WEBVTT
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:17.120
Merv Griffin is on a plane back to New York with his wife Julan, working through the same problem again.
00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.320
The networks have stopped buying quiz shows.
00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:28.239
Julan tells him to turn the format around and hand the contestants the answers, then make them supply the questions.
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:36.799
She tries one on him, the number 5280, and he tells her the question is how many feet are in a mile.
00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:41.119
He still has to find a network willing to buy a quiz show.
00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:44.640
Welcome to Same Day Different Century.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:45.840
I'm Zack.
00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.159
Today is September 10th.
00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:57.280
Griffin was a former big band singer who had moved into television, first as a host and then as an owner of programs.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:04.400
The year was 1963, and no network had put a serious money quiz show on the air.
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:11.920
In the late 1950s, American audiences had learned that the biggest quizzes on television were fixed.
00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:20.159
The producers of 21 decided in advance who would win and fed the answers to the contestants they wanted to keep on the air.
00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:30.239
A congressional subcommittee took testimony in 1959, and the network spent the years afterward keeping big money quizzes off their schedules.
00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:38.719
NBC bought it and put it on daytime television on March 30, 1964, under the title Jeopardy.
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:43.519
Art Fleming, a working actor known mostly for commercials, hosted.
00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:49.359
Don Pardo, a staff announcer at the network, read the introductions and the prizes.
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:56.319
Three contestants stood behind podiums facing a board of 30 cards divided into six categories.
00:01:56.560 --> 00:02:04.000
Each card hid a clue written as a statement, and the first player to buzz in had to respond with the question that fit.
00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:09.840
A correct response added the dollar value of the card, and a wrong one subtracted it.
00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:17.599
At the end came a single clue with the category announced in advance, and each player wrote down a wager before seeing it.
00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:20.960
The top clue in the first round was worth$50.
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:30.159
In 1974, NBC moved the show out of its midday slot to 10 30 in the morning on the East Coast.
00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:35.039
The ratings fell over the following year and NBC canceled the show.
00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:42.159
The last episode aired on January 3, 1975, after almost 11 years.
00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:49.120
Wheel of Fortune went on three days later, because NBC still owed Griffin a year on his contract.
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:58.879
Griffin owned that one too, a word puzzle built out of the children's game Hangman, and it took a morning slot on the same daytime schedule.
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:09.280
Griffin got the older show back on NBC in the fall of 1978, under the title The All New Jeopardy, with Fleming hosting again.
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:19.039
The rules had been reworked so that players were knocked out round by round, and the one left standing played a bonus board for cash instead of Final Jeopardy.
00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:21.280
The audience stayed small.
00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:31.280
NBC cancelled it after five months, and the final episode aired on March 2, 1979, with Griffin keeping the rights to the game.
00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:42.400
King World Productions was a small family distribution company run by the King Children, which had spent years selling packages of old comedy shorts to local stations.
00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.719
Selling a program that way meant skipping the networks entirely.
00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:55.680
A distributor sold the show to individual stations, one city at a time, and each station decided where to put it in its own schedule.
00:03:56.479 --> 00:04:08.159
On September 19, 1983, King World launched a nighttime version of Wheel of Fortune into that hour, hosted by Pat Sajak with Vanna White turning the letters.
00:04:08.479 --> 00:04:16.240
Stations that took it saw their early evening ratings climb, and within two years it was the most watched program in syndication.
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:29.199
Griffin taped a pair of pilots for a new Jeopardy, and King World carried it to station managers for the fall of 1984, arguing that the same audience would sit through a second Griffin game.
00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:35.519
By 1984, Alex Trebek had been working in American television for 11 years.
00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:45.920
He had grown up in Sudbury, Ontario, a nickel mining town in Canada, and started his career reading news and sports for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:54.319
He came to Los Angeles in 1973 to host a game show called The Wizard of Odds and stayed for several more.
00:04:54.720 --> 00:05:01.120
Griffin hired him to host Jeopardy, and Trebek also took the producer credit for the first season.
00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:05.759
Producers raised the money on the board by a factor of 10.
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:13.360
The top clue in the first round now paid$500 instead of$50, and the second round doubled those figures.
00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:19.360
A contestant who won five games in a row retired undefeated and could not come back.
