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If you're good at other trivia games
it don't mean Jack now.

It's time for the show where high culture and pop-culture collide!

Hi, this is Cookie, and I've just about finished teaching Tropey the Wonder Dog how to recite the works of Shakespeare.

Welcome to You Don't Know Jack, the game series where high culture and pop culture collide. I'm your host Cookie Masterson, and I'm very excited to have you onboard today... is what I would say if I were an activity director on a cruise liner. But I'm not. Now pay attention.

You Don't Know Jack is the sassy game franchise that was developed by Jackbox Games (formerly Jellyvision Studios) and published by those fine folks at Sierra (we parted ways after 5th Dementia), starting in the mid-1990s. The hilarious combination of pop culture references with strange academic references, often supplemented by a variety of Parody Commercials before and after each game, made for a great combination, and the games were marginally popular for a while.

Now, each game consists of a set number of questions. For most of the games in the series, players get to choose the category they want. But in The Ride, 5th Dementia, and every title from 2006 onward, we lifted that burden of choice from you and instead just gave you pre-packaged episodes of questions. When Binjpipe acquired us in 2018, they decided that just wasn't fun enough and Full Stream has fully randomized episodes. Now...

...wait, hold on... ugh, INTERN! WHERE'S MY NOTECARDS?!

Right. Now where was I...?

In addition to the standard "question with four answers" format, I'll also occasionally throw a specialty question your way. Here's what kind of special question types are in store for you:

    The Category Is... 
  • Snickerclish Restroomtranslation : Uh-oh! Best putz fits mine whore...translation  I'll give you a silly phrase, and you have to tell me what other more popular phrase it rhymes with syllable-by-syllable. And also, the punctuation is just there to throw you off. For example, “Gee, three popes?” might be gibberish for “TV Tropes”. Now, remember that the quicker you buzz in, the more money that's at stake, and that there’s no screwing on a gibberish question. As the prize money ticks down, I'll give you up to three clues to help you figure it out.
  • Meaning A Quartostranslation : Similar to a "Flickerpiss Nosescum"trans. , but instead of rhyming the phrase I give you, you have to unscramble it. Here, spelling DOES matter, so if you’re bad at typing... good luck.
  • Fill in the Blank: Here, you have to buzz in and type in the answer instead of selecting from four choices.
  • Can You Remember? Question: Similar to a "Fill in the Blank", but I'll give out clues to what I'm thinking about.
  • Audio Question: I'll play an audio clip as a clue for a question that follows.
  • Picture Question: For this question, I'll supply you with some visual aid.
  • Impossible Question: The make it or break it question that's worth the most money ($20,000 in US Volume 3, €10,000 in German Volume 2, and $26,606.06 in The Lost Gold). If you get this one right, you’re either really lucky or you searched for the answer online.
  • DisOrDat: I'll read you a list of seven things, and for each, I'll want you to tell me if it belongs in category A, or category B (like "A Blaxploitation Movie" or "A Brand of White Bread"). On some DisOrDat, I may add "Both" as a third option. If you pick the right category, you get some cash. If you pick wrong, cash is taken away. In earlier entries, you have the option to skip if you're not sure, but any that are unanswered when the 30 second time limit expires will cost you. In 2011 and 2015, unless your opponents are playing online, only one player gets to play for this question; Binjpipe changed the format on us in Full Stream and allowed everyone to participate.
  • Three-Way: Similar to DisOrDat, but exclusive to Volume 3, this question is always the 10th question of a 21 question game, and appears sporadically as the 5th question in 7 question games. Here, I'll give you a list of seven things, with three categories to put them in. Like “Red”, “White”, and “Blue”, for example. The game will flip between the three answers randomly, and you have to buzz in when you see the right one; if you guess incorrectly, you lose cash for every wrong guess. In the same example, if the prompt says “_____ Riding Hood”, buzz in when “Red” lights up. Be careful, though, because the questions may or may not have anything to do with the three-way as a group; for instance, the prompt might be “Betty _____”, in which case, the “White” is a last name, not the color itself. Unlike "DisOrDat", all the players participate in a Three-Way, and a wrong choice doesn't advance the question.
    Old Man: Back in my day, we didn't have your fancy online multiplayer thingamawhatsits, we all had to huddle around the same computer. We had "DisOrDat" everyone could play back then, we called 'em "Three-Ways", and by gum, we were grateful!
    Cookie: Shut up, Old Man.
    Old Man: ...I wet myself.
    Cookie: Oh, lovely.
  • Wendithap'n: My partner Schmitty ran this one in Louder, Faster, Funnier!. This one’s kinda like a Three-Way. So, he'll place the "primary" event on the top of your screen and then list a bunch of other events, let's call them "secondaries". While he does that, you've got to decide whether a "secondary" happened before or after the "primary" occurred. Or whether we're such big fat liars that we've listed an event that never happened at all! Sometimes, you might need an order sequence to get through this one, so pay attention.
  • Roadkill (known as Coinkydink in Mock 2): Find the clue that links two given clues together... and then for a bonus, find out what all the correct answers have in common.
  • Jack BINGO:
    You buzz in
    When I light up
    The first letter of the answer
    B-O-N-U-S
    B-O-N-U-S
    B-O-N-U-S
    If you get all five letters
  • Funky Trash: Let's see... We've got an unidentified actor, celebrity, or character; a bag of their trash that I happen to have in my possession; and three items that I pulled out from said bag of trash that are iconic of or closely associated with the owner. Whose trash is this? Originally a rare variation of Fill In The Blank, this became a featured four-answer specialty of 2011, 2015 and the Facebook game.
  • Fiber-Optic Field Trip: This category involves a randomly selected "caller" (pre-recorded phone conversation) who we’ll ask to make a category and question based on their expertise. It’s a specialty of Volume 1.
  • Celebrity Collect Call: Just like a "Fiber-Optic Field Trip", but with famous people, and it only showed up in Volume 2.
  • Guest Host: While I take a break, someone else hosts for this question. You might not like who gets to host, but at least I get some private time. Along with replacing Volume 2's celebrity questions in Volume 3, the category also made two appearances in The Ride.
  • Sequel Question: A question that refers to a previous question. In the games where you pick categories for each question, no matter which category you select, the three categories will refer to the previous question, either as a wrong answer or as an end of question joke. Full Stream changed the format a bit by having “episode skeletons” occasionally have set questions in set episodes to make their own storyline, replacing the normally randomized questions.
  • Pissed About A Question: Exclusive to the Netshow and the two archive releases it got, we decided to counter some complaints that our players sent in in the form of a standard four-option question. Think of it as our complaints department.
  • Bug Out!: This Odd-Man-Out-like question exclusive to 5th Dementia unleashes a crapton of bugs in the studio, and your job is to squash the bug that doesn't fit in a certain group. Get it wrong and you lose cash, but get it right and you get paid. If there's more than one player involved, you either pay to your opponent(s) if you're wrong, or your opponent(s) pay you if you're right. The first six groups range from $100-$600, and the last group is worth the total value you buzzed in before the question.

