{"id":38430,"date":"2020-11-16T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=38430"},"modified":"2020-11-13T14:40:06","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T20:40:06","slug":"game-changers-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/game-changers-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Changers documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The recent passing of \u201cJeopardy\u201d host Alex Trebek inspired me to watch the 2019 documentary Game Changers<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, about the phenomenon of TV game shows, the hosts, the contestants, and the controversies. Viewers are immediately drawn in as Trebek recites a whimsical poem about all the things he could be when he grows up.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents always said:<\/em>
\nAlex, get a good education and you can be anything you want to be. <\/em>
\nA miner, a designer, or a Vegas headliner. <\/em>
\nA teacher, a preacher, or a deep sea researcher. <\/em>
\nAn actor, a factor, or a farmer in a tractor. <\/em>
\nA banker, a flanker, or captain of an ocean tanker.<\/em>
\nNo one prepared me for game show host. It wasn\u2019t one of the options in the high school career guide.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

From there, Trebek opens the door to the behind-the-scenes world of game shows. The documentary takes viewers through:
\n\u2022 the history of game shows making the transition from radio to television
\n\u2022 the 1950s game show scandals and how that changed the rules and regulations of the contests
\n\u2022 trends in daytime and prime time game shows
\n\u2022 and the more recent phenomenon of shows like \u201cDeal or No Deal\u201d and \u201cWho Wants to be a Millionaire?\u201d<\/p>\n

Trebek is featured not only as a subject of the documentary, he also lends himself as the interviewer to other game show hosts such as Drew Carey, Howie Mandel and Regis Philbin. In turn, the hosts talk about how they got their gigs and their thoughts on their unusual jobs. Like his game show host persona, Trebek strikes the perfect balance of not taking himself too seriously in interviews while also protecting the integrity of the hosts.
\nAt times a bit slow, there are enough anecdotes mixed in to make up for it. Pat Sajak\u2019s first impression of Vanna White was that she was \u201ctoo nervous\u201d for the \u201cWheel of Fortune\u201d job. The \u201cJeopardy\u201d think-music will definitely get stuck in your head as Merv Griffin\u2019s son explains how quickly it was written.<\/p>\n

Plenty of nostalgia is woven throughout the documentary. Contestants reminisce about watching game shows with grandparents or while home sick from school. This documentary will motivate you to pick up the remote and play along with a TV game show again, perhaps \u201cJeopardy\u201d as the final Trebek episodes run their course in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent passing of \u201cJeopardy\u201d host Alex Trebek inspired me to watch the 2019 documentary Game Changers, about the phenomenon of TV game shows, the hosts, the contestants, and the controversies. Viewers are immediately drawn in as Trebek recites a whimsical poem about all the things he could be when[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[5540,2886,241],"class_list":["post-38430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvds","category-staff-picks","tag-alex-trebeck","tag-game-shows","tag-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-9ZQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38430"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38448,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38430\/revisions\/38448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}