I totally agree with you!! I also grew up with this version, and today's version doesn't even come close!! (I also learned much of my early knowledge from this show!!) ;)
Seeing these clips almost makes one realize that although Alex Trebek has made Jeopardy his own and that is true that Alex has made Jeopardy his own; but Art Fleming was one of the truly class acts that paved the way.
For some reason "Jeopardy!" was not often aired on Boston's NBC station, WBZ (Channel 4) when I was a kid. But our home had a good roof antenna and we were able to pick up Channel 10 (WJAR-TV) in Providence, which is how I would watch "Jeopardy!" back in the day.
I remember Jeopardy from the 1960s and 70s very well. I watched it often. I really love this more simple set design than the hig tech set used on today's version. And I think Art Fleming has a lot more personality than Alex Trubeck who I find to be gloomy.
Damn! Hell of an incredibly long time since I've seen 'Jeopardy' like this. I miss this to death! I wish the producers of the current 'Jeopardy' would bring back the old theme, even if only for their Tournament of Champions.
The host, at :35, IS Art Fleming. I met him hosting a college contest back in the mid 70s. What a NICE gentleman, and a real pro. Everything a game show host should be.
I like the current version, but the Art Fleming era is the original and best. Despite the glitzy set, technical advances and computerized mechanics, the original "Jeopardy!" is still my favorite. Trebek makes too many editorial comments, sometimes embarrassing contestants on how poorly they did or what they missed. Art Fleming never did that. The show is hard and anyone who gets on deserves a lot of praise.
This is a KICK!!! I just wish I could see the whole thing!!! This really does take me back, because my brother and I would watch Jeopardy on our sick days from school. I can't get over the clarity of this clip, either. More, please!!!
attended a taping in 72 with my english class... fleming's delivery was spot on and sparkling, trebek merely competent -- belongs better on high rollers.... great to see this.. thanks for posting!
To this day, whenever I'm in NYC (mostly for pleasure nowadays), I get two songs in my head--the theme from "The Honeymooners" and the music you hear when Art Fleming is being introduced (also the end theme). :)
I used to watch the old "Jeopardy!" every day. I loved everythinbg about it, from the opening music to the hand printed cards to the Daily Double gongs. It was better having the contestants sit. The modern version with Alex Trebek is faster and computerized, but the original was the quaintest and the best.
If I remember right, the classic line of Don Pardo before the rolling of the credits was "Questions and answers provided by Grolier Encyclopedia Incorporated. Jeopardy! was pre-recorded live before a studio audience. This is Don Pardo speaking."
I love it when the players went to the Sports category early on in the round. Today, you usually see Jeopardy contestants avoid sports-related categories like the plague until it was absolutely necessary to go to them.
Yes, he was, an that was even after Alex Trebek had taped the two pilots. Three factors led to his turning it down. One was taping the show in L.A., which he did not like; he preferred the show in New York. Secondly, he found the computerized set and secial effects distracting from the game ("...more like a pinball machine than 'Jeopardy!'").
Several comments were made about the contestants ringing in when an answer was exposed before they even knew what it was. Computerized lockouts to synch with the board didn't exist. Besides, blindly ringing in is what heightened the "jeopardy," or risk. Merv Griffin HAD originally wished to keep contestants from ringing in until an answer was read (like today's version), but stagehands had to time when to turn the ring-in buttons "on" and "off" and just couldn't time it consistently.
Merv Griffin wrote most of the music for the current version. For the original, the theme was called "Take Ten", and written by Julann Griffin. Of course the "Final Jeopardy" music has always been the same song written by Merv.
They were far from lazy; they took many, many hours to print those cards for the board. The electronics you speak of didn't practically exist for these purposes until 1984 when Jepoardy! returned. Even Trebek's first pilot was still done with the cards. Also, the sets for the NY-based games were designed and built by craftsmen associated with the Broadway stage, since Broadway served as television's "ancestorial" design in those days.
Finally, the answers were really dumbed-down; it wasn't for another 12 years and nationwide contestant searches that brought the current "Jeopardy" near the academic level of its predecessor.
Great clip, I loved Art Fleming. I can't believe that not everyone remembers Art Fleming. When Alex came along it was very hard to get used to him, now he's old hat :/
How precious to hear the opening bars of the real JEOPARDY! theme with that classic introduction announced by the master announcer Don Pardo. Even better is to see Art Fleming, who will always be the real host of JEOPARDY!, no matter how long Alex Trebek hosts it. Does anyone have a clip of the full theme with the credits rolling at the end?
