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Jeopardy's real origins

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DjohnsonCB:
Merv Griffin has said on a couple of occasions that the "answer and question" concept for "Jeopardy!" was conceived with the help of his wife while they were on a plane or somewhere else.  She suggested a show where players are given the answers and asked to respond by asking the right question, which at first got Merv to thinking that giving the answers was what got the industry in trouble several years back.  

That story sounds convincing, but according to "TV Game Shows" by Maxene Fabe, it was supposed to have been conceived as a comedy-type idea (Answer: 9-W; question, "Mr. Wagner, do you spell your last name with a V?")  Given the amount of mistakes prevalent in that book, I'd side with Merv, but did both parties actually have a hand in the creation of the format?

Matt Ottinger:
[quote name=\'DjohnsonCB\' date=\'Dec 4 2003, 10:38 AM\'] Given the amount of mistakes prevalent in that book, I'd side with Merv, but did both parties actually have a hand in the creation of the format? [/quote]
 I'm not sure who you mean when you speak of "both parties".  You don't think Maxine herself had a hand in the creation of the format, do you?

Merv has told the story of Jeopardy's origin countless times, a lot more than "a couple".  It's passed into legend, and as with any legend certain aspects of the story tend to get played up more over time.  The gag about the earlier scandals is just that, a gag.  It would have taken ten seconds of explanation to get past that concern.

Merv may have considered a comedy format at one point, or Maxine could have gotten the idea from comedy routines like Steve Allen's Answer Man or Johnny Carson's Carnak.  In fact, I don't have her book in front of me, but I could have sworn that the example in the book was a comparison to Steve Allen's old routine, not an explanation of how the game would have been played.

Either way, I don't see the two stories as being mutually exclusive.

Mike Tennant:
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Dec 4 2003, 10:23 AM\']Either way, I don't see the two stories as being mutually exclusive.[/quote]
Exactly.  It seems to me it was a combination of the two.  Mrs. Griffin came up with the answer-and-question idea, and then Merv thought it would make a good comedy show as Matt described.  Ultimately he realized they could never keep it going as a comedy show for very long because they'd run out of material, so they went to the straight quiz show format we all know and love.  (At least this is what I've gathered from my reading over the years.)

uncamark:
[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Dec 4 2003, 10:31 AM\'][quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Dec 4 2003, 10:23 AM\']Either way, I don't see the two stories as being mutually exclusive.[/quote]
Exactly.  It seems to me it was a combination of the two.  Mrs. Griffin came up with the answer-and-question idea, and then Merv thought it would make a good comedy show as Matt described.  Ultimately he realized they could never keep it going as a comedy show for very long because they'd run out of material, so they went to the straight quiz show format we all know and love.  (At least this is what I've gathered from my reading over the years.)[/quote]
I've also had the feeling (particularly from the first "J!" book) that Merv wanted a straightforward Q&A from the start--that it was the NBC suits who wanted a comedy format.  Merv knew that the line had been drawn on Q&As ever since the quiz scandals (with the exception of the unsullied "GE College Bowl") and his concern was getting a quiz back on the air.  Juleann's idea that doing it backwards was the gimmick that could get it by.   Bob Rubin was the one who felt that the show should be done at a faster pace than any other game show on the air--and that's how you come up with a television classic.

calliaume:
I believe Merv had a serious quiz in mind all along.  He was nice enough to drop me a brief note, saying NBC's head of daytime (Jerry Chester?) was dubious about the show's prospects, but Grant Tinker talked him into it.  (Actually, Tinker was jumping up and down, shouting "Buy it!  Buy it!")

I guess that makes up for Tinker axing Just Men! because he thought it was so horrible, despite his late buddy's wife hosting.

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