My partner Bob’s show, Headrush, which is the same old You Don't Know Jack but for kids, introduced a few specialty questions not included anywhere else:

  • Trash Talking with Milan: Bob brings out his show’s resident English & Grammar teacher, who also happens to be his one and only janitor. This question always has to do with language and the disgusting messes he has to clean up. Just don’t get too grossed out.
  • Old Man’s Moldy Memories: In addition to making Old Man his show’s default announcer (seriously, Bob, how did you get this show?), Bob decided to give Old Man his own category where he discusses something and you have to determine what it is based on the clues he gives you. Similar vein to the Can You Remember? Questions from the other games, now with 100% more Old Man.
  • Headbutt: Bob gives two questions, the answers of which should be combined into one word! His go-to example is “Paid athlete + the littlest Hanson = Prozac”. Like in Ticklish Testgumtr.  and A Quasi Magnetrontr. , he'll also give out clues for each of the things, but unlike those specialties, it's... less frustrating, I'd say. Also, might I wonder why the kids get, like, ten times more dollars than we adults do? Come on, it doesn't make any sense!

2011 introduced a few specialty questions, like:

  • Who's the Dummy?: So, I've deen tracticing my ventriloquisn. Trodlen is, I have troudle with my "B"'s, "P"'s and "M"'s, so you'll have to tay extra attention to the wording of the question and answers, and don't de fooled dy any nisstellings in then.
  • Nocturnal Admissions with Cookie Masterson: So, I always have a really weird dream when I fall asleep eating some food late at night. It’s uncannily similar to the plot of a movie or TV show I just watched, but instead of the real characters, they’re my cats Poopsie and Mayonnaise, and my Mom, played by my real Mom. What did I watch that caused me to have such a weird dream?
  • Cookie's Fortune Cookie Fortunes with Cookie "Fortune Cookie" Masterson: *munch munch* Alright, let's see what my fortune says... "THIS QUESTION WILL BE BASED ON THE VAGUE ADVICE FOUND IN THIS FORTUNE COOKIE." Hm, that’s ironic. Alright, well, if I really am basing this question off my fortune cookie fortune, then what's the answer to this question based on my fortune cookie fortune?
  • Order Question (A.K.A. "It's The Put The Choices Into Order Then Buzz In And See If You Are Right... Question!"): I’m gonna list three things, sometimes more, and you have to choose the option out of four that puts them in the right order. And I'm giving away an extra $1,000 if you get one of these right.

2015 introduced us to:

  • Foggy Facts with Old Man: Oh, great. My "good acquaintance" Old Man somehow wandered into the studio again. He likes to remember things from his past, but his memory's not quite what it used to be. So we're gonna need you to figure out what he's talking about, based on the vague description he gives. (Sequel to Old Man’s Moldy Memories.)
  • Kangaroo, Peanut, Albert Einstein, or Uranus?!: One of these is the correct answer to this question.
    • Kangaroo
    • Peanut
    • Albert Einstein
    • Uranus

And a brand new specialty question, implemented in the Facebook game:

  • Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt, or Dracula?!: One of these is the correct answer to this question.
    • Elephant
    • Mustard
    • Teddy Roosevelt
    • Dracula

Introduced in Full Stream:

  • Data Mining: A question prompt in the template “Type = {first attribute, second attribute}” will lead to this question. Binjpipe needs your help identifying user data, and they will provide three search queries that one of the four possible answers would likely input. (The sequel to Funky Trash.)
  • Player’s Choice: Binjpipe will interrupt our regularly scheduled question and ask you, the audience, to choose one of two possible question categories. The categories might not be what you expect, but I had nothing to do with these—I’m just doing what they told me to do, alright?!
  • Binjpipe Recommends: The title of one of these will always be a terrible marketing slogan from those Binjpipe folks. Binjpipe is determining user preferences, and they will provide a user’s past viewing experience and four possible answers to determine the best possible preference for the user. (The sequel to Nocturnal Emissions.)
  • Octopus, Coffee, Queen Elizabeth, or Frankenstein?!: We rehashed the idea of “Kangaroo, Peanut, ...” and reused the jingle from “Elephant, Mustard, ...” with new lyrics. One of these is the correct answer to this question.
    • Octopus
    • Coffee
    • Queen Elizabeth
    • Frankenstein (either “—’s Monster”, or “—the doctor, that is”. This is specified at the end of the intro cinematic.)