Consider also that rear-projection would have slowed the game down enormously. There was no such thing as an LED. IBM computers of the day required computer rooms the size of a football field and hundreds of huge CPUs to equal the processing power and storage capacity of the cheapest Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron-based computer today. You're looking at those days the way I looked at my father's; it was incomprehensible that radio served the same function as TV did when I was a kid.
Does anyone know if Art Flemming was approached about coming back in 1984. If he wasn't he should have been. He was one of the best game show hosts of all time.
Word is he was but he was much older and didn't wanna travel to Los Angeles to do it. That's part of the reason the 78-79 season tanked, he didn't like traveling out then either
Such fun to watch this and spark my childhood memories. What I'd forgotten and it seemed immediately strange was the contestants being able to ring in at any point during the reading of the "answer." Thanks for posting this!
I miss the old "Jeopardy!" In those days, whatever amount of money the contestants ended up with, they kept it. And the music was great. From the opening theme to the original "Think Music" used on "Final Jeopardy!" I wish NBC didn't destroy all the tapes. I would have loved to have seen more "Art Fleming" episodes. He was my favorite game show host. R.I.P. ART. I don't like Trebek's version of "Jeopardy!" at all!!!
I wasn't aware that after the second season they were pulled mechanically. Are you sure it was after the second year? I remember on an anniversary show Art Fleming showed the rear of the "Jeopardy!" board and the crew member who pulled the cards. Occasionally they got wedged against the sides of the slot and it took a few seconds to lift them out. I saw one show taped in the NBC studio in NYC.
Thanks. I'm trying to do this from memory from more than 30 years ago. Do you have a tape of the credits running with the full original Jeopardy! theme?
During the first two seasons, the cards were pulled up by hand backstage, and then they were pulled mechanically, after that. (You can often hear a click from the mechanism, right after Art says "The answer is")
I am pretty sure more episodes of the original "Jeopardy!" do exist probably in a private collection owned by the late Merv Griffin's estate. He provided an episode for clips used in the "Kick the Can" sequence in "Twilight Zone - The Movie." Contrary to urban legend, the "Jeopardy" clips were NOT a re-creation for the film but from an actual 1971 episode. Sadly, back in the day, color videotape cannisters were enormous, heavy and expensive. But when U-matic cassettes debuted in '69, no excuse.
@beatleboy9020001 Well, it was daytime TV. Besides, after the quiz scandals of the 50s, NBC was reluctant to give away too much. It debuted in 1964, a time when the scandals were still pretty fresh in some peoples' minds.
Such were the rules then. Merv Griffin was very much around, and apparently that was the way he wanted it. The first season of the Trebek version have this rule too.
There's a small chance that the tapes might exist somewhere... they did find by accident the Marshall years of the Hollywood Squares.. tapes we all thought that they were erased...
Ah, the good old days when you could cut a bratwurst in thirds, shove a cord in it and BAM! you've got yourself a microphone. It's all done with electronics now.
This show can't be from 1974 because one of the questions was in sports the answer was Secratariet won the triple Crown. He won the triple crown in 1976 so how can this show been on in 1974?
And the fuckers from NBC deleted alot of these episodes. What the hell were they thinking? I'm going to go vomit now for history is forever erased. Too bad that GSN started in 1994, they should've began right when game shows began. Wishful thought.
Trebek's good, but sometimes he likes to show off with a bunch of "I know it all, done it all, seen it all" blather. I kind of like it when he starts in, a contestant will talk over him and select a category.
@68lincoln one too many bows there Art, I like Trebec but what bothers me is when the contestants fail to get one of the answers he reads it as if he knows all them... Art did it here with the Dublin question..
I LOVE the older Jeopardy! The old boards, the old music, the old Daily Double sounds...and of course, Art Fleming and Don Pardo!
I used to watch this show all the time when I was home sick from school. I was 9 when this particular episode was on. I loved it.
I totally agree with you!! I also grew up with this version, and today's version doesn't even come close!! (I also learned much of my early knowledge from this show!!) ;)
Indeed, I watched Jeopardy! in the Art Fleming years and he was a very professional and charismatic MC, much like the Dean of Game Shows, Bill Cullen.