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:33.680
Johnny Gilbert took over the announcing, and the taping schedule packed five episodes into a single day in a Los Angeles studio, with contestants changing clothes between games so that each one looked like a separate afternoon.
00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:39.040
On September 10, 1984, the syndicated Jeopardy premiered.
00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:50.240
Trebek came out after Gilbert's introduction, welcomed the audience to what he called America's favorite answer and question game, and the board went up with six categories on it.
00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:59.040
The format was the one Julin Griffin had described on the plane 21 years earlier, running it a faster clip and for more money.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:06.480
Stations that had bought the show as a companion piece began running it back to back with Wheel of Fortune in the same hour.
00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:14.879
By the second half of the decade, Jeopardy was the second most watched program in syndication, right behind Wheel of Fortune.
00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:25.199
In 1986, Coca-Cola, which by then owned Columbia Pictures, bought Merv Griffin Enterprises for a reported$250 million.
00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:32.560
Griffin had written the 30 seconds of music that plays while the contestants write their final answers.
00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:39.199
He composed it as a lullaby for his young son and published it under the title A Time for Tony.
00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:51.839
Because he held the songwriting credit, he collected a royalty every time an episode used it, five days a week for decades, and he later put the total in the tens of millions of dollars.
00:06:53.040 --> 00:07:00.560
In 2003, the producers dropped the five-game limit and let champions keep playing as long as they kept winning.
00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:15.120
The following year, a software engineer from Utah named Ken Jennings won 74 games in a row and took home$2.5 million, and the ratings during his run reached their highest point the show had seen in years.
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:22.240
Trebek hosted the program for 37 seasons and more than 8,000 episodes.
00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:28.879
He announced in March 2019 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:34.879
He died on November 8, 2020, and his final episodes aired that January.
00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:40.720
Jennings, the contestant from the 74 Game Streak, now hosts the show.
00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:47.519
Jeopardy is still in production and still airs five days a week on local stations across the country.
00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:53.360
The rule that Julin Griffin proposed on an airplane in 1963 has not changed.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:57.920
The contestants are given the answer and they supply the question.
00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:01.040
That same day, different century.
00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:02.000
I'm Zach.
00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:05.199
We'll be back tomorrow with another date, another story.
00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:06.879
Thanks for listening.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:17.120
Merv Griffin is on a plane back to New York with his wife Julan, working through the same problem again.
00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.320
The networks have stopped buying quiz shows.
00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:28.239
Julan tells him to turn the format around and hand the contestants the answers, then make them supply the questions.
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:36.799
She tries one on him, the number 5280, and he tells her the question is how many feet are in a mile.
00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:41.119
He still has to find a network willing to buy a quiz show.
00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:44.640
Welcome to Same Day Different Century.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:45.840
I'm Zack.
00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.159
Today is September 10th.
00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:57.280
Griffin was a former big band singer who had moved into television, first as a host and then as an owner of programs.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:04.400
The year was 1963, and no network had put a serious money quiz show on the air.
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:11.920
In the late 1950s, American audiences had learned that the biggest quizzes on television were fixed.
00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:20.159
The producers of 21 decided in advance who would win and fed the answers to the contestants they wanted to keep on the air.
00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:30.239
A congressional subcommittee took testimony in 1959, and the network spent the years afterward keeping big money quizzes off their schedules.
00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:38.719
NBC bought it and put it on daytime television on March 30, 1964, under the title Jeopardy.
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:43.519
Art Fleming, a working actor known mostly for commercials, hosted.
00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:49.359
Don Pardo, a staff announcer at the network, read the introductions and the prizes.
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:56.319
Three contestants stood behind podiums facing a board of 30 cards divided into six categories.
00:01:56.560 --> 00:02:04.000
Each card hid a clue written as a statement, and the first player to buzz in had to respond with the question that fit.
00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:09.840
A correct response added the dollar value of the card, and a wrong one subtracted it.
00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:17.599
At the end came a single clue with the category announced in advance, and each player wrote down a wager before seeing it.
00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:20.960
The top clue in the first round was worth$50.
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:30.159
In 1974, NBC moved the show out of its midday slot to 10 30 in the morning on the East Coast.
00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:35.039
The ratings fell over the following year and NBC canceled the show.
00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:42.159
The last episode aired on January 3, 1975, after almost 11 years.
00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:49.120
Wheel of Fortune went on three days later, because NBC still owed Griffin a year on his contract.