At the start of a multiplayer game (except in the Facebook version and Full Stream), I’ll also hand out one screw to each player. Any time you think one of your opponents doesn't know the answer to a question, you can use your screw to force that player to answer. The catch is, if they get it right, the money they win comes from your witnings. But in some versions, the money they lose also goes directly to your wallet. Remember, you only get one screw per game (or 10-question round in a 21-question game); use it wisely.

In The Ride, you get the chance to engage in FlakJack by hammering that S key. It floods the screen with screws, destroying any chance to get the question right. Any money the "screwee" loses for getting it wrong then goes to you... but if they get it right, you get screwed, and the amount they win for a correct answer comes out of your score.

We changed the screw rules up in Full Stream and allowed more than one person to obtain a screw at a time, along with letting you screw everyone else who hasn’t answered the question yet.

And for the final question of the game...

...Step right up to the Jack Attack. A large phrase (which can be a word, a name, or a "fill in the blank" statement) will appear prominently in the middle of the screen, while several smaller phrases fly by. When you see two words that match, hit your buzzer. Correct matches win you a large sum of cash, but you lose just as much if you guess wrong. There are seven large phrases in all to match. And don't forget... Remember the clue... It's gotta be a match that fits the theme of the Jack Attack.

Example 

I hope you know your random trivia. Good luck...

    Games In the Series: 
  • You Don't Know Jack: Our humble beginnings. So young, so fresh.
    • You Don't Know Jack Question Pack: Mission Pack add on (Think of it as DLC before it was a thing, and more... physical). More questions we couldn't cram into the first one.
  • You Don't Know Jack Sports: Taking some time off from the usual. This was the first themed one, based on sports.
  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 2: More questions, more craziness. And our friends from across the pond got in on it, too.
    • You Don't Know Jack (French and British)
    • You Don't Know Jack (German)
  • You Don't Know Jack Netshow: Our first foray into the online world. Ah, the days of dial up and modems. -Sigh- Alas, no longer around, since the site that held it went under.
  • You Don't Know Jack Movies: Second themed game focusing on trivia from the big screen.
  • You Don't Know Jack Sports Netshow: More net madness about sports. Again, though, not around anymore.
  • You Don't Know Jack TV: Third themed game, based on trivia from the boob tube.
  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 3: Back to the classics, with some more snarky trivia goodness.
    • You Don't Know Jack Volume 2 (German)
  • Headrush: Just before "The Ride", we figured that it’s original concept was a little too cold for some of our younger existing audience. So the obvious solution was to give them something that went in the opposite direction: Denser and Wackier! Oh yeah, despite the name change, it's still YDKJ, just with crazier visuals and for the younger crowd.
  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 4 The Ride: Our Darker and Edgier foray game. We moved the game to a abandoned warehouse and had the players ride an elevator, with each floor giving out the usual YDKJ goodness.
    • You Don't Know Jack Volume 3 Abwärts! (German)
  • You Don't Know Jack Netshow Volume 1 Offline: With the Netshow down and out, we packaged some questions from there for your enjoyment.
  • You Don't Know Jack (PlayStation: Once we realized "Hey wait, the current gen consoles are using that fancy CD technology!”, we decided to introduce our trivia craziness there. Had to strip down the graphics a bit, but it still came out good and featured almost all the hilarity of Volume 3.
  • You Don't Know Jack Netshow Volume 2 Louder! Faster! Funnier!: Well, you saw the title, what more needs to be said? More Netshow leftovers.
  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 5 5th Dementia: We revamped the set and changed the theme to a dimensional sci-fi theme (with the avatars being our staff making funny little faces, so cute). This one was the first that could be played online, though obviously nowadays that's not likely.
  • You Don't Know Jack Mock 2: Second PlayStation game. We went a little cheaper on this one using minimal graphics and leftovers from both The Ride and LFF!. Still a fun time though.
  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 4 (German)
  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 6 The Lost Gold: For some reason we went with a bit of a pirate theme for this one, after a long hiatus. Yeah, this is one of our odder entries.note 
  • You Don't Know Jack The Webshow (Single-player Flash version hosted on Jellyvision's website from 2007-2008; taken offline upon the release of 2011) Tried again with a episodic theme. At least by this point, wi-fi and broadband were things. No more of that screeching dial up tone and games being interrupted by incoming calls.
  • You Don't Know Jack 2011: Back and better than ever for The New '10s. This was actually our first multi-console game. Not only did our PC fans get love but so did Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii. Heck, even the Ouya (the little guy needed some games on it). Though for some odd reason we didn't give the PC ports online multiplayer. Hmm.
  • You Don't Know Jack for Facebook: A version made exclusively for Facebook. Based a bit on the 2011 version, but now you could play with your friends on social media. Shut down in 2015, and most of the questions were reused in the 2015 edition.
  • You Don't Know Jack Presents: Lie Swatter: IOS game, which acts more as a standard smartphone game and less as a Game Show. We would later port this one over to the first Jackbox Party Pack.
  • You Don't Know Jack Party: Used through up to four iPads/iPhones with the designated app connecting to a same HDTV set. A good experiment and a prologue of sorts for what we planned later.
  • You Don't Know Jack 2015: Part of the first Jackbox Party Pack, a set of games that are controlled through a web browser on a smartphone or other device. Contains episodes from Party along with some new ones. This was really more an Updated Re-release of the 2011 version with some new visuals. But if it ain't broke, don’t fix it, as they say.
  • You Don't Know Jack Full Stream: Part of the Jackbox Party Pack 5. By this point we were making games that could be streamed through platforms like Twitch and YouTube, hence the title here (and our acquisition by Binjpipe, but don’t tell them). We're as silly as ever, though this version does go a bit more streamline since we got more people to play with and gotta keep the ship moving. Still, it introduces 8-player play. More friends, more folks to mess around with.
  • And of course, there's the various compilations (such as the XL series) for those of you who like your Jack in bulk without the hassle of a store membership. Seriously, is a crate of mayonnaise even worth that?
  • "But wait?" We hear you ask "How can we play all these awesome games these days when, y'know, stores won't likely carry them for being oldies?" To that we say "1: Shut up! Classics never die!" And "2: Just gotta let off some Steam"....Y'know as in the Steam shop...where you can buy games and...okay yeah, this pun's dead in the water. But yeah all our classics (save the Netshows) are all on Steam at very affordable prices for you to enjoy. So don't worry about busting your backs looking for them. Just load up the shop, type "You Don't Know Jack", pick your poison and you're good to go! So go out and give us your mon-I mean have fun with our predecessors.

