The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: wdm1219inpenna on June 01, 2025, 08:23:21 PM
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Ken Jennings for his amazing run on Jeopardy!
Curtis Warren. He won big on $ale of the Century and even bigger on Greed.
Michael Larson for his amazing one day total on Press Your Luck as well as his ability to crack the code of the board patterns.
Lt. Thom McKee who won 8 cars and over 40 matches on Tic Tac Dough.
Three honorable mentions, 1. John Carpenter who was the first player in the U.S. to win the top prize of One Million dollars on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, (he did so without using any lifelines...he did use the phone a friend to call his Dad but that was just to tell him that he was about to win the million!) 2. Norma Brown, the only contestant on any version of Card Sharks (outside of pilot episodes) to win the top available money amount at the Money Cards...not only did she do it, but she did it before any of the rule changes that favored the contestants were implemented (meaning no push on a double and not allowed to change base cards on each level, only the very first card). 3. John Hatten who won 20 matches on Bill Cullen's Blockbusters, winning the Gold Run each and every time for a top maximum cash prize of $120,000. Furthermore during John's time on the show, he learned that his home was destroyed by a fire, but he continued to stay and to play, a very remarkable feat!
I KNOW I've overlooked many others but those are the ones that come readily to my mind. Who are yours and why?
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I don't see how you can leave out Thom McKee and Michael Larsen.
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The top five - those were both ridiculously successful at the game AND crossed over into the cultural zeitgeist in a way that long post-dated their actual appearances are Ken Jennings, John Carpenter, Michael Larsen, Thom McKee, and Dr. Joyce Brothers. Pick four.
Re: Dr. Joyce: In the golden era of TV, the era with the highest ratings and nothing else on, she was easily the genre's most famous contestant to win without being provided answers - and is the one who stuck around for decades later. It's generally agreed that her knowledge of boxing, though gained after she first wrote in to the show, was semi-legit. Her taking the show to the cleaners being 'a woman who knows boxing', though suggested by the producers, was generally cleared post-scandals as "she just went and learned everything about it on the merit so they didn't HAVE to give her the answers". And did it again later just to prove a point. The media sensation of "woman knows sports things" almost assuredly put at least a few cracks in several cultural glass ceilings. And she parleyed that into a decades-long career as THE television psychologist. Once she committed to learning boxing, she COMMITTED.
Thom McKee was famous enough to get interviews on other shows because of his TTD run even years after the fact. Some of his winnings total's a bit inflated due to TTD's pot-doubling gimmick but $310K and 46 shows is just impressive no matter how you slice it. Sits at the median of basically every category you want to judge 'the most famous/successful/infamous/enduring contestants' by.
Larsen's run of PYL was infamous enough that even normies to this day often have some idea of it if they know about TV history to ANY degree, and it's been enough to spawn a movie and at least three documentaries. Has almost assuredly become more famous in hindsight than at the time, which is extremely uncommon.
Carpenter's run on WWTBAM was the single most talked about news story at the end of 1999. Not just THAT he won but HOW he won. Other than possibly Ken by the end, almost assuredly the most talked-about when it happened, but has absolutely not parlayed that into staying power. If you were around then, you KNOW. If not, "uh, who's that?"
Ken beat Thom on longevity, he eventually beat Carpenter on winnings, he beat Larsen on "they went on that show and did WHAT", and thanks to Ken's second act as HOST OF THE SHOW and 'Successor of Alex Trebek', has set himself for at least equal post-win fame as Dr. Joyce. And most folk know EXACTLY who he is.
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IMO you put Ken on the mountain immediately. Dr. Joyce and Thom go on 2nd and 3rd.
Decide between Larsen (having a non-quizzer, having someone who had both the knowledge AND reflexes, the fact he's more famous now than then) or Carpenter (INFAMOUS in the moment, if you want the mountain exclusive to quizzers) for the final slot, with my preference for Larsen.
Jennigns-Brothers-McKee-Larsen
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I’m compiling a Mount Rushless. I’ll let you know how it shakes out.