The Weakest Link

On The Weakest Link, eight contestants (six in the syndicated version) competed to win a top amount by playing a quiz/elimination contest. At the end of each round, each player is voted off as The Weakest Link.

Gameplay
In each round, the team’s goal is to reach the target of the maximum value within the time limit. They do that by correctly answering a series of questions posed by the host. The players on the team played one at a time from left to right. In the first round, the player in the first position or an impaired player such as wheelchair bound (as opposed to the player whose name is first alphabetically in the original British version) went first; then after that, the "Strongest Link" (the player who answered the most right) from the previous round went first in the next round. Not only that, the time was reduced in each new round. Also in each round, there was a money chain; on the chain were ascending money amounts leading up to the target amount. So the fastest way to get to the target was to create a chain of a certain number of correct answers. As soon as a player missed a question, the chain was broken, and all the money from the chain was lost. However, at the beginning of each new turn, a player in control can bank the value of the previous question by saying the word "bank" before his/her question was asked; when that happened, that money was put into the bank, but the chain had to be reset.

Money Chains
The bank's target value was the maximum amount of money that a team could accumulate in any one round, and if a team reached the target and banked it while already having money in the bank (a rare occurrence), the bank would be augmented to the target value instead of having the target value added to the bank. The number of money amounts/consecutive correct answers needed was determined by how many players were originally on the team.

NBC Primetime
 * $125,000
 * $75,000
 * $50,000
 * $25,000
 * $10,000
 * $5,000
 * $2,500
 * $1,000

Teams tried to build up a total of up to $1,000,000.

Syndication
 * $12,500 (doubled to $25,000 in Season 2)
 * $5,000
 * $2,500
 * $1,000
 * $500
 * $250

Teams tried to build up a total of up to $75,000 in season one, and up to $100,000 in season two.

Time Limits
On NBC, the first round lasted for 2½ minutes (2:30), and decreased by 10 seconds for each new round.

In syndication, the first round lasted for 1¾ minutes (1:45), and decreased by 15 seconds for each new round.

Voting Off the Weakest Link
Any money that has been banked by the team when the time was up was carried over into the next round, giving the team a chance to add more to the bank. However, one player will not advance to the next round, for at the end of each round, all the players on the team written down their votes on their telestrators as to who they thought was the "Weakest Link". While they were writing, the announcer told the home viewers who was statistically the "Strongest Link/Strongest Player", and who was the "Weakest Link/Worst Player". Then the votes were revealed, and the player with the most votes was eliminated from the game. In case of a tie, the "Strongest Link" cast the deciding vote. In between the reveal & the elimination, the host would talk to some of the players & ask why he/she to vote off a particular player. After the elimination, the eliminated player would do a post-show commentary of what happened.

NOTE: Should the "Strongest Link" from the last round be voted off, then the second strongest link started the next round.

Double Round
In the NBC version as well as the first season of the syndicated version, when there were two players left, the final regular question round was the double round; for any money banked by the two players was then doubled and added to the pot. So the target for this round on NBC was $250,000, while the target for syndicated season one was $25,000. When the target was doubled to $25,000 in syndicated season two, the double round was removed, and after the vote off the remaining two players went straight into the final round.

Final Round
In the final round, the two remaining players played a showdown for all the money in the bank. To start, the "Strongest Link" from the last round (or, in the second syndicated season, the second-strongest if that player had been voted off) decided if he/she should go first or let his/her opponent go first. Then the players took turns answering their own questions. Each player gets up to five questions (three in syndication), and the player with the most correct answers won the game. If there was a tie after everybody was asked all of their questions, the game shifted into a sudden death playoff. Questions will continue in pairs (they still alternated turns answering questions), and the one player who can manage to answer his/her question correctly when his/her opponent could not answer his/hers, won the game.

The winner of the game got to keep all the money in the bank, while the loser & 4 or 6 others eliminated from the game would leave with nothing.

Records
Ironically, the highest amount won on the prime time version was $189,500 on the Tournament of Losers special (this is also the highest amount of money ever won on The Weakest Link worldwide). The lowest won was $22,500, on the Fear Factor Champions special. The lowest amount won on the daytime version was $1,000, while the highest was $53,000.