FINAL SCORE: -$1,000,000

Ouch.

Hey, did you know that Carsey Werner attempted an actual TV game show, with Paul Reubens hosting? (One suave-o announcer, too.) It lasted six episodes on ABC before it got replaced.note  Well, at least the computer games aren't going anywhere... I hope. Actually, now that THQ (the company that produced the revival for all three major consoles and the Nintendo DS on February 8, 2011) has gone bankrupt, for a while it looked like I'd need to start looking for a new job. Thankfully, Jackbox started self-publishing, and even handed me some sweet new gigs hosting Fibbage, all of its sequels, Fakin' It and Champ'd Up. So that should keep the lights on and the cats fed. For now.

Oh, also, we actually had a physical game made from Tiger Electronics back in the day when toys like that were relevant. Was kinda cumbersome though since you had to use cardsnote  and type in the code for the questions. And we're talking just regular questions too—Yeah, I know, right—No Dis-Or-Dats, no Gibberish Questions, the syrup and sprinkles and cookie bits that topped the vanilla we're left with. Not even the big banana that was the Jack Attack! (Thanks for the appetite, whoever wrote that...) But hey, if you didn't have the PC games, it was a... semi-cheap alternative. Seated four, too!

Anyway, because I'm not a user of this site, you'll have to make do with the third-person testimony of your fellow Tropers in the following sections. The fridge is calling me anyway. Have a Character Page while you're at it, and remember...

"YOU DON'T KNOW JACK!"

Donny: Hey, remember not to conflate this minutiae recall entertainment franchise with the directive-to-TV moving picture begotten by HBO You Don't Know Jack, which is more about a medicinal physician and has expressly less trivia.


You Don't Know Jack contains examples of:

