Favorite Game Shows

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Mine are some of the most iconic ones in the US:
Jeopardy!
Wheel of Fortune
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

"Press Your Luck"
(No Whammies, No Whammies, Stop!....Awww, stopped at a Whammy.)

IIRC, some autistic contestant made a mint after figuring out the board pattern occurence frequency.


I understand there was additional controversy over their Whammies being recycled from a previous game show that flopped which was called "Beat the Odds".

Mine are,

Hot seat:
The chase:
Family feud:

I wish they would bring Wheel of fortune back as I liked it.

Agree on W.O.F...The original Chuck Woolery/Summer Bartholomew NBC network version was way superior to today's "slow" syndicated geriatric version, which I would only consider suitable for those too old to watch Lawrence Welk reruns.

Oh----I didn't know she meant it, like that (LOL).....

I was gonna tell her that it's just that it's not on NBC, anymore----but, that it's STILL airing, on a different channel, and to check local listings.

He (Michael Larson) wasn't autistic, he was just unemployed and had a lot of free time on his hands.

Wow, thanks for the clarification, maybe a wrong assumption on my part all this time as I never thought someone NT would have those type of memorisation skills.
I do remember the poor sap ended up gambling away all his winnings in the Carribean while using up a trip he won, and if I still recall correctly, he contracted cancer the following year and having no money left to treat it, died shortly thereafter.

I mean, I can't say for *certain*, but I watched a documentary on him and it didn't hint at any kind of autistic traits. I'd think the media would be quick to play that up if he was what they'd consider a 'Rain Man' type. Seemed like a normal guy who just really put a lot of time and concentration towards something he thought would make money (and it certainly did).

Yeah, he had kind of a tragic story, but nevertheless an insanely fascinating one. He's really been the only instance of game show "fraud" in the last 60 years since the massive quiz show scandals of the '50s. There are so many precautions taken to that kind of thing now that odds are we'll never see someone cheat themselves into winning a game show in our lifetimes.

I don't get time to watch shows, so i play word games on my Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... wordsearch

I appreciate the additional historic trivia. FWIW, I tried Googling "was Michael Larson autistic" (BTW thanks for finding his name), but the search only yielded a slug of pages and sites relating to living autistic Michael Larsons (too common of name, I guess). I tried one more search, adding "game show" to the wording, and managed to find a YouTube "Big Bucks" documentary discussion where some ASD users posted speculations of an autistic trait, but nothing conclusive.

i try to catch "millionaire" whenever i can.

Well, I'm not one to play on the stereotype that someone who would figure out something like that would naturally be autistic.

Like, putting it into a similar context, I'm reminded of the fantastic documentary 'The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters', which is about two men competing for the world record of highest 'Donkey Kong' score. One of the guys, Steve Wiebe, is directly hinted to be autistic and shows several autistic traits; an engineer, he has a very intense and repetitive but natural focus on the mechanics and patterns of 'Donkey Kong' which unexpectedly translated into competitive success. Michael Larson, on the other hand, just seemed like an average guy who wanted to get rich quick, targeted a game show (one of the best ways to get rich quick) and figured out a way to work it to his advantage. He's more like a con man than someone who had an innate focus and interest on patterns and mechanics like Steve Wiebe did.

Ah, I think I see. So Larson's legacy would be considered more "opportunist" than say, "talented"?

Well, taking into account he was an ice cream truck driver prior to his appearance on 'Press Your Luck' and became involved in illegal business schemes afterwards, I'm going to point more towards "con man" than "intellectual".

Right on. A real intellectual wouldn't have blown his winnings so fast.

jeopardy! definitely. especially if i'm at my aunt's house and lots of people are around. i feel really smart lol.