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Hello, everyone and welcome to America Under the Microscope advanced episode. Hi, Lulu.

Hi, James. Let's continue with our talk about American game shows.

Alrighty. Let's talk about household names, specifically the host of the three shows we talked about in the basic level, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and The Price Is Right.

I would imagine with those big three being so popular and then they've been on air for so many years. So the hosts of these game shows they would be, like you said, household names, everyone at least recognize those names even if they don't watch it.

For Wheel of Fortune, the hosts are Pat Sajak and Vanna White. These two people are household names, everyone in the country knows them.

And how long have they been the hosts?

30+ years.

And that they never changed hosts?

No, I don't think they want to quit because they get paid really well to do this. Multi-million dollar contracts to make the show and…

It's not that difficult, is it?

It's not like acting. They don't have to remember scripts or anything like that. And so they get paid a lot, and same with Jeopardy's host, Alex Trebek.

I've heard that name before, Alex Trebek.

Suddenly, his name would show up in the news a lot more now because he has cancer. So Jeopardy is going to have to find a new host in the very near future.

And he is still hosting?

Yes. He still is, but that's going to come to an end soon…

And then…

For The Price Is Right, you have the old host Bob Barker which everyone knows, but he retired several years ago. And now is Drew Carey who's a famous comedian and he had it on his own TV shows in the past. Everyone knows these people.

Apart from these household names. Are there any references? I would imagine there's some references in terms of the phrases they use on the show, because in China, this was the case.

Yeah, that's true, too. So like from Wheel of Fortune, people might use the phrase and conversations like I’d like to buy a vowel when they want to like get clues…and stuff.

Get hints. I’d like to buy a vowel. Because vowels are… they are more useful than consonants, aren't they?

And like lots of them from The Price Is Right like Come on down or How much do you bid? And all these catch phrases, people will use them for playing other games or they'll… like English teachers use these all the time in class to make classroom games.

And is one of those things, if you say to an American, especially in that voice, they would immediately recognize. And you also see parodies of these games.

A lot of comedy shows will do parodies of them, and they'll do be parodies of them on sitcoms, and they are that big.

I have to say that I'm perhaps more familiar with some of the British game shows because of the summer I stayed England for 2 months. I did watch quite a bit of game shows. A lot of those game shows in the UK, they would have celebrity special, so they would invite famous people or minor celebrities to be the contestants.

Oh, we do that too and they play for charity.

So that's the same. So they play and the money because they already quite rich, they don't really need the money. They play for exposure and then for charity.

Yeah, and those episodes are never serious, like they have Celebrity Jeopardy episodes and they never asked them that hard because...that… doesn't look good, and the celebrities don't take it seriously because no matter what they do, they get money for their charity whether they win or lose.

Yeah, in the UK, the only the winner would get money for their charity.

American TV shows like You lost. That's okay. We'll still give $10,000 to your charity.

I see, so it's… really for them, it's more like just to be on the show and then I suppose it's still quite interesting to watch especially if you like that particular celebrity.

Sure.

So coming to… how is the show funded, especially if you have it very regularly, Right?

Advertising, sponsors.

How often do you have these shows?

Everyday.

Every day for 30 years? So it's all sponsored by advertisers.

Yeah, advertising. There's commercial breaks and everything and the prizes are usually related to the advertising themselves. So like they'll have an advertisement for a car, and on The Price Is Right, Hey, they're giving away that car.

I see.

So things like that's where they get the money.

I think that is the same. It's all relying onto sponsorship. But one question though, nowadays with online streaming sites, with streaming sites gaining in popularity, people don't really watch TV that much especially the internet, the digital natives, the new generation.

These are… still watched because they're on broadcast television which you don't have to pay any extra to watch them. You can just connect your TV to an antenna. You can get to watch these shows so just on regular local channels.

And it's… perhaps it's because it's dinner time and then sometimes it just… have it on the background, really.

Right.

But apart from those big three, I think probably the Chinese audience, what we would be more familiar with in terms of American game show would be reality game shows like Survivors, The Amazing Race.

Those ones starting in the 2000s became really popular. I still remember the first season of Survivor, too. My mother watched it pretty religiously.

Do you like those shows?

No. I have zero interest in…I would actually be more interested in watching Jeopardy. I like to see if I can guess what they're talking about. Because Survivor and The Amazing Race is …yes, it's a game show, they are trying to win the prize money. But they also try to play up drama.