The highest amount won on a Celebrity Edition of the show was when LeVar Burton won a "Star Trek Stars" edition with a pot of $167,500.

Press Photos
Anne Robinson

International Versions
The following list of countries that did their versions of The Weakest Link includes:


 * Arabia
 * Australia
 * Azerbaijan
 * Armenia
 * Belgium (Dutch language only)
 * Brazil (as a pilot in 2001 but was later rejected by BBC)
 * Chile
 * China
 * Czech Republic
 * Croatia
 * Denmark
 * Estonia
 * Finland
 * France
 * Georgia
 * Germany
 * Greece
 * Hong Kong
 * Hungary
 * India
 * Ireland
 * Israel
 * Italy
 * Japan
 * Macedonia
 * Malaysia
 * Mexico
 * Moldova
 * Netherlands
 * New Zealand
 * Norway
 * Philippines
 * Poland
 * Portugal
 * Romania
 * Russia
 * Serbia
 * Singapore
 * Slovenia
 * South Africa
 * Spain
 * Sweden
 * Taiwan
 * Thailand
 * Turkey
 * United Kingdom (country that originated the program)

The Weakest Link In Popular Culture
In an episode of MAD TV, Lorraine is on the show but it's actually called "The Missing Link", a parody of the name. The contestants that Lorraine are playing against are two monkeys, Professor MacFuzzy and Huckleberry. However, all three contestants do not get the answers right so they leave empty-handed. Lorraine, believe it or not, was the missing link. Anne Robinson made an appearance in this episode.



In another episode of MAD TV, there is another parody of the celebrity version of the Weakest Link. Anne Robinson did not make an appearance, someone played her.



The show's host Anne Robinson was parodied in an episode of Whammy!: The All-New Press Your Luck where the Whammy stands on a purple podium with spotlights asking "Who's one spin short of a victory? Goodbye!"

Anne Robinson's Catchphrase "You Are The Weakest Link, Goodbye!" has made several appearances on TV shows and movies, such as Family Guy, Scary Movie 2 and How I Met Your Mother.

In the first season of the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, Rose Tyler appears on a futuristic version of Link, hosted by "Anne Droid" (voiced by Robinson) where eliminated contestants were supposedly disintegrated, but in fact "teleported" elsewhere.

Trivia

 * Anne Robinson not only hosted the American version, but she also hosted the original British version.
 * George Gray hosted the syndicated show in the beginning of 2002 and ended in 2003.
 * This was the only version out of all international versions where the contestants actually applauded and cheered whenever the target was hit and the host told them not to in some way.

Spin-Off
Dirty Rotten Cheater - Uses the same format except this time, one player has all the answers given to him/her. The pilot, entitled Cheaters, used the Weakest Link set.

Inventors
Based on the show of the same name in the United Kingdom by Fintan Coyle and Cathy Dunning

Additional Pages
The Weakest Link/Merchandise

The Weakest Link/Catchphrases

Links
Official website of the NBC interactive version of Weakest Link (Robinson era) courtesy of Spiderdance

Official website from the president of Spiderdance who's responsible for the interactive version of The Weakest Link

Weakest Link (day & night)

Official website from the Anne Robinson era of The Weakest Link courtesy of the Internet Archive

Official website from the George Gray era of Weakest Link courtesy of the Internet Archive

Chris Lambert's NBC Weakest Link Page

Chris Lambert's Syndicated Weakest Link Page

David's NBC Weakest Link Page

David's Syndicated Weakest Link Page

Rules for the Weakest Link

Weakest Link Fan Site

The Weakest Link @ Tim's TV Showcase

YouTube Videos
The Only Perfect Chain of the NBC version

A Perfect Chain from the 4th Round of a 2nd season episode of the syndicated version with just one second left!

A Perfect Chain from the Double Round of a 1st season episode of the syndicated version; includes a George Gray impression of Anne Robinson!

A Perfect Chain from the 2nd season of the syndicated version