  • Acid Reflux Nightmare: The "Nocturnal Admissions" questions in 2011 revolve around Cookie having weird dreams from watching movies and eating junk food before bed.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: The "Wrong Answer of the Game" feature in 2011. While they're relatively easy to spot, there's a chance that someone might take a guess and happen to pick the Wrong Answer of the Game. This trope is Exaggerated when the dollar amounts come into play. If the Wrong Answer of the Game is in round 1, they are worth $4,000. In round 2 however, they are worth a whopping $8,000, which is more than anyone could ever get in a single question.
  • African Chant: The commercial for Glug Light beer in the Facebook game, which parodies most real beer commercials attempts at stereotypical manliness.
  • All or Nothing:
    • The advertisement for "Don't Say Pajamas!" from 2015, where contestants lose the moment they say the word "pajamas." Even the audience gets expelled for shouting the show's name. It doesn't help that the questions seem geared to make the contestants lose.
    Terry St. Pancakes: A word that rhymes with "bojamas."
    • In the TV version, only the winner gets to keep their money. The two losing players get a cheap Consolation Prize.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Some of the "Wrong Answer of the Game" items in the Xbox 360 version of 2011 unlock Avatar items.
  • Anthropomorphic Typography: In most versions, the numbers for each question in a round are depicted as living characters that sing a quick song containing the name of the number. The numbers are not given faces or anything, but still move around in an organic way.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Normally, if you attempt to pick one of the four answers without buzzing in, the host will quickly remind you that you have to buzz in first. If you're playing a one-player game, picking an answer automatically buzzes you in and just picks the answer, since there's only one person who could possibly be answering.
  • Anti-Role Model: Lance Anderson in one of the commercials.
    Lance: Back in Appleton, Wisconsin, Miss Edith Parker knew me as the boy who hated geometry. ("Hypotenuse, Lance!") Miss Parker tried to teach me cosines, but I was too busy trying to entertain my classmates. ("You'll never get anywhere in life if you don't learn how to compute the volume of a cube, Lance.") Well, I never did get geometry. But I did make over $20 million for my last movie. So if you're listening, Miss Parker, screw you and screw geometry. Teachers, who needs 'em?
  • Angrish: Schmitty becomes really unintelligible when you try out the "fuck you" easter egg in TV for the third time. Thank the game for shutting itself down before Schmitty could backfire on you!
  • Arc Number: The Lost Gold will always, always have its Impossible Questions marked not by a special ident, but by a $26,606.06 bet. Made even worse by the fact every of these is cursed. And funnier at the same time, because the said sum turns out to be Jellyvision's phone number.
  • Artistic License – Geography: In the Facebook version, the audio ad for Warehouse Supply Warehouse states the place to be located off I-17, which runs in Arizona between Phoenix and Flagstaff. The video ad, however, gives a 312 area code, placing it in the Chicago area.
  • Ascended Extra: Cookie was just the sign-in guy for the first 3 games, but from Movies onward he became the most popular host.
    • Old Man was a recurring character outside of his role as an announcer in Headrush, until he finally got his own recurring segment in 2015: "Foggy Facts With Old Man." Taken a step further when he becomes one of the leads in the Jackbox game Civic Doodle. He also hosts a show on Binjpipe where he reacts to Internet memes, and has helped advertise many different products as a spokesman.
  • Ascended Meme: Happens a few times in 2011 and onwards.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: One of the Parody Commercials has a crappy translator service where the people who translate from [language] clearly aren't speaking said language. For instance, the Spanish translator talks in French, while the ASL translator speaks cow.
  • Ass Shove: The "Sunshine Suppositories" ad.
  • Auto-Tune: The 5th question jingle for 2011 and Facebook.
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • Buzz's first appearance in The Ride. It looks like he's going to host an episode... then Cookie drops him down a trapdoor straight to the Bottom.
    • In all versions, correct answers are typically heralded by the host going into along-winded explanation of the question's background. The writers eventually caught onto this, though, and in later games sometimes such an explanation will precede a wrong answer, too.
  • Bankruptcy Barrel: The sponsor for the Wrong Answer of the Game in episode 5 of 2011 is "Fashion Barrel Barrel Wear", a chain of stores that sells wearable barrels.
    Cookie: You're gonna like the way you look, in a barrel. I guarantee it, in a barrel.
  • Beat: During a Gibberish Question, if a player responds with "Fuck you" the first time, this happens between the answer being locked in and the host's reaction to the answer.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Pressing the space bar in the first game’s name screen makes Cookie get a little impatient.
    • Typing in "fuck you" during any Gibberish Question will get the hosts angry.
    • In The Ride, all of the hosts really dislike Gibberish Questions and get frustrated whenever they’re revealed.
  • Bestiality Is Depraved: In Facebook, the "Animal Lovers' Boutique" sponsor.
    Sexy Female Voice 1: Let's stop talking about this...
    Sexy Female Voice 2: Animal Lovers' Boutique...
    Sexy Female Voice 1: I'm actually... feeling kind of queasy.
    Sexy Female Voice 2: Heavy petting...
    Sexy Female Voice 1: I'm putting in my two weeks' notice; I can't work here anymore.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Heard in the "Buzz-Kill Bee Trimmer" commercial in 2011.
    • Also Cookie's appropriate reaction after he was told that Donny was planning to write the Jack Attack in episode 47.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": In Movies, Cookie does this to Old Man when he continuously complains about a player answering "Fuck You" during the Gibberish Question.
  • Bilingual Bonus: The Facebook commercial for "Discount Interpreters," where the "Russian" interpreter only speaks French and the Spanish interpreter speaks Chinese.
    • In Full Stream, the question intros for 7 and 10 are in French and Spanish, respectively (the French phrases rotate from game to game).
      • In English, the French phrases used in the 7 intro translate to "The asparagus is mocking me", "My beret shrunk", "My colleagues are idiots", "My life is a duck", "I ate all the eggs", and "I find Jerry Lewis slightly amusing."
      • The Spanish phrase in the 10 intro translates to "You know what's cute? Ten puppies."
  • Black Comedy: In 2011, in order to verify a question regarding the weight of the human brain, Cookie literally cuts open an intern's head with a chainsaw in order to weigh his brain. Absolutely no one bats an eye at this.