It's like scripted again.

Partially.

What they would call reality, but there's always someone who's picking up fights with others or gossip.

For these shows, they're not going to put any contestant on them. They're going to put us like, the producers are like this contestant will most likely rub this contestant the wrong way. Let's put them on TV, it'll be great ratings.

What I'm hearing is you don't really like drama, just good old game show where people compete to win the prize.

If I'm going to watch a game show, I want to see people compete like for an actual skill prize or something. Wheel of Fortune, I could give that one a miss because it really is like I have to guess a lot of T. Jeopardy, I can watch because of the interesting factoids.

But how to be a contestant?

At the end of every episode there's like If you like to be a contestant of this game show, please write to blah, blah, blah. We will send you tickets and then you’ll need to be in such and such area.

OK.

So you can just go online and apply, it's free to be a contestant, but they get lots and they'll choose you at random, but you have to be physically there.

So they're not going to pay you to come down. You had to actually drive to California which all these shows are made in California. It's where Hollywood is. And you get tickets, you go in.

You have to be the audience and then you get paid.

They're all chose from the audience.

OK. So that is a bit different from some of the other shows. Because some the other shows, for example, especially at quiz shows, a lot of it, it's that how they would work is you call in, you call like a hotline and you have to answer certain questions.

No, no. Like for The Price Is Right, people will line up super early to get on that show.

Every day?

Every day just to be on it, even if they're not even a contestant just to be in the audience.

But things like The Amazing Race or so, you need to actually send audition tapes.

You have to send audition tapes for like the reality game shows like Survivor, The Amazing Race, and the others, you send audition tapes. And producers will go through them, choose people interview those people.

Because technically it is an audition.

Yes.

You need to have the right look, the right personality for the show, you're an actor and actress. Now comes to the exciting part. Last time, you mentioned someone won 76 or 74 times?

Yeah. Ken Jennings won 74 consecutive episodes of Jeopardy winning almost $3 million.

Consecutive?

Yeah. No breaks, it’s like bam, bam, bam.

How is that even possible? I mean, did people not suspect that he was cheating, for example?

He's just a really smart guy and apparently when he was in university who was on his universities like knowledge team, it’s basically bunch of factoids as well. So he just one of those people that loves factoids.

I was gonna say useless knowledge, but factoid is a better way to say…

Trivia has that meaning.

Yeah.

I understand that cash prize you just take it home.

Pay your taxes first.

Yeah, but they just take the tax out of the prize money.

So if you get a cash prize, it's pretty straightforward. It'd be no different than winning in a casino. So you'll get the check where actually they'll give you the tax statement and they'll give you the amount after tax, but it won't be the full tax amount because that's based on your whole income which…

I see.

But it's much simply, you get cash, you pay your taxes and…

But what if you're actually winning a prize like a product like The Price Is Right, do you have to pay tax on that?

So The Price Is Right, this is the dark secret of The Price Is Right. Or maybe not a secret anymore, but they don't give you the cash equivalent in The Price Is Right. You win the prize, but you still have to pay the income tax based on the value of that prize.

So essentially, if I've won a car, I have to pay the income tax. So before they can give me the car, I need to give them the money.

Not them, you have to give the government the money.

The government the money for income.

And if you don't have it, you just have to abandon it. You just don't accept it.

Is that very common for people?

It’s extremely common for The Price Is Right. Because they also don't pay…in The Price Is Right, you win the prize. It's in California, but if you live and say, Florida.

They don't pay delivery charges. You have to go there and take it with you.

Yeah. So it is very normal for a lot of people to abandon the large or useless prizes and maybe only stick with the smaller ones.

So like the popular ones for The Price Is Right, like people who win vacations….

Do you have to pay tax for that?

Absolutely. But a vacation you'll be valued at something like $6,000. So the tax wouldn't be that bad.

So you still get to go.

Cars $30,000 you have to pay sales the tax on it, then you have to pay the licensing fees and there's all the other fees you have to pay for.

And then you have to drive it all the way to your home state.

Right. So cash prize by far much better, straightforward, pay your tax, be done with it

I supposed that was the point.

Alright. So I think we're going to wrap up here. If you ever thought about becoming a contestant on a game show or you actually had that experience, share with us in the comment section, can't wait to hear your stories. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye, everyone.