400 400
600 600 600 600 600 600
800 800 800 800 800 800
1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0

Assuming you answered every question incorrectly, saving the Daily Double for last, you would have -$17,800 prior to the Daily Double. This is where a bit of thinking comes in to play. While it would be easy to double this score to a -$35,600, this would be an incorrect answer. On "Jeopardy!" if you have a score that is less than $1,000, you can only wager up to $1,000. AHA! With this in mind, your score at the end of round 1 would be -$18,800. Following the same pattern in round 2, getting every question incorrect, before the Daily Doubles, you would have a nice score of -$54,000. In round 2 of "Jeopardy!" you can only wager up to $2,000 if you have less than $2,000 banked. Of course, this means that you can only subtract $2,000 for each incorrect answer for the two Daily Doubles. This results in a horrible game of -$58,000.

"Aha, you are forgetting about Final Jeopardy," you say.

"No, I am not," I say. "Remember, if someone is in the negative after Double Jeopardy, they do not make it into the Final Jeopardy, so will not lose any more money in the round."

Of course, you might be tempted to remind me about celebrity editions, where they allow people to play Final Jeopardy anyway. However, this would increase their total to $1,000, enough to use to wager in Final Jeopardy. So their total would be raised, and therefore it would be -$58,000 anymore. Therefore, we must assume that they do not make it to the Final Jeopardy round, and their grand total would be -$58,000.

So, here is the biggest criteria, which makes earning the lowest score possible on "Jeopardy!" actually more improbable (and possibly actually, literally, impossible) than winning the highest amount. You have to begin with control of the board. You also have to answer every single question incorrectly. The Daily Double also has to be chosen last, and it must be on the lowest money amount. What makes this even more difficult, however, is the fact that nobody else can get any answers correct. Otherwise, even if they only answered one question correctly TOTAL, and you STILL got every answer incorrect, you would not be the one in control of the Daily Double.

Answer: Wheel of Fortune

"Wheel of Fortune" first premiered in 1975. In 2008, on September 8, a new wedge was added to the board. This wedge had a slim "million dollar" piece, and was surrounded by two slim bankrupt wedges. Landing on this "million dollar wedge" is extremely difficult. However, once a player lands on it, it isn't over. The player has to then guess a letter, and that letter must be on the current puzzle. Then the player must continue to avoid the bankrupt, and then solve the puzzle. This will allow the wedge to be kept through the next round. Of course, the million dollars have not been won just by solving the puzzle and holding the wedge, like most other prizes. Similar to the wild card wedge, a bankrupt can make the player lose the million dollar wedge any time throughout the entire game. The player then has to win enough puzzles to beat the other two contestants on the show, and move to the final puzzle. There is a wheel they must spin which contains all sorts of cash and prizes. On this 24 wedge wheel, the one hundred thousand dollar wedge is replaced with the million wedge. The player must then land on that wedge, a one in twenty-four shot, and then solve the puzzle correctly. Only then will they win the million dollars.

Sounds impossible, but on October 14, 2008 (note that this is only about a month after the wedge was first placed), Michelle Lowenstein was on "Wheel of Fortune". On her very first spin of the wheel, she landed on the million dollar wedge. Somehow, she was able to solve the puzzle, win the game, and never hit a bankrupt. She had the million dollar wedge, and moved on to the final round. She spun the wheel, and looked at her puzzle. The category was "Around the House", and Michelle chose a few letters. Grinning, she guessed "Leaky Faucet" correct right away. Pat Sajak opened up the envelope to reveal that Michelle Lowenstein had become the first million dollar winner on "Wheel of Fortune".

She was able to pull off this feat in a month from the wedge being placed on the wheel for the first time; and even three years later, Michelle was the only million dollar "Wheel of Fortune" winner.

Answer: Press Your Luck

Michael Larson became famous when he won $110,237 in a single game of "Press Your Luck" in 1984. He did so well that the single episode was aired over two sessions on June 8 and 11.

Michael Larson admitted that he had studied the show, and was able to memorize the pattern. He discovered that a whammy never landed on squares 4 or 8, so he landed on those squares often. He was able to "beat" the system, and won more money than anyone else on the show. CBS did investigate the man, but it was determined that memorizing the pattern was not cheating. He was allowed to keep all his winnings.

Of course, someone doing more than winning, and actually beating the game show, made CBS a bit concerned. It wasn't long before a maximum "earnings" limit was placed. The board was also revamped with 32 new patterns, making it much more difficult to memorize the pattern.

