'Jeopardy!' was conceived to earn back skeptical audiences' trust after a series of TV quiz show scandals in the 1950s.

Many viewers were attracted to the shows because they were filled with real people winning real money. After it was exposed that “Dotto,” “Twenty-One,” “The $64,000 Question,” and others had been fixed, the genre struggled to regain viewers’ trust. The government intervened, too: President Eisenhower called the shows’ deception “a terrible thing to do to the American people” and Congress amended the Communications Act in 1960, explicitly outlawing fraudulent game shows.

The show, which aired on both CBS and NBC in slightly different iterations in 1958, followed a fairly standard question-and-answer format, with correct answers slowly revealing an image that contestants needed to solve. Despite its popularity, the show was canceled after it was revealed that one contestant had been provided with answers to the questions. That revelation led to similar scandals with four more shows over the next few months.

In its many decades on the air, “Jeopardy!” has developed a fervent fanbase that likes to play along at home. The Coryat score was developed by Karl Coryat, who appeared on the show in 1996. The equation ignores forced responses on Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy! Correct responses for Daily Doubles are scored as their natural value.

Contestant Herb Stempel alleged that “Twenty-One” was fixed after his loss to Charles Van Doren, saying that everything on the show was “carefully choreographed,” though his claims were dismissed as mere bitterness. In truth, Stempel had been promised a network job if he went along with the con and became outspoken when it didn’t materialize. Van Doren, meanwhile, became a celebrity, donning the cover of Time magazine.

The game—which forced contestants who answered questions incorrectly to face "consequences" in the form of wacky stunts—debuted in 1941 with a one-off experimental broadcast on WNBT, then reappeared on NBC in 1950. In 1956, a fresh-faced Bob Barker made his television debut as the show's new host.

When the Federal Communications Committee attempted to rein in giveaway shows, the Supreme Court ruled that quiz shows were not a form of gambling because contestants did not have to risk anything to participate. Some believe that the ruling prevented proper oversight of the industry as it became more popular.

Creator Louis G. Cowan upped the potential winnings and had his team scour through contestant applications in search of everyday people with exceptional knowledge in a particular area. When the show premiered in 1955, they made the game appear high-tech by using cutting-edge IBM technology to deliver questions. The gambit worked: At one point, 55 million Americans tuned in.

The show was already a success in the United Kingdom when it was adapted for the US to boost ratings during 1999’s “sweeps week,” a pivotal time for television ratings. The show worked, thanks to a charismatic host in Regis Philbin and the high stakes of a big cash prize. That combination would be replicated with great success in reality competition shows, such as “American Idol,” which would follow.

“Jeopardy!” is known for its geniuses, but that doesn’t mean every minute of the show is an illustration of brilliance. This compilation corrects some of the funniest incorrect responses from contestants, making for over 10 minutes of hilarity.

Producers of “Twenty-One,” which featured two contestants competing from separate isolation booths, knew the quiz show format could use storytelling in the same way that any fictional program could. They found a perfect narrative in the matchup between Charles Van Doren, an all-American Columbia University instructor, and Herb Stempel, an arrogant Queens native. Stempel intentionally lost the game, pretending not to know the answer to a question about his favorite movie, “Marty.”

Merv Griffin originally composed the song in 1963 as a way to help his son Tony fall asleep and claims he wrote it in less than a minute. The song, played during Final Jeopardy!, is called "Think." It's estimated that the song alone has earned Griffin over $100M.

Art Fleming was the show’s original host, but Trebek took over when the show went to syndication in 1984. The only taping he missed while host was on April 1, 1997, when he and Pat Sajak, host of “Wheel of Fortune,” switched gigs for April Fools’ Day.

The concept took hold during the Great Depression, with 50 shows on the air by 1940, because they allowed families to imagine a financial windfall was just a few questions away. Although the genre had a slight downturn during World War II, it experienced a resurgence by the end of the decade, with 200 shows on the air.

“The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Current Events” was a radio show on New York’s WNYC. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was a local newspaper, providing an air of authority to the format, with the paper’s associate editor acting as quizmaster.

The radio show began in 1932 with man-on-the-street interviews in Houston, but soon began traveling to different locations around the country. The show became known for its quiz feature, which offered $1 for each question randomly picked people answered correctly. The show was a hit, not only because audiences could imagine themselves in the contestants’ shoes, but also because it was relatively inexpensive for the network to produce.

Charles Ingram won the show’s top prize in 2002, though producers found his performance, which featured several strange responses, suspicious. After reviewing the footage, the producers discovered several coughs that aligned with the correct answers and theorized that Ingram’s wife and another contestant were using the coughs to convey the correct answers to him. Ingram maintained his innocence, yet he was tried and convicted of fraud.

