Jeopardy! is a popular quiz show featuring trivia in topics such as history, literature, pop culture, and science. The show has a decades-long broadcast history in the United States since its creation by Merv Griffin in the early 1960s. It first ran on NBC from March 30, 1964 until January 3, 1975, concurrently ran in a weekly syndicated version from September 9, 1974 to September 7, 1975, and subsequently ran in a revival from October 2, 1978 to March 2, 1979. Its most successful incarnation is the Alex Trebek-hosted syndicated version, which has aired continuously since September 10, 1984. It has also been adapted internationally.

During the game, three competing contestants select clues from a game board of 30 clues divided into six categories, each clue in the form of an answer to which they must supply correct responses, each response in the form of a question. The concept of "questioning answers" is original to Jeopardy! and, along with its theme music, remains a distinctive element of the show.

Since the 1980s, the Trebek version has consistently placed weekly among the top-rated shows in syndication. In January 2001, TV Guide ranked it #2 among the 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time. Esquire magazine readers named it their "favorite game show", and in the summer of 2006, it was also ranked #2 by GSN on their list of the 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time. The show holds the record for number of Emmy Awards in the category of Best Game Show, with 11.

Gameplay

Three contestants, one of whom is typically a defending champion, play the game in three rounds: the Jeopardy! Round, the Double Jeopardy! Round, and the Final Jeopardy! Round. (In the special case of a tie in tournament play, a fourth round, the Tiebreaker Round, is added.) The three contestants stand behind podiums which display their scores (updated as the game proceeds) and their names.

Jeopardy! Round

Six categories are announced, each with a column of five trivia clues (phrased in answer form), each one valued, in dollars, incrementally more than the previous, ostensibly by difficulty. Each category is a topical category, and the categories change on each show; the category names are frequently puns or collectively build upon a theme. Upon the show's 1964 premiere, dollar values were $10, $20, $30, $40, and $50. These values were increased to $25, $50, $75, $100, $125 with the revival of the show in 1978, and successively doubled with the second pilot for the Alex Trebek version in 1984, with the premiere of the Trebek-hosted version in 1984, and during its 18th season in 2001 for present values of $200, $400, $600, $800, and $1,000. (The 1990 Super Jeopardy! tournament used a point value scale that incremented from 200 to 1,000.)

The returning champion or the newcomer in the first (leftmost to the home viewer) position begins the game by selecting a category and monetary value (e.g. "PRESIDENTS for $200"). Contestants are free to choose any unselected clue, although contestants usually select lower-valued clues before higher-valued clues in any given category. The host then reads the clue ("He was the father of our country; he didn't really chop down a cherry tree"), after which any of the three contestants may ring in using a hand-held signaling device. The first contestant to successfully ring in following the host's reading of the clue must then respond generally in the form of a question ("Who was/Who is/Who's George Washington?"). (See Phrasing below.)