Michael Larson died of throat cancer in 1999.

Answer: The Price is Right

On "The Price is Right" (deemed the greatest game show of all time, and also the game show with the most episodes [episode 7,500 aired in 2011]), players must win games to advance to the spin off round. In this round, three people 'spin off' (makes sense, right) to be as close to $1.00 as possible without going over. The winner moves on to the "Showcase". Another set of games is played, and another spin off takes place, and the winner of that round also moves on to the "Showcase".

Once at the showcase, a player is shown a prize, and they choose whether they want to guess the price of that prize or hand over the prize to the other player and keep the new prize. Once both contestants have locked in their guesses as to how much their prizes are worth, the actual retail value is revealed. The person who is the closest to their prize's value, without going over, wins their prize. Of course, in rare cases, a player would win BOTH prizes if they were within $100 of their prize's value.

It is my opinion that they should win an additional prize if they guess the prize's value EXACTLY, but, unfortunately, no additional prize is given for an exact guess in "Showcase".

Answer: Family Feud

On "Family Feud", two family teams compete to try to make it to the "Fast Money" round. Rounds are played until a team reaches 300 points, and they move on to the final round. In a quick round, two team members try to earn 200 points between the two of them. If they succeed, they win $20,000. If they do not, they get five dollars for every point they earned.

They come back as champions the next day, and if they win again, they go for the $20,000 again. Of course, if they manage to successfully do this five days in a row, they will win a grand total of $120,000. Reigning champions can not appear more than five days, however, so the $120,000 is the maximum prize.

However, in 2009, five day champs are also given a car. So if a family dominates the game, winning five days in a row, they could win $120,000 AND a car!

Answer: Lingo

In the version of "Lingo" that Chuck Woolery hosted, two teams of two would compete to form words, and to make lingoes on their lingo board. The winners advance to the final round, and compete for the jackpot. The jackpot begins at $5,000, and every time a team does not win the jackpot, it gradually increases. After quite some time, the jackpot was able to reach more than $35,000! Imagine the thrill when the team finally won the extremely large jackpot.

$35,000 was a lot, because most jackpots hardly ever grow to above $10,000, and rarely to $15,000, let alone $35,000!

Answer: Card Sharks

"Card Sharks" was a popular game show that had players first guess what percentage of people matched the survey that was taken. The winner would try to reach the end of his/her row of cards by saying whether the next one was higher or lower than the previous card.

The winner of this game would move on to the final round, where the money could be won. Players would bet some of their money and try and guess whether the next card was higher or lower. A huge chunk of money could be won on this round.

They would then come back the following day, and keep playing until either they won the maximum amount of cash or until they were dethroned by the other player.

Answer: Power of 10

"Power of 10" ran for only one season and a total of 18 episodes. It was hosted by Drew Carey. The producers, as well as Carey, thought it would be super difficult to even get a shot at the $10,000,000, so when the first contestant of the show won the million dollar question (he was also only 19), people were shocked! Of course, in this game, if you get a question right, you add a 0, and if you get one wrong, you lose a 0... So now this contestant had a choice. Would he risk losing $900,000 to attempt the $10,000,000 question? He had just answered the million dollar question correctly, which gave him a window of 10%. The 10 million dollar question would ask him to hit the correct poll number on the spot.

He passed, and walked away with an impressive one million dollars, making him one of the youngest million dollar game show winners ever.

But, for kicks, Drew Carey made him try the question anyway, just for fun. The contestant guessed 24%, but the answer was actually 29%. So close, yet so far, to winning 10 million dollars. On the first episode, no less. In the other 17 episodes, hardly anyone even made it past the $100,000 question.

Answer: Baggage

On "Baggage", hosted by Jerry Springer, the contestant is shown four bachelors, or bachelorettes. There are three rounds played. In the first round, the four "choices" reveal their smallest piece of "baggage", which reveals a secret that may turn the contestant away from that person. Round two shows three bags of the remaining "choices" (one is eliminated every round), but the contestant does not see who each belongs to. The contestant eliminates a player, and the final two share their biggest piece of "baggage". Once the contestant has whittled himself/herself down to one remaining person, they have to determine whether or not they can accept their "baggage". If they say yes, it's still not over. The contestant also brings a large piece of "baggage" with them, and now the chosen bachelor/bachelorette must decide whether THEY will accept the other person's baggage. If it's a yes, they both win a chance to go out on a date.

But in all seriousness, how many of these dates do you actually think ever leads to marriage? Heck, there probably aren't many that even lead to a SECOND date.