Game Shows

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We know exactly what your thinking, and you should seriously give it a rest for a few minutes. Your tissue paper budget is through the roof. Also, you are wondering about how to allot your precious game show viewing time. There are hundreds of game shows on the air every hour, on the hour, but you only have a scant ten hours a day to devote to watching people you don't know win shit you wish you had. Naturally, you have come to Cracked to help you solve your dilemma, and we are more than happy to help. We are extra-super-happy... to help.

"Yeah, Al, we're playing for Waifs Without Weights. Every year, thousands of starving children in America don't have the opportunity to get totally buff like we are..."

In the following list, we will review various game shows and give them a rating based on the scientifically airtight Disembodied Bob Barker Head (DBBH) scale. 5/5 DBBH is the top rating, and an award that all television producers who are reading this page should aspire to. No, you should crave it, because you need to have the acceptance of the Cracked community to have any chance of staying on the air ( I'm looking at you, Wheel of Fortune). Okay, nobody gets a 5/5 until we see some unmarked, non-sequential folding cash from some TV companies, and we don't want to see bills with loser presidents like Jackson and Franklin. No, we want the green with portraits of famous presidents like Lincoln and Washington.

Wait, the phone is ringing...

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Okay, we apparently can't "take bribes" for good ratings but we'll still take them. Whatever. Here's some game shows:

JEOPARDY!

"Wow, you actually fit ten golf balls in your mouth, Daniel? That's great..."

THE GAME: A fairly straightforward trivia game, except the "answers' are given and the contestant supplies the "question" (and just giving an upward inflection on the last syllable doesn't count...fucking grammar Nazis). The "answers" are in a wide variety of subjects but tend to be on things like ballet, opera, and classical literature...essentially shit no one cares about unless their email address ends in ".edu".

THE HOST: Alex Trebek has been handling the emcee duties solo for 25 years. He is smart and shows good knowledge about the game and many of the categories handled on the program. We did have to deduct some points for his odd habit of doing bad impersonations when reading clues involving movie quotes, and for shaving off his awesome firefighter-worthy mustasche.

HILARITY FACTOR: Save for the occasional flaky contestant and garden-variety stupidity flashed during Celebrity Jeopardy!, laughs are hard to come by. In a game show world full of Electronic Battleships and Operations, Jeopardy! is chess: serious and quiet.

HOTNESS FACTOR: Almost non-existent. Sarah Whitcomb of the "Clue Crew" is always a welcome sight, and the college tournament produces a few cute nerds, but this show is about brains first. Looking for skin here is like trolling the public library on a Friday night for a date: you have much better options.

Sarah shows off a true Daily Double

THE PRIZES: Straight cash, homey. Nothing wrong with that.

OVERALL RATING: A smart standard of the game show industry. Hell, Weird Al Yankovic made a parody song featuring Jeopardy! over 25 years ago, so, uh, there's that.

.WHEEL OF FORTUNE

THE GAME: Hangman, with the additional thrill of physical labor.