  • Bond Gun Barrel: Question 5 in 2015.
    Singer: Fivefinnnnngerrrrrrr!
  • Bonus Round: The Jack Attack, which can either maximize or minimize your score depending on your answers.
  • Bonus Space: The Wrong Answer of the Game in 2011 and 2015. Choosing this instead of the correct answer for a particular question, instead of losing money for a wrong answer, earns you twice the original amount of the question ($4000 in Round 1, $8000 in Round 2).
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: From 2015, the commercial for "Kyle Pepper's Professional Baseball League," which has only three rules:
    1. Everyone's welcome, regardless of gender or race.
    2. Every team starts with five runs so they don't feel bad.
    3. Every Tuesday night, the team trades spouses and experiments sexually.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In The Ride, Schmitty's second response to being told "fuck you" is to deliberately break your Willing Suspension of Disbelief by reminding you that Schmitty is a fictional character and the voice you're hearing is really Phil Ridarelli sitting in a sound booth.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: Before tokens were introduced to Facebook, all purchases in the game had to be paid via credit, debit, and/or Facebook credits. This made it very costly to buy several items.
  • Brick Joke: Going after the Wrong Answer of the Game prizes often require the players to remember the subject matter of the "sponsor" long after it has become irrelevant.
    • The sequel questions in most games.
    • Happens in almost EVERY floor of The Ride; if certain answers are selected, the host will make a remark related to it later on in the floor.
    • In 2011, Cookie opens one episode by mentioning a password which most would view as a throwaway gag. The next to last question asks you what the password is. After the question is over, Cookie mentions another password that he suggests might be the answer to a future installment of the series.
    • In every game since 2011, Jackbox CEO Mike Bilder delivers a commercial mentioning ongoing production on a fake game called "Everyone Help Grandma." On April Fools Day 2019, Jackbox Games published a video announcing production of the game.
  • But Thou Must!:
    • Once per game, if time runs out without any guesses while one player is doing exceedingly well, the host will mock said player for not even trying to guess, and asks the audience for their thoughts. They in return yell "Don't be a wimp!" and the player has to answer whether they want to or not.
    • In multiplayer games, using a screw on another player forces them to answer the question.
    • The Ride occasionally forces silly names on players. The Language floor, for instance, picks the first player's name by asking how many languages they know, while on Dairy, every time the player presses a key (any key), their name is still gonna be typed in as "Head Cheese".
    • In Full Stream, not answering a question is considered the same as picking a wrong answer.
  • Butt-Monkey: Buzz's treatment in The Ride, where every time he tries to be a host of a floor, he gets dropped down a trap door. The only time he ever gets a chance to host is during a Guest Host question near the Bottom, much to the annoyance of Nate.
  • The Cameo:
    • Buzz Lippman appears during The Ride. He then gets dropped down a pit by Cookie, before making a few sporadic reappearances throughout the game.
    • If Full Stream is played with Twitch Logins enabled, a commercial for Binjpipe's streaming service is played on the sign-in screen. One of the voices is that of actual Twitch streamer Kate Stark.
    • Jimmy Fallon appears as himself in Full Stream.
  • Call-Back:
    • Most of the games are set up in a way that certain topics referenced in past questions can get referenced again during a later question. In addition, there's the Running Gag about Question 4 - "The Question That Cares".
    • In the first Netshow volume, the question intros are occasionally replaced with their corresponding intros from previous games. These are accompanied by a border that reads "CLASSIC SEGUE" at the top.
    • In 2011, the intro to Question 10n features a love song between the 1 and 0, where 1 sticks itself in 0's hole and baby n pops out. In 2015, the intro to Question 10n features 1 (sporting a pipe), 0, and n spending a day at the playground.
    • 2015 also features the ghost of the 4 that was shot in 2011, appearing during the Question 4our intro.
    • Also in 2015, the intro to Question 9ine has four 9s singing in a rowboat as a shark swims by. Sometimes, the shark's fin will be replaced by the 4 who was shot in 2011.
    • In Full Stream, the coffee cup in "Octopus, Coffee, Queen Elizabeth or Frankenstein" is made by "Tim Simian's," a sponsor from the Facebook version.
  • Calvinball: One of the fake ads in 2015 has Piddle Paddle, a game which dice are rolled and the phrase is said every few times. Amusingly, saying the phrase has requirements, as evidenced at the end, where a woman says "Piddle Paddle!" and everyone reacts with disgust.
  • Canon Discontinuity: One question in 2011 talks about how crazy and unlikely it would be if Paul Reubens hosted You Don't Know Jack, and that it would obviously be a smash hit if it ever happened. A later question discussing the logistics of a You Don't Know Jack musical mentions that a part in it was written specifically for Reubens.
  • Capital Letters Are Magic: The fact that Binjpipe's "Algorithm" is always referred to with a capital A is the first sign that it's not just a bunch of code.
  • Catchphrase: Schmitty, in his later appearances, has a tendency to refer to pretty much everyone and everything as "my close, personal friend(s)". This generally extends to anything that Schmitty has no actual chance of knowing, be it because the person in question is long dead or famous, or because it’s an inanimate object or concept that is impossible to truly befriend.
  • Chained to a Railway: In 2015, question 6 is tied to a railroad by question 3, in the style of silent film melodrama.
  • Character Blog: Cookie Masterson has a Facebook account.
  • Cheaters Never Prosper: The game actually enforces waiting until everyone has at least had a chance to see the question and the four offered answers (particularly as the standard video game quiz problem of repeat questions is still in effect). Anyone who rings in early will be forced to type in the answer without any given choices — or any given question, for that matter.
    • In The Ride, you're given absurd answers like "'Pecos' Bill Clinton" and "Luke, I am your step-aunt" instead of the real ones, and 5th Dementia, where Schmitty scrambles the answers and the question; either way, you're getting the question wrong.
  • Chew Bubblegum: Cookie uses this line during the intro to episode 7 of 2011.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Nate gets away with shooting these in some versions of Volume 1.
    • After a "Dis or Dat" in 2015 about Martin Scorsese movies and cocktails, Cookie commented on a trick question:
      Cookie: Don't like it? Well [bleep] you, [bleep]-ing [bleep]! Sorry, I was just watching Casino.
