User blog:Gameshowguy2000/James Holzhauer: An analysis (and to clear the air)

As I write this, James Holzhauer is about halfway to Ken Jennings' record on Jeopardy!; all he has to do is win 75 (instead of 74), and he will hold the record to most games won.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of YouTube comments suggesting this is all "fixed", "rigged", and the guy is a "cheat".

Let me give you an insight to the show itself before we go back to the subject at hand: Merv Griffin was anxious to get quiz shows back on the air after the scandals of the 1950s. He was nervous, too, as his wife Julann suggest he do a shot where the players are given the answers and he literally had to remind her about what happened on the old shows: the producers went to jail. But then she clarified something to him: Give the players the answers, and have them come up with the questions. The original show was called What's the Question?, and NBC executives were wanting a more excitable title, saying that "there aren't enough jeopardies", and that "there should be more jeopardies", and all Merv could keep hearing was the word "Jeopardy!" in his head, and the title stuck. As the name suggests, your money is always in "jeopardy" whenever you respond ("question") to a clue ("answer"). Naturally, you win money if you're right, but true to the show's name, you lose money if you're wrong.

Now, back to the subject at hand. If this show that was an "answer" to real fixed and rigged shows were rigged and fixed itself, then "What is, Alex and the staff would all be out of a job, and there would be investigations a-plenty?"

The scandals led to the three words that some people still don't understand today, and ensure fair competition on game shows, and those are Standards (1) and (2) Practices. They are the ones responsible for a show's enforcement of their rules. For example, the rule of responding in the form of a question is not Alex Trebek's rule, it's the show's. He has to enforce it, or risk the show getting cancelled and him and the staff going to jail like the old shows.

Now, I will step down from the soap box, and let everyone else have their say. Gameshowguy2000 (talk) 21:39, April 30, 2019 (UTC)