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:58.879
Griffin owned that one too, a word puzzle built out of the children's game Hangman, and it took a morning slot on the same daytime schedule.
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:09.280
Griffin got the older show back on NBC in the fall of 1978, under the title The All New Jeopardy, with Fleming hosting again.
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:19.039
The rules had been reworked so that players were knocked out round by round, and the one left standing played a bonus board for cash instead of Final Jeopardy.
00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:21.280
The audience stayed small.
00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:31.280
NBC cancelled it after five months, and the final episode aired on March 2, 1979, with Griffin keeping the rights to the game.
00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:42.400
King World Productions was a small family distribution company run by the King Children, which had spent years selling packages of old comedy shorts to local stations.
00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.719
Selling a program that way meant skipping the networks entirely.
00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:55.680
A distributor sold the show to individual stations, one city at a time, and each station decided where to put it in its own schedule.
00:03:56.479 --> 00:04:08.159
On September 19, 1983, King World launched a nighttime version of Wheel of Fortune into that hour, hosted by Pat Sajak with Vanna White turning the letters.
00:04:08.479 --> 00:04:16.240
Stations that took it saw their early evening ratings climb, and within two years it was the most watched program in syndication.
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:29.199
Griffin taped a pair of pilots for a new Jeopardy, and King World carried it to station managers for the fall of 1984, arguing that the same audience would sit through a second Griffin game.
00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:35.519
By 1984, Alex Trebek had been working in American television for 11 years.
00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:45.920
He had grown up in Sudbury, Ontario, a nickel mining town in Canada, and started his career reading news and sports for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:54.319
He came to Los Angeles in 1973 to host a game show called The Wizard of Odds and stayed for several more.
00:04:54.720 --> 00:05:01.120
Griffin hired him to host Jeopardy, and Trebek also took the producer credit for the first season.
00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:05.759
Producers raised the money on the board by a factor of 10.
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:13.360
The top clue in the first round now paid$500 instead of$50, and the second round doubled those figures.
00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:19.360
A contestant who won five games in a row retired undefeated and could not come back.
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:33.680
Johnny Gilbert took over the announcing, and the taping schedule packed five episodes into a single day in a Los Angeles studio, with contestants changing clothes between games so that each one looked like a separate afternoon.
00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:39.040
On September 10, 1984, the syndicated Jeopardy premiered.
00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:50.240
Trebek came out after Gilbert's introduction, welcomed the audience to what he called America's favorite answer and question game, and the board went up with six categories on it.
00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:59.040
The format was the one Julin Griffin had described on the plane 21 years earlier, running it a faster clip and for more money.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:06.480
Stations that had bought the show as a companion piece began running it back to back with Wheel of Fortune in the same hour.
00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:14.879
By the second half of the decade, Jeopardy was the second most watched program in syndication, right behind Wheel of Fortune.
00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:25.199
In 1986, Coca-Cola, which by then owned Columbia Pictures, bought Merv Griffin Enterprises for a reported$250 million.
00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:32.560
Griffin had written the 30 seconds of music that plays while the contestants write their final answers.
00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:39.199
He composed it as a lullaby for his young son and published it under the title A Time for Tony.
00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:51.839
Because he held the songwriting credit, he collected a royalty every time an episode used it, five days a week for decades, and he later put the total in the tens of millions of dollars.
00:06:53.040 --> 00:07:00.560
In 2003, the producers dropped the five-game limit and let champions keep playing as long as they kept winning.
00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:15.120
The following year, a software engineer from Utah named Ken Jennings won 74 games in a row and took home$2.5 million, and the ratings during his run reached their highest point the show had seen in years.
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:22.240
Trebek hosted the program for 37 seasons and more than 8,000 episodes.
00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:28.879
He announced in March 2019 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:34.879
He died on November 8, 2020, and his final episodes aired that January.
00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:40.720
Jennings, the contestant from the 74 Game Streak, now hosts the show.
00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:47.519
Jeopardy is still in production and still airs five days a week on local stations across the country.
00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:53.360
The rule that Julin Griffin proposed on an airplane in 1963 has not changed.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:57.920
The contestants are given the answer and they supply the question.
00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:01.040
That same day, different century.
00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:02.000
I'm Zach.
00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:05.199
We'll be back tomorrow with another date, another story.
00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:06.879
Thanks for listening.