    • Question 7 of the Wood Floor in The Ride has its category censored, accompanied by swearing from Guy Towers.
      Guy: [bleep]-ty cartoon hasn't [bleep]-ing been funny since 19 [bleep]-ing 53!
  • Comeback Mechanic: Of a sort. In a multiplayer game, if nobody buzzes in to answer a question, the host may force a player who is way in the lead to buzz in and answer the question anyway. The mechanic is called "Don't Be a Wimp!", named for what the audience shows at the leading player.
  • Compilation Rerelease: No fewer than 14 sets.
    • Offline, the PlayStation release (Which has questions from Movies Volume 3 and Offline), Louder! Faster! Funnier!, and Mock 2 (Which combines questions asked from Schmitty's part of The Ride (with a few Roadkill questions from various other parts including his) and questions from Louder! Faster! Funnier!).
    • The second DLC pack in 2011, espically for those who didn't play the Webshow.
      • Special mention goes to the first iOS version of the game, which uses most of the questions from the Webshow and the various DLC packs in 2011.
      • Facebook even contain Questions (Multiple choice, Dis or Dats, and Jack Attacks) On-Disc and from the "Jack packs" of 2011.
      • 2015 contains questions from Ouya and Party.
  • Computer Virus: Invoked. If you type "fuck you" in TV, Schmitty threatens to install a virus where, if the player tries to open any application, it will make the player play You Don't Know Jack instead.
  • Consolation Prize:
    • In the Facebook version, if you wound up with a negative score, you got to spin the "Loser Wheel" which turned your score into $1 (though there is a very small chance of getting $5000 or another spin instead.)
    • In the TV version, the two losing players get a cheap gift such as a yo-yo, supply of hot sauce, or The Clapper.
  • Cosmetic Award: Achievements/Trophies in 2011
  • Cosmic Deadline: Hilariously invoked in the "Lawn Wax" episode of 2011. Each question after the sixth one is less prepared than the last, culminating in a Jack Attack that starts with the normally-ominous-at-this-point host desperately trying to call it off, and for good reason. See the Off the Rails entry for details.
  • Couch Gag: All of the games from the initial 3 volumes and spin-offs start with a two-line gag as the theme song begins. The Ride replaced this with the Moral Dilemma, which decided what floor one would play on. From the Flash game onward, each episode begins with Cookie introducing himself.
    Cookie: Hi, I'm Cookie Masterson, and this game may contain violence and full-frontal donkey nudity.
    • Also from The Ride, if the player opts not to enter their name, the name chosen by the game will always be one that fits the theme of the upcoming floor. Each floor also has a different sponsor that relates to the floor’s theme.
    • Each episode of LFF! and 5th Dementia opens with a two-line gag that fits the theme of the episode.
    • Each episode of Full Stream begins with Binjpipe introducing themselves in a different way, along with a slogan that changes every episode, followed by Cookie introducing himself.
  • Creepy Monotone: Done by all of the hosts during the Jack Attack rounds, and by the Binjpipe Lady at all times.
  • Cue Card Pause: The entire premise for "The Stand-Up Comedy News Channel" ad, a news program anchored by former stand-up comics. Their copy reads partially like a stand-up routine, only for the real news to kick in each time.
    Deb Mangiene: Tonight, expect a high gust of winds that blow up to fifty miles per hour. The last time I saw something blow that much, I was in a sorority...while Hurricane Lewis ravaged our city.
  • Curse: The Captain in The Lost Gold is under the effect of one for finding the Jack Gold. As such, he's trapped forever as the game's sign-up host that haunts the "studio" and the players have to accumulate enough total winnings ($1,000,000) to free him. In fact, the pirate-themed Impossible Questions in that volume are his attempts to speed up the process.
  • Cute Kitten: In 2011's Nocturnal Admissions questions, Cookie's dreams give the roles of various movie characters to his mother (represented by a ball of yarn with a face) and his two cats, Poopsie and Mayonnaise.
  • Darker and Edgier: Oddly enough for a quiz show, The Ride was this in spades. The setting of the game went from a stereotypical game show to a dark, industrial underground set. The game was divided into themed episodes on different "floors", and during the course of the game, in many an episode, it was told to you that you were getting closer to the "bottom" - marking the first at a proper story arc in the franchise. The best way to describe the game is probably Jeopardy! meets Saw.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Usually Cookie, but several hosts have their moments.
    • One easy way to invoke this out of any host is, on the naming screen, to not type anything in. They'll eventually get annoyed and come up with an insulting moniker for you.
  • Delusions of Eloquence: Donny, the sign-in host for 2011, who is also a Malaproper. In episode 47, when the writers leave the show unfinished and the rest of the staff has to improvise, Cookie reacts appropriately upon finding out that Donny's writing the Jack Attack (especially given how impossible it was to decipher the normal question the guy wrote).
  • Demoted to Extra: Schmitty, who hosted and did announcer work for several earlier games, was reduced to the announcer of each episode's Wrong Answer of the Game prize in 2011.note 
    • Same goes for Buzz. After Volume 2, he only has a little participation in The Ride.
      • Also Bob.
    • In the game show, Cookie Masterson was demoted from The Host to The Announcer.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: "Cookie's Fortune Cookie Fortunes with Cookie 'Fortune Cookie' Masterson" in 2011 and 2015.
    • Also, The Warehouse Supply Warehouse in the Facebook game.
    • Schmitty himself admits during one of the questions in the pets episode (courtesy of LFF!) that he keeps saying the word "second" all the time. Which, of course, gives the player ten more seconds to solve a mathematical problem posed by the question.
  • Deranged Animation: Headrush question intros have these in spades. Some weirder than others.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • You get custom remarks depending on the date and time you play, and even if a given player never buzzes in. Some versions will mock your lack of social life if you're playing a one-player game on a weekend night.
    • In any game with more than one player, selecting an answer without buzzing in will cause the host to scream out that you need to buzz in first. Continuing to pick answers without buzzing in will have the host give off increasingly exasperated responses the more times you do it, wondering if you're really that stupid and ultimately begging you to hit your buzzer.
    • In multiplayer games of at least three people, you're given the choice of which player to screw before using it. However, there's nothing stopping you from using the screw on yourself, which will force you to buzz in. Not only will this not subtract any money from you if you get the question right (since it would be counter-productive), but the host will be momentarily confused as to why you'd waste your screw like that, but he'll just go with it.
