Idiot Savants

The MTV game show with an educational flair. The show's title refers to a label historically directed toward autistic humans with Savant Syndrome.

Brodcast
MTV - December 9, 1996 – April 25, 1997

Packager
MTV Networks

Host
Greg Fitzsimmons

Co-Host/Announcers
Matt Price as the Brain Paul Kozlowski as "Prize Guy"

Savant Players
Heather Blaze Tom Cohen Jason Nash Eric Friedman Shonda Farr

Format
Four contestants competed for an entire week in a standard question-and-answer game with an "educational" gimmick. Each day played like a standard game show episode with eliminations and a bonus round. However, all four contestants returned to start each new episode, and each player's scores from all episodes throughout the week were added together to create a grand total. The contestant who had the highest total after five days of competition won the weekly grand prize, usually a vacation or a car.

Each contestant was an expert in a specific topic, his/her "Savant Category", which ranged from 1980s Sitcoms to Physics to Heavy Metal Bands.

As in its predecessor Remote Control, many of the questions were asked (or performed) by the Savant Players, a group of actors who acted out comical sketches that led to the questions. Many of these actors were also writers on the show.

Monday-Thursday
The player's scores were initially set to zero on each of these four days.

Round 1
Eight categories were shown, and a player chose one of them. A toss-up question was asked, and the first player to buzz in with the right answer received 100 points and the chance to answer a bonus question worth 200 points. If that player answered the bonus correctly, he/she then had the right to try for the "Big Gamble" question, the last one in the category. Answering this question correctly awarded 300 points, while a wrong answer deducted 300 (no penalties for incorrect answers during toss-ups & bonuses). Any time a contestant answered a question incorrectly or ran out of time, the other players could buzz in and give the correct answer to steal the points. At the end of the first round, the lowest scorer was eliminated, isolated from the other three contestants, and labeled the "Dunce". The other three players went on to play in the second round.

As soon as any of the following occurred, the category went out of play and the last player who gave a correct answer would choose the next one:
 * No one answered a question correctly
 * Different players got the toss-up and bonus questions right
 * The same player answered the toss-up and bonus, but declined to try the Big Gamble
 * The Big Gamble was asked

Initially, the first question of a Monday episode was selected by the contestant who answered a "Control Question" correctly (more often than not, the category of this question was also the answer). This was soon replaced by a straw draw. On Tuesday-Friday, the first category was chosen by the previous episode's Dunce.

Round 2
The question format remained the same; however, questions were now worth double value (200, 400, +/-600 points). Also in this round, the "Brain" (an on-stage monitor played by Matt Price) chose the categories, and if the three players could not answer a question, the Dunce could steal the points (the category would end immediately afterward). The lowest scorer of the three remaining contestants at the end of the second round was eliminated for the day, leaving the remaining two players.

Round 3: Brainstorm Round
The category was retrieved by Fitzsimmons from "inside the Brain," and rapid fire questions from that category were asked for a period of 60 seconds. Each correct answer was worth 200 points, while an incorrect guess lost 200 points. The player in the lead after this round advanced to the Grand Savant Round.

Grand Savant Round
The winner of each day's contest played the bonus round for a mid-level prize, such as a vacation or a television set. Before appearing on the show, the contestant chose any subject that he/she knew most about, referred to as his/her "Savant Category". For the Grand Savant Round, the contestant was placed into a device called the "Cylinder of Shush" (a clear tube somewhat reminiscent of the "Cone of Silence" from Get Smart, but covering the entire upper half of the player's body).

The player was then asked a series of rapid-fire questions about his/her Savant Category, and had to answer ten of them correctly within the allotted time to win the bonus prize. Win or lose, 200 points was added to the player's weekly total for each question answered correctly for a maximum total of 2,000 points.

For the first few weeks, contestants had only 45 seconds to answer the questions; since very few contestants accomplished this feat, this time limit was soon increased to 60 seconds.

Friday Finals
On Friday, the four players' starting scores were the total points each one had accumulated during the week. Point values for the first two rounds were doubled (200/400/600, then 400/800/1200), and the low scorer at the end of each round was eliminated from the game. There was no "Dunce" on this episode.

The two remaining players then competed for the weekly grand prize in the "Double Grand Savant" final round. The player in second place was placed in the "Cylinder of Shush" first, and answered questions from his/her Savant Category for 60 seconds, at 1,000 points/correct answer.

The other player was then placed in the Cylinder and given 60 seconds to try and regain the lead, unless the first player failed to take the lead. The player in the lead after this final round was declared that week's champion and won the high-level prize. Four new contestants appeared the following Monday and the process repeated.

Links
Rules for Idiot Savants