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Narrative
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A Game Show produced for Comedy Central in the late 90s, hosted by political speechwriter cum deadpan actor Ben Stein, and featuring radio personality turned late-night Talk Show host Jimmy Kimmel as The Announcer. Using the common "quiz show" game model, and sporting a humorous atmosphere (as befitting a Comedy Central program), the show might have been forgotten as merely another Jeopardy! clone if not for its unique concept: the contestants really were competing for Stein's money.
The show offered a $5000 prize pot which constituted Stein's paycheck for each episode, of which the contestants tried to earn as much as they could; the remainder of the pot went home with Stein, and so, in a very real sense, contestants were taking money out of Stein's pocket. (Of course, Stein was also paid a normal salary on top of his "winnings".)
The program featured another unique conceit: since his own paycheck was at stake in each episode, Stein would actually turn the hosting/moderating duties over to Kimmel during the game's second round and would join the contestants as a contestant himself. The Bonus Round featured the winning contestant going head-to-head with Stein in a "Best Of Ten Test Of Knowledge", a timed rapid-fire questionnaire. It should be noted that Stein was no slouch as a contestant; highly competitive (especially when defending his earnings), he regularly trounced the actual contestants and rarely gave a wrong answer -- although there were quite a few times when he lost the entire $5000 pot to some "superior intellect", as he would say.
Kimmel was eventually replaced by Nancy Pimental, and later by Kimmel's own cousin, Sal Iacono. The show ceased production in 2003.
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