Originally published at: Watch the unaired Jeopardy! pilot episode from 1964! | Boing Boing
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Oof. Lots of inconsistency accepting responses based on phrasing. One completely wrong answer accepted as correct.
And how exactly do you have a returning champion on your first show?
Luckily it was sustained by the power of Merv until it became great!
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Vintage Artisanal Jeopardy.
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The answers used to be a lot more vague and might be answerable by multiple different questions. Maybe Cliff Clavin would have succeeded in this earlier version with “Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen.”
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“who was Dr. Dracula?”
I’m afraid we were looking for Dr. Acula, Art.
surprised at the bongo-tastic opening theme, but yes, the “think music” was used in final jeopardy. felt bad for Jesse, the constant victim of poorly-worded clues. but he got a color tv out of it, so that’s pretty fair.
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I’m old enough to remember Art as the host but I really don’t remember any details for his era shows, like if the daily doubles were extra questions, as in the pilot.
Since it was the pilot, the returning champion and “see you tomorrow” were bogus, of course, but they needed to show a typical episode.
Yes, Jesse was indeed very distinguished looking. Was he really a plumber?
I wonder when they decided to reverse the position of the players and the board. It feels wrong to have the board on the right and the players on the left.
Edit: Looks like this layout lasted until 1975 when the initial run was ended. There was a brief revival that established the reversed layout.
What’s super cool: This layout used for the 1983 pilot, with all the computer theaming:
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Fun. But why did I end up yelling the correct answers (questions) at the panel of a quiz show that was recorded before I was even born?
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I remember watching this show when Art Fleming was the host. After watching this episode, it sure seems like Norm MacDonald had more than a passing resemblance to him.
And those prize amounts are a grim reminder of inflation/currency devaluation over the years.
Yeah, that was a bit strange. Glad they got that ironed out.
I still miss the ‘BOOM BOOM’ of the kettle drums at the end. Damn shame they did away with 'em.
‘Because you do it now’ would be my guess.
Same here. 
ETA: Except that I was born before this episode…
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