Art Fleming was all class.
Seeing these clips almost makes one realize that although Alex Trebek has made Jeopardy his own and that is true that Alex has made Jeopardy his own; but Art Fleming was one of the truly class acts that paved the way.
For some reason "Jeopardy!" was not often aired on Boston's NBC station, WBZ (Channel 4) when I was a kid. But our home had a good roof antenna and we were able to pick up Channel 10 (WJAR-TV) in Providence, which is how I would watch "Jeopardy!" back in the day.
I remember Jeopardy from the 1960s and 70s very well. I watched it often. I really love this more simple set design than the hig tech set used on today's version. And I think Art Fleming has a lot more personality than Alex Trubeck who I find to be gloomy.
this theme music ROCKS!!
Damn! Hell of an incredibly long time since I've seen 'Jeopardy' like this. I miss this to death! I wish the producers of the current 'Jeopardy' would bring back the old theme, even if only for their Tournament of Champions.
The host, at :35, IS Art Fleming. I met him hosting a college contest back in the mid 70s. What a NICE gentleman, and a real pro. Everything a game show host should be.
You did not need to emphasize your IS, nobody said it wasn't
I like the current version, but the Art Fleming era is the original and best. Despite the glitzy set, technical advances and computerized mechanics, the original "Jeopardy!" is still my favorite. Trebek makes too many editorial comments, sometimes embarrassing contestants on how poorly they did or what they missed. Art Fleming never did that. The show is hard and anyone who gets on deserves a lot of praise.
I agree, Fleming truly did it best.
I loved the old version of "Jeopardy". This is very nostalgic for me.
This is a KICK!!! I just wish I could see the whole thing!!! This really does take me back, because my brother and I would watch Jeopardy on our sick days from school. I can't get over the clarity of this clip, either. More, please!!!
attended a taping in 72 with my english class... fleming's delivery was spot on and sparkling, trebek merely competent -- belongs better on high rollers.... great to see this.. thanks for posting!
To this day, whenever I'm in NYC (mostly for pleasure nowadays), I get two songs in my head--the theme from "The Honeymooners" and the music you hear when Art Fleming is being introduced (also the end theme). :)
I used to watch the old "Jeopardy!" every day. I loved everythinbg about it, from the opening music to the hand printed cards to the Daily Double gongs. It was better having the contestants sit. The modern version with Alex Trebek is faster and computerized, but the original was the quaintest and the best.
Answer: The one-and-only Dynamic Duo of Jeopardy!
Question: Who's Art Fleming and Don Pardo?
RIP Art Fleming.
If I remember right, the classic line of Don Pardo before the rolling of the credits was "Questions and answers provided by Grolier Encyclopedia Incorporated. Jeopardy! was pre-recorded live before a studio audience. This is Don Pardo speaking."
I love it when the players went to the Sports category early on in the round. Today, you usually see Jeopardy contestants avoid sports-related categories like the plague until it was absolutely necessary to go to them.
Yes, he was, an that was even after Alex Trebek had taped the two pilots. Three factors led to his turning it down. One was taping the show in L.A., which he did not like; he preferred the show in New York. Secondly, he found the computerized set and secial effects distracting from the game ("...more like a pinball machine than 'Jeopardy!'").
I recollect that at a certain time during Jeopardy's run it had a more dramatic intro, with a drum roll.
Several comments were made about the contestants ringing in when an answer was exposed before they even knew what it was. Computerized lockouts to synch with the board didn't exist. Besides, blindly ringing in is what heightened the "jeopardy," or risk. Merv Griffin HAD originally wished to keep contestants from ringing in until an answer was read (like today's version), but stagehands had to time when to turn the ring-in buttons "on" and "off" and just couldn't time it consistently.
Merv Griffin wrote most of the music for the current version. For the original, the theme was called "Take Ten", and written by Julann Griffin. Of course the "Final Jeopardy" music has always been the same song written by Merv.
I grew up with this version. Glad you uploaded!
They were far from lazy; they took many, many hours to print those cards for the board. The electronics you speak of didn't practically exist for these purposes until 1984 when Jepoardy! returned. Even Trebek's first pilot was still done with the cards. Also, the sets for the NY-based games were designed and built by craftsmen associated with the Broadway stage, since Broadway served as television's "ancestorial" design in those days.
