Analyzing the Best Game Show Contestants

[chrisholland03]

Plestatestanies

[TimK2003]

Though my memory of his actual game play was fuzzy at best, Frank Dillon was treated like the Ken Jennings of Quiz shows, at least in his hometown of Cleveland, in the 70s.  He did a few columns of movie and TV trivia games for nearly a decade in The Plain Dealer after winning a few TOC's on The Jokers Wild.

[JakeT]

Plestatestanies

I can still show that clip to the most rabid game show haters and still get a laugh out of them!

JakeT

[Kevin Prather]

As for the tournament entry, I'm pretty sure it was high money winners over the past however-long--so, since you only could win one 5-digit prize, the more main games you won (and, subsequently, WC prizes of $500 or less), the better.

Didn't the ultimate win just augment your score to $20,000, erasing any prior WC winnings? Seems like that was the Bob Stewart S.O.P.

[BrandonFG]

Indeed. Flat 20K in the ABC era.

[Jeremy Nelson]

That's too bad, because Wesley Berry just about demolished everyone in his championship run on American Gladiators. The problem is I don't know what constitutes "readily available," because Willy Gibson was dominant as well, and I think there were other twenty time winners on Concentration.

Wesley Berry was, by far, the greatest contender. He absolutely shredded his competition in his Eliminator runs.

Readily available likely means episodes he can find and watch without much effort.

Well, it's less about "without much effort" and more about "here's the proof of why they're so good". That's why it's tougher in the case of someone like Ruth Horowitz- I can just say outright that she was so good because of her win streak, but I'd like to provide more detail than your run-of-the-mill clickbait list.

[GameShowGuru]

Some I can think of offhand:
Howard Wilson (Whew!)
Burns Cameron (Jeopardy! - Fleming era)
Frank Spargenburg & Chuck Forrest (Jeopardy! - Trebek era)
Carolyn Raznor (Match Game '79)
John (no last name) (Match Game '90)
Eileen Jason (Joker's Wild)
Helaine Lowrey ($ale of the Century)

[Sonic Whammy]

We did a podcast about that last fall. Hope it helps some: