Twenty One (game show)

Twenty One was one of the most infamous American game shows on record — a popular, yet thoroughly rigged, quiz show that spawned the single most popular contestant of the quiz show era, and which nearly caused the demise of the entire genre in the wake of Senate investigations. The 1994 movie Quiz Show is based on these events.

Gameplay

Two contestants, a champion and a challenger, were placed in separate isolation booths, arranged so they could not see or hear each other. With the champion's booth turned off, the host revealed the category for that round of questions and asked the challenger to pick a point value to play for, from one to eleven points. The more points a question was worth, the more difficult that question was. A correct answer added those points to the player's score, while an incorrect one deducted them (though it could never drop into negative numbers). After the question, the challenger's booth is turned off and the champion is given the same category and choice of questions.

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Neither player is made aware of his or her opponent's score. The object was to score a total of 21 points, or come closer to that number than your opponent. After two categories were played, both booths were opened up and both players given the option to stop the game right then and there. If either player elected to end the game, no matter which one it was, the player in the lead at that point would win. If the challenger reached 21 points before the champion, the champion was given one last chance to catch up and send the game to a 21-21 tie; in this case, the challenger's booth was left open so he or she could know what was going on.

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Champions received money based on how large the difference in the scores was. Payoffs started at $500 for each point difference (for instance, a champion who won a game by a score of 21-17 would win $2,000), but that figure increased by $500 each time the players went to a 21-21 tie. After each win, the champion was told a little bit about his or her next opponent and given the option to walk away; the risk to a champion's winnings was that if he or she was defeated, the new champion's first-game winnings were paid out of the outgoing champion's total.

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