In the Amazon comedy "Jury Duty," Ronald Gladden believed he was participating in a documentary about the judicial process, unaware that everyone involved with the entire trial was an actor. In this podcast, Gladden and director Jake Szymanski reflect on the experience.

"The secret to happiness, of course, is not getting what you want; it's wanting what you get."

This PBS "Frontline" documentary from 1986 was the first to film actual jury deliberations on American television, capturing a Wisconsin criminal trial jury wrestling with the evidence and the case's consequences.

In his 1984 autobiography, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Dating Game” host Chuck Barris claimed the show was a front concealing his true job as a contract assassin for the CIA. Despite skeptical responses and a lack of evidence, Barris continued to say the story was true. In 2002, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman adapted the book for the screen.

Most shows bomb or never even get recorded; some that do are lost to history, having failed to impress the audience or critics. This list combs through six decades of TV production history and identifies some of the worst decisions made by management in network history. Dive into the 50 worst executive decisions here, from giving the Geico cavemen a show to Geraldo Rivera's live walkthrough of Al Capone's vault.

The network was looking to correct the public perception that its programming was fraudulent, so it banned laugh tracks and fake applause from its broadcasts. The policy didn’t last long; within a few years, sitcoms were regularly “sweetened” with the sound effects.

Johnny Carson, host of "The Tonight Show," asked NBC to move his reruns to weeknights instead of weekends. That freed up a weekend slot and the network decided to try a new live show.

This "SNL" sketch lampoons the lengths people go to avoid jury duty, with prospective jurors claiming that a Kardashian hit them with a car, that they are from the future and already know the verdict, and that they should be the judge instead.

Founder John Hendricks envisioned Discovery as a launchpad for educational content that was both informative and engaging. Since, the channel has spawned dozens of other channels, merged with major studios, and launched its own streaming platforms.

While it was on the air, “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” was a prime outlet for stand-up comedy. Getting invited over to Carson’s couch meant he’d enjoyed the set—and that the comic was destined for great success.

"Almost Live!" began in 1984 as a Sunday evening talk show before evolving into a sketch comedy show that served as the lead-in for "Saturday Night Live" on NBC's Seattle affiliate station. Besides Nye, TV stars Joel McHale and Lauren Weedman were regular cast members.

From 1951 to 1965, the former B-24 bomber pilot performed science experiments that home audiences could replicate on "Watch Mr. Wizard," inspiring about 50,000 Mr. Wizard Science Clubs throughout North America. Subsequent series, including "Mr. Wizard’s World" and "Teacher to Teacher with Mr. Wizard," ran on Nickelodeon until 1996.

“Prestige television,” sometimes referred to as “the golden age of TV,” is a critical term for serious, darker, auteur-driven television from the late 1990s through the 2020s. HBO shows are often cited as examples of this style, with “The Sopranos” evolving the style and developing a model for the form.

Beard’s show, cohosted with Julia Child, debuted in 1946. It was invaluable in setting the stage for today’s massive trove of televised and online cooking content.

The film cost $2.7M to make—$1M more than the average production in 1939, but didn’t recoup it for almost two decades. Its success is mainly due to television. It aired annually from 1956 to 1965 and was watched by more than 49% of all television viewers.

Bob Hope’s 1930s variety shows featured comedic monologues. Unlike the tightly scripted and evergreen sets of vaudeville, Hope’s monologues leaned into topical and political humor, sometimes to the disapproval of his network.

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was a television series that aired from 1955 to 1965, offering viewers weekly bites of the director's unnerving storytelling. Hitchcock acted as host, framing the short films with his haunting voice and gothic language.

Paul Reubens' character Pee-wee Herman would become a sensation with his 1986 children's show "Pee-wee's Playhouse," but in 1979 he appeared as the hilariously naive character on "the Dating Game." It's not clear if the show (or its audience) understood what they were seeing.

Casting director Susie Ferris breaks down how she built the show's ensemble from scratch, from combing through early audition tapes to persuading James Marsden to play a heightened version of himself alongside unknowing juror Ronald Gladden.

Shows like "As the World Turns" and "Love of Life" attracted tens of millions of viewers and had many high-profile fans, including Andy Warhol, Sammy Davis Jr. and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. This Time cover story from 1976 explores the pop culture phenomenon.

- longtime 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek

The first televised presidential debates of 1960 were seemingly so consequential, candidates opted not to participate in one for 16 years. In the last 60 years, debate format has changed frequently as the political parties and news outlets vie for rules to either protect candidates or increase TV ratings. In this brief video, one expert suggests five interesting innovations to the debate format to make them more informative for the average US voter.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced off in the first televised presidential debates. Kennedy's calm, telegenic presence contrasted with Nixon's uneasy appearance, showing how the new medium could shape voter perceptions and modern campaign strategy.

The network took an early gamble on longer episodes and more complicated narratives than a standard television drama. That paid off and, in the process, created what we now consider "prestige TV."