Finally, the answers were really dumbed-down; it wasn't for another 12 years and nationwide contestant searches that brought the current "Jeopardy" near the academic level of its predecessor.
Great clip, I loved Art Fleming. I can't believe that not everyone remembers Art Fleming. When Alex came along it was very hard to get used to him, now he's old hat :/
That's because most of today's fans got into the series in the 90s. They weren't around to see the classic series
How precious to hear the opening bars of the real JEOPARDY! theme with that classic introduction announced by the master announcer Don Pardo. Even better is to see Art Fleming, who will always be the real host of JEOPARDY!, no matter how long Alex Trebek hosts it.
Does anyone have a clip of the full theme with the credits rolling at the end?
Art Fleming was the best. Anyway, these contestants weren't too swift. How could they not know the Dublin and Versailles questions?
Consider also that rear-projection would have slowed the game down enormously. There was no such thing as an LED. IBM computers of the day required computer rooms the size of a football field and hundreds of huge CPUs to equal the processing power and storage capacity of the cheapest Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron-based computer today. You're looking at those days the way I looked at my father's; it was incomprehensible that radio served the same function as TV did when I was a kid.
Does anyone know if Art Flemming was approached about coming back in 1984. If he wasn't he should have been. He was one of the best game show hosts of all time.
Word is he was but he was much older and didn't wanna travel to Los Angeles to do it. That's part of the reason the 78-79 season tanked, he didn't like traveling out then either
Such fun to watch this and spark my childhood memories. What I'd forgotten and it seemed immediately strange was the contestants being able to ring in at any point during the reading of the "answer." Thanks for posting this!
I miss the old "Jeopardy!" In those days, whatever amount of money the contestants ended up with, they kept it. And the music was great. From the opening theme to the original "Think Music" used on "Final Jeopardy!"
I wish NBC didn't destroy all the tapes. I would have loved to have seen more "Art Fleming" episodes. He was my favorite game show host. R.I.P. ART.
I don't like Trebek's version of "Jeopardy!" at all!!!
GSN needs to show these
I love the original Jeopardy! :)
ah thank you thank you thank you Classic Jeopardy! Thank god for RUclips: my second Game Show network!
I always remember Art Fleming saying in each episode during Final Jeopardy "Please be sure it's in the form of a question."
Alex did as well in the early episodes. There were people from 1984 to 1985 who either weren't familiar with or didn't remember the classic series
I wasn't aware that after the second season they were pulled mechanically. Are you sure it was after the second year? I remember on an anniversary show Art Fleming showed the rear of the "Jeopardy!" board and the crew member who pulled the cards. Occasionally they got wedged against the sides of the slot and it took a few seconds to lift them out. I saw one show taped in the NBC studio in NYC.
Do you know when this episode originally aired?
Great to see the original NYC version!
Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973 not 1976, so, yes this can be from 1974. Fleming beats Trebek by a mile.
Art Fleming a precursor to Alex Trebek!
Dig those plastic cups inside the plastic cupholders. My mom had a set of those too.
Thanks. I'm trying to do this from memory from more than 30 years ago. Do you have a tape of the credits running with the full original Jeopardy! theme?
During the first two seasons, the cards were pulled up by hand backstage, and then they were pulled mechanically, after that.
(You can often hear a click from the mechanism, right after Art says "The answer is")
@WSenator1 I was 8 when this show aired, and I was a game-show fanatic back then.
OMG, I remember those cues!!
You're kidding, right? The original was at least as fast paced; the much harder answers just took longer to read.
I am pretty sure more episodes of the original "Jeopardy!" do exist probably in a private collection owned by the late Merv Griffin's estate. He provided an episode for clips used in the "Kick the Can" sequence in "Twilight Zone - The Movie." Contrary to urban legend, the "Jeopardy" clips were NOT a re-creation for the film but from an actual 1971 episode. Sadly, back in the day, color videotape cannisters were enormous, heavy and expensive. But when U-matic cassettes debuted in '69, no excuse.
Amen to that. I miss that wild and crazy theme music, too. Whoever made the "think" music into the theme outta be publicly flogged.
Kim,Kent, and Karyn the 3 Ks.
You wouldn't be able to get away with a joke like that today, in our anally politically correct world !!
Some things never change, though, like the tick-tock mesic theme played during final "Jeopardy!," written by "Jeopardy!" creator Merv Griffin.
