Jeopardy! (found unaired pilot of NBC game show; 1964)
The show's logo in the pilot.
Status: Partially Found
Jeopardy is a game show that premiered on NBC on March 30th, 1964, and ended its first run on January 3rd, 1975. It returned briefly returned on NBC October 2nd, 1978 and ended its second run on March 2nd, 1979 and returned again but in syndication on September 10th, 1984 and has been airing ever since. It was created by talk show host Merv Griffin and was hosted by Art Fleming for the NBC series and later by Alex Trebek for the syndicated series from 1984 to 2021.
History
On March 5th, 1964 a test pilot was recorded to pitch the series to NBC.[1] The contestants were Grace, Jesse, and Dolores (last names are unknown) and the winner of the pilot is Grace. Art Fleming hosted the pilot and Don Pardo (who also announced the first NBC series) announces the pilot as well.
Availability
The whereabouts of the pilot were unknown until the syndicated version's 4000th episode on May 15th, 2002, where Alex Trebek (the current host) described the original NBC series and showed a 24-second snippet of the pilot, which was the beginning of the first round. In 2004, a Nightline report on Ken Jennings included a few seconds from the pilot that wasn't previously seen. In 2005, Sony released a DVD with 5 episodes of the syndicated series, and the special features featured interviews with the crew, which included three more clips from the pilot. The first clip is of Art Fleming describing the show's premise, the second one is of Art Fleming walking onto the set, and the third one is of the show's logo from the intro. A brief snippet was used in a segment on game shows as part of NBC's 90th Anniversary in February 2017. There were clips of the pilot in some of the intros of season 38 of the syndicated reboot. On March 23, 2022, the show's official YouTube channel revealed that the pilot will be uploaded on March 30th[2].
Gallery
Videos
Photos
The curtian revealing the board for round 1 (Note that the categories are on the bottom as well as the top).
The contestant podiums from the pilot.
Screenshot of the second round beginning.
