Game Show Trivia Questions

Trivia quiz questions about about game shows with answers

Game Show Trivia Questions and Answers

What is a game show?
A game show is a radio, television, or stage show in which contestants, individually or as teams, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles, usually for money or prizes.

Alternatively, a game show can be a what?
A: A demonstrative program about a game.

In the former, contestants may be invited from what?
A: A pool of public applicants.

Game shows often reward players with prizes such as what?
A: Cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor prize suppliers.

Television game shows descended from similar programs on what?
A: Radio.

What was the very first television game show?
A: Spelling Bee.

When was it broadcast?
A: In 1938.

What was the first game show to air on commercially licensed television?
A: Truth or Consequences.

Its first episode aired in 1941 as a what?
A: An experimental broadcast.

Over the course of the 1950s, as television began to pervade the popular culture, game shows quickly what?
A: Became a fixture.

Daytime game shows would be played for lower stakes to target whom?
A: Stay-at-home housewives.

Higher-stakes programs would air when?
A: In primetime.

During the late 1950s, high-stakes games such as Twenty-One and The $64,000 Question began a what?
A: A rapid rise in popularity.

However, the rise of quiz shows proved to be what?
A: Short-lived.

In 1959, many of the higher stakes game shows were discovered to be what?
A: Rigged.

Ratings declines led to most of the primetime games being what?
A: Canceled.

What early variant of the game show survived the quiz show scandals?
A: The panel game.

On shows like What's My Line?, I've Got A Secret, and To Tell the Truth, panels of celebrities would interview a guest in an effort to do what?
A: Determine some fact about them; in others, celebrities would answer questions.

Panel games had success in primetime until when?
A: The late 1960s.

They were collectively dropped from television because of what?
A: Their perceived low budget nature.

Where did panel games made a comeback ?
A: In American daytime television.

Game shows remained a fixture of US daytime television through the 1960s after the what?
A: The quiz show scandals.

In the early 1960s lower-stakes games made a slight comeback in what?
A: Daytime TV.

When did Let's Make a Deal begin?
A: In 1963.

The 1960s also marked the debut of what other game shows?
A: Hollywood Squares, Password, The Dating Game, and The Newlywed Game.

When did CBS give up on daytime game shows?
A: In 1968, the other networks did not follow suit.

When was color television introduced to the game show genre?
A: In the late 1960s on all three networks.

The 1970s saw a renaissance of the game show as new games and massive upgrades to existing games made debuts on what?
A: The major networks.

The New Price Is Right, an update of the 1950s-era game show The Price Is Right, debuted when?
A: In 1972.

It marked CBS's return to the game show format in its effort to draw what?
A: Wealthier, suburban viewers.

The Match Game became "Big Money" Match Game 73, which proved popular enough to do what?
A: Prompt a spin-off, Family Feud, on ABC in 1976.

When did the $10,000 Pyramid and its numerous higher-stakes derivatives debut?
A: In 1973.

The 1970s also saw the return of what formerly disgraced producer and host?
A: Jack Barry, who debuted The Joker's Wild and a clean version of the previously rigged Tic-Tac-Dough in the 1970s.

In what year did Wheel of Fortune debut on NBC?
A: In 1975.

The Prime Time Access Rule, which took effect in 1971, barred networks from what?
A: Broadcasting in the 7-8 p.m. time slot immediately preceding prime time.

This opened up time slots for what?
A: Syndicated programming.

Most of the syndicated programs were "nighttime" adaptations of what?
A: Network daytime game shows.

These game shows originally aired once a week, but by the late 1970s and early 1980s most of the games had transitioned to what?
A: Five days a week.

Game shows were the lowest priority of television networks and were rotated out how often if unsuccessful?
A: Every thirteen weeks.

Most tapes were destroyed until when?
A: The early 1980s.

Over the course of the late 1980s and early 1990s, as fewer new hits were produced, game shows lost what?
A: Their permanent place in the daytime lineup.

When did ABC transition out of the daytime game show format?
A: In the mid-1980s.

NBC's game block also lasted until 1991, but the network attempted to bring them back when?
A: In 1993 before cancelling its game show block again in 1994.

CBS phased out most of its game shows, except for The Price Is Right, by when?
A: 1993.

Cable television also allowed for the debut of game shows such as what?
A: Supermarket Sweep (Lifetime), Trivial Pursuit and Family Challenge (Family Channel), and Double Dare (Nickelodeon).

It also opened up a previously underdeveloped market for what?
A: Game show reruns.

General interest networks such as CBN Cable Network and USA Network had popular blocks for what?
A: Game show reruns from the mid-1980s to the mid-'90s.

That niche was overtaken by whom, in 1994?
A: Game Show Network.

The British game show began distribution across the globe.
Upon the American debut in 1999, what game show was a hit and became a regular part of ABC's prime time lineup until 2002?

A: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Higher stakes contests opened the door to what?

A: Reality television contests.

Survivor and Big Brother are two such shows in which contestants win large sums of money for doing what?
A: Outlasting their peers in a given environment.

Several game shows returned to daytime in syndication during this time as well, such as what?
A: Family Feud, Hollywood Squares, and Millionaire.

The popularity of game shows in the United States was closely paralleled where?
A: Around the world.

In the U.S., CBS is currently the only major network airing what?
A: Daily national game shows.

It still airs The Price Is Right and, as of 2009, is also airing a revival of what?
A: Let's Make a Deal.

Deal airs on weekdays at a time chosen by each what?
A: CBS affiliate.

Where does Price air weekdays at 10 am or 11 am?
A: In most markets.

In 2016, ABC packaged the existing Celebrity Family Feud, which had returned in 2015, with new versions of what?
A: To Tell the Truth, The $100,000 Pyramid, and Match Game in 2016.

TBS, in turn, launched a marijuana-themed revival of what?
A: The Joker's Wild, hosted by Snoop Dogg, in October 2017.

Many of the prizes awarded on game shows are provided through what?
A: Product placement, but in some cases they are provided by private organizations or purchased at either the full price or at a discount by the show.

There is the widespread use of "promotional consideration", in which a game show receives a subsidy from an advertiser in return for what?
A: Awarding that manufacturer's product as a prize or consolation prize.

For high-stakes games, a network may purchase what?
A: Prize indemnity insurance to avoid paying the cost of a rare but expensive prize out of pocket.

If the said prize is won too often, the insurance company may do what?
A: Refuse to insure a show.

In 2008, three of the contestants on The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular won the top prize in a five-episode span after how many episodes without a winner?
A: Fifteen.

From about 1960 through the rest of the 20th century, American networks placed restrictions on what?
A: The amount of money that could be given away on a game show, in an effort to avoid a repeat of the scandals of the 1950s.

This usually took the form of a what?
A: An earnings cap that forced a player to retire once they had won a certain amount of money or a limit on how many episodes, usually five, on which a player could appear on a show.

The lifting of these restrictions in the 1990s was a major factor in what?
A: The explosion of high-stakes game shows in the later part of that decade.