@primogennaio Not to mention the music that was played when the curtains parted to reveal the "Jeopardy" and "Double Jeopardy" boards.
@raymar316 Definitely WAY better than Trebek! Agreed!
Art was great on this show...........better than Alex. Alex should have stayed on High Rollers.
@beatleboy9020001 Well, it was daytime TV. Besides, after the quiz scandals of the 50s, NBC was reluctant to give away too much. It debuted in 1964, a time when the scandals were still pretty fresh in some peoples' minds.
I have a short clip of the theme from this episode. It was a short credit roll, so you don't hear much.
Such were the rules then. Merv Griffin was very much around, and apparently that was the way he wanted it. The first season of the Trebek version have this rule too.
You are correct. It was in the fall of 85, that the lockout device on the signaling devices was installed
Yes, that was during the 78-79 revival.
There's a small chance that the tapes might exist somewhere... they did find by accident the Marshall years of the Hollywood Squares.. tapes we all thought that they were erased...
@LordThree As for the 1974-75 nighttime syndicated version, I assume all of those exist as well.
0:31, And Now, Here is the Host of JEOPARDY!, ALEX TREBEK!
Too early, Alex was otherwise occupied then
I wonder how many episodes of the original Jeopardy! exist.
@raymar316 Yeah, I think it was Affirmed that won the Triple Crown later on (although I think he won it in 1977 or 1978, rather than 1976).
Could not have been 76 or77. The show was cancelled in 1975. It came back from California but only briefly from 78 to 79
The Red painted Flat car #52 Is Named After This Circus Scene Here! What is The Gollmar Bros. Enormous New Shows?
Early or mid 1974. I have a copy of this episode.
Ah, the good old days when you could cut a bratwurst in thirds, shove a cord in it and BAM! you've got yourself a microphone. It's all done with electronics now.
Of course nostalgia will make your preferences of "who is better" biased.
In 1974 that was a lot of money.
The Silver Painted Flat Car #75 Is Named After This Scene HEre! What is The Ringling Bros.& Barnum/Bailey Circus?
Hey, isn't that the same Kent Gerrold (sp?) that used to work at WUSA-TV 9 in Washington, DC?
Dig those crazy collars and plaids on the women. The nerdy man in the middle looks the most mormal by today's standards.
Art Fleming is long passed away....so no chance of him replacing Alex Trebek.
This show can't be from 1974 because one of the questions was in sports the answer was Secratariet won the triple Crown. He won the triple crown in 1976 so how can this show been on in 1974?
Alex Trebek has NOTHING on Art Fleming. You just can't beat an original.
Wrong. A host is supposed to encouarge contestants and put them at ease, not judge them and make comments about how they play.
I agree Fleming is better
I liked the music. It was quirky.
Don Pedro...
Don PARDO!!!!
There's sound, but no picture.
It was a short credit roll, I know that.
And the fuckers from NBC deleted alot of these episodes. What the hell were they thinking? I'm going to go vomit now for history is forever erased. Too bad that GSN started in 1994, they should've began right when game shows began. Wishful thought.
After almost 30 years, Alex has done a great job.
Fleming is better
gonads dangling
Trebek's good, but sometimes he likes to show off with a bunch of "I know it all, done it all, seen it all" blather. I kind of like it when he starts in, a contestant will talk over him and select a category.
wow didnt offer alot for money on the boards then
the eifel tower?? really?
MERV GRIFFIN -- YOU CHEAP SON OF A BITCH!
wow, prizes were cheap back then.
and what kinda name is Art Fleming?
This is Jeopardy not Price is Right. The Trebek era show is more serious and regimented. That's why Trebek is perfect.
Wrong, Fleming is better.
@@Delivery_Boy_RoyFlemming is garbage 😂
@@Flip86x wrong, that’s you
ROFL, look at those tiny dollar amounts.
Trebek is way better. He's cold and ruthless. Exactly the way he should be.
Wrong, Fleming is better.
@68lincoln one too many bows there Art, I like Trebec but what bothers me is when the contestants fail to get one of the answers he reads it as if he knows all them... Art did it here with the Dublin question..
alex came in 1984
Wow...get a grip...
This is Don Pardo speaking.......Ugh!
It's annoying how they ding in before the answer's over.
No it’s not
@WSenator1 I was 8 when this episode aired, and back then I was a game-show fanatic.