Jeopardy Around the Dinner Table
As any avid aficionado can tell you in 30 seconds, Art Flemming hosted the first episode of the original Jeopardy quiz show in 1964. The show ran until 1975.
Years before that, my father was hosting his own trivia game show around our family's dinner table. Well-versed in a wide variety of subjects, Dad could pose questions for my two brothers and I for a meal-time hour without running out of things to ask.
Who won the world series in 1955? The Brooklyn Dodgers. (I knew that because I was a Dodgers fan. My brother Barry, who had apparently memorized all baseball stats since the game began, usually knew all the other baseball answers.)
What's the capital of Montana? Helena. (Mother, who seldom answered unless my brothers and I were stumped, knew all the capitals.)
Rembrandt painted a picture of a ship at sea in a storm? Any idea what it was? "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee." (My brother Doug, who would ultimately become a college art professor answered most of the artist questions except for the most obvious.)
Does anyone want more mashed potatoes? Yes. (Mother had to remind us to take time to eat.)
What's the French word for "three." Trois. (All of us knew that since Dad was teaching us to count to ten--whether we were angry or not--in multiple languages. Mother, who took French courses in school, had to remind us that "Trois" was NOT (and still isn't) pronounced "Troyce.")
We called our game "Questions" and there were no prizes except for Dad's smile when we answered questions correctly. Being first by shouting out "Troyce" or "The Brooklyn Dodgers" was half the fun of the game. We had one handicap that the contestants on Art Flemming's and Alex Trebek's versions of the TV show didn't have to contend with. We were eating and we weren't permitted to talk with our mouths full.
"Questions" was aired randomly at the family dinner table from the mid-1950s until I left home for grad school in 1967. We tended to play the game at Sunday dinner since the meal was more relaxed and there were fewer homework assignments and other chores pending. As we grew older, the scope and complexity of the questions increased and was often mysteriously linked to courses we were taking in school.
When there was a lull in the official questions, my brothers an I tended to lighten things up with fake questions like:
What year did the Seneca Squids join the National Football League?
What famous artist painted Mars on the Half Shell?
Is Kim Novak married to William Holden or Jimmy Stewart?
The answers, of course, are "never," "no such painting," and "neither." While Dad couldn't be easily fooled by our trick questions, his questions constantly made us want to learn more, to be better prepared, to be--as such people used to be called--"Renaissance Men" when it came to having a sound general knowledge of a wide variety of subjects.
"Questions" was part of our on-going liberal arts education long before Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit were a gleam in anyone's eye. I grew up in a household full of books, homemade games and wide-ranging dinner table competitions and discussions. I remember those days well even though such household pastimes and a liberal arts approach to lifelong learning are essentially gone with the wind.
Who played Ashley Wilkes in that movie about Scarlett what's her name? Leslie Howard (Dad then followed up the question with "What role did he play in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel?'" My brothers and I didn't have a clue, prompting the moderator of "Questions" to start clearing the dishes, suggesting that anyone who thought Leslie Howard was no more than Ashley Wilkes could just take a turn cleaning up the kitchen.)
We learned quickly that Dad wasn't a fan of "Gone with the Wind" and judged our responses to Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland kinds of questions with due care.
-
Malcolm R. Campbell's novels from Vanilla Heart Publishing include "The Sun Singer." When we gave books as gifts to each other in our family, we always inscribed them. My mother passed away in 1986 and my father died in 1987, many years before "The Sun Singer" was published. Fortunately, both of them read the book in manuscript form. I inscribed the typewritten copy, a Christmas gift in 1982, "To Dad - A seeker of wisdom on the path who, in walking it, enriched it." A journalist and textbook author by career, he was a Renaissance man by avocation, thereby giving me a role model that is still a strong one in spite of the fact that I really do like "Gone With The Wind."
Years before that, my father was hosting his own trivia game show around our family's dinner table. Well-versed in a wide variety of subjects, Dad could pose questions for my two brothers and I for a meal-time hour without running out of things to ask.
Who won the world series in 1955? The Brooklyn Dodgers. (I knew that because I was a Dodgers fan. My brother Barry, who had apparently memorized all baseball stats since the game began, usually knew all the other baseball answers.)
What's the capital of Montana? Helena. (Mother, who seldom answered unless my brothers and I were stumped, knew all the capitals.)
Rembrandt painted a picture of a ship at sea in a storm? Any idea what it was? "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee." (My brother Doug, who would ultimately become a college art professor answered most of the artist questions except for the most obvious.)
Does anyone want more mashed potatoes? Yes. (Mother had to remind us to take time to eat.)
What's the French word for "three." Trois. (All of us knew that since Dad was teaching us to count to ten--whether we were angry or not--in multiple languages. Mother, who took French courses in school, had to remind us that "Trois" was NOT (and still isn't) pronounced "Troyce.")
We called our game "Questions" and there were no prizes except for Dad's smile when we answered questions correctly. Being first by shouting out "Troyce" or "The Brooklyn Dodgers" was half the fun of the game. We had one handicap that the contestants on Art Flemming's and Alex Trebek's versions of the TV show didn't have to contend with. We were eating and we weren't permitted to talk with our mouths full.
"Questions" was aired randomly at the family dinner table from the mid-1950s until I left home for grad school in 1967. We tended to play the game at Sunday dinner since the meal was more relaxed and there were fewer homework assignments and other chores pending. As we grew older, the scope and complexity of the questions increased and was often mysteriously linked to courses we were taking in school.
When there was a lull in the official questions, my brothers an I tended to lighten things up with fake questions like:
What year did the Seneca Squids join the National Football League?
What famous artist painted Mars on the Half Shell?
Is Kim Novak married to William Holden or Jimmy Stewart?
The answers, of course, are "never," "no such painting," and "neither." While Dad couldn't be easily fooled by our trick questions, his questions constantly made us want to learn more, to be better prepared, to be--as such people used to be called--"Renaissance Men" when it came to having a sound general knowledge of a wide variety of subjects.
"Questions" was part of our on-going liberal arts education long before Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit were a gleam in anyone's eye. I grew up in a household full of books, homemade games and wide-ranging dinner table competitions and discussions. I remember those days well even though such household pastimes and a liberal arts approach to lifelong learning are essentially gone with the wind.
Who played Ashley Wilkes in that movie about Scarlett what's her name? Leslie Howard (Dad then followed up the question with "What role did he play in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel?'" My brothers and I didn't have a clue, prompting the moderator of "Questions" to start clearing the dishes, suggesting that anyone who thought Leslie Howard was no more than Ashley Wilkes could just take a turn cleaning up the kitchen.)
We learned quickly that Dad wasn't a fan of "Gone with the Wind" and judged our responses to Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland kinds of questions with due care.
-
Malcolm R. Campbell's novels from Vanilla Heart Publishing include "The Sun Singer." When we gave books as gifts to each other in our family, we always inscribed them. My mother passed away in 1986 and my father died in 1987, many years before "The Sun Singer" was published. Fortunately, both of them read the book in manuscript form. I inscribed the typewritten copy, a Christmas gift in 1982, "To Dad - A seeker of wisdom on the path who, in walking it, enriched it." A journalist and textbook author by career, he was a Renaissance man by avocation, thereby giving me a role model that is still a strong one in spite of the fact that I really do like "Gone With The Wind."
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