    • In the 360 and PS3 versions of 2011, not only is the game compatible with the Scene It? controllers, there is a set of intro instructions specific to them, and the question screen is arranged vertically to correspond with the buttons.note 
    • When playing a single-player game, almost every episode of 2011 has a whopping nine different endings, with which one you get dependent on both your final score and how well you did in the Jack Attack (a full breakdown on the exact criteria used can be found here). Even more impressive, with the exception of the "$0" ending, each episode has a completely unique set of endings, meaning you'll never hear the same ending in two different episodes.
      • Of particular note is the "Perfect Jack Attack, Negative Score" ending. Because of the way scoring works in 2011, you have to go out of your way to answer every question wrong as quickly as possible, including flunking the Dis or Dat with literally milliseconds left on the clock, in order to achieve this ending. Given that, the fact that this ending even exists is remarkable.
    • Can you guess what the most likely response to the Gibberish Questions was, assuming you weren't actually trying to correctly answer them, and given the game's target audience? Yeah, and so did the developers. Doing it once deducts a lot of points, doing it twice does nothing, and doing it thrice has the host declare "Screw This, I'm Outta Here" and force-quit the game.
    • The CD games would take note of which category you selected and - if it noticed a trend - would react accordingly. In Volume 2, one group of questions might lead to Buzz wondering if it's "Reindeer Hour", or another might have him note how the player "can't seem to stay away from the sex questions".
    • The fill-in-the-blank questions are pretty forgiving of spelling errors, and the team went to the trouble of recording ways to mock the player for common wrong answers even to them.
    • In the earlier games, if you buzz in before the full question is displayed, the rest of the question is cut off, and you need to type in your answer instead of getting multiple choice. If you're playing the demo version (which only has five questions) and type in the correct answer:
      Cookie: Look, if you think I'm impressed, I'm not. How many times have you played this demo anyway?
    • In Full Stream, one of the possible Screw effects is to change the affected player's name. If said player then happens to win the game, Cookie will refer to the player by the switched name instead of simply "Player <X>" (as demonstrated here with a player whose name was changed to "The Anus").
    • In games that included the Fiber-Optic Field Trip or similar questions, if the category leading to them was chosen as the tenth question of a 21-question game, an extra question would be added afterwards (using the question 10 segue) to add to the idea that the caller / celebrity was still thinking of their question.
    • Lampshaded in Full Stream: if you somehow manage to achieve an eight-way tie, Cookie will call you out, accusing you of messing with the game specifically to see if anything special would happen.
  • Disco: The music and visual style for questions 3 and 7 in 2015. The latter comes complete with the 7 wearing platform shoes.
  • Disney Death: In 2011, the 2 in Question 2wo can fall off during its segue yodeling. But unlike the murdered 4 in Question 4our, it comes back for subsequent playthroughs.
  • Disposable Intern: In The Webshow and beyond, Cookie treats interns quite badly, sometimes even getting them killed.
  • Double Entendre: The commercials are chock full of them.
    • Aided by not having any video associated with it, the ad for Chocky's Choco-Cherry Dingle Doodies comes off as a bit more X-rated.
    • Buster's Bait Shop: Master Baiters Since 1923! (Outtakes have Tom "Cookie" Gottlieb repeatedly laughing after saying this.)
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: Subverted in 2011. Each episode has a "Wrong Answer of the Game", brought to you by the episode's sponsor, which is, of course, not the answer to the question. However, for picking it, you're rewarded with double that round's full possible winnings, as well as getting a "prize". Also, if you want all of the Cosmetic Awards, you need to intentionally screw up at various points, such as blowing a million dollars on wrong Jack Attack answers.
    • However, if you're in a competitive environment and someone else still has a screw, you better get that bonus BEFORE someone gets screwed - picking ANY wrong answer under a screw, even the Wrong Answer of the Game, removes it from play and gives the screwer some of your score. This is specifically mentioned in the manual, too.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: In 2011, the animation for question 10 has the "1" plunge its head into the "0"'s hole. Shortly afterward, a baby "n" pops out of "0."
    • Some of the sponsors for the Wrong Answer of the Game in 2011 and 2015 come off as this.
  • Double the Dollars: In every Volume except Headrush, The Ride, 5th Dementia, and The Lost Gold, a correct answer's base value will be doubled in the second half (Questions 8-14 in LFF!, Questions 6ix-10n in 2011, OUYA, Party, 2015 and Full Stream, and Questions 11-20 in all other versions). The notable exceptions was Volume 2's "Fiber Optic Field Trip" and "Celebrity Collect Call" questions worth $5,000, and Volume 3's "Impossible Questions" worth $20,000.
  • Downloadable Content: The "Jack Packs" in the 360 and PS3 ports of 2011
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first and second games lack some of the more common staple rounds and jokes of the series.
  • Easter Egg:
    • In The Ride, there are TONS of these. A great way to do this is to start a new game of The Ride on the "Censorship" floor, and in that game, pick the answers: "The Muscles From Brussels", "$8.75" and "The FCC". Cookie will bring up Jean-Claude Van Damme in each of his responses. There are many other such examples.
    • In the Gibberish Questions on "The Ride" you can still get the similar responses for typing in "fuck you" but you can also get a different response for typing in similar naughty words like "Fag" or "Lesbo".
    • Typing in "Fuck you" in the Gibberish Question box always yields a shocked reaction of some sort from the host, followed by what is at least a massive hit to the player's score. If a second player does it, nothing happens, since the host doesn't find it original any more. Doing it a third time makes the host give up and quits the game, booting the player(s) back to the desktop.
      Cookie: Oh come on, you know better than that... I think.
    • Entering certain names in Full Stream will have Cookie personally say hello to those players. Names include Jimmy Fallon, Neil Patrick Harris, Twitch streamers Kate Stark, Northernlion, and Lirik, various members of the Jackbox Games staff, as well as a number of prolific members of the Jackbox Games Discord and Twitch channels.
      Cookie: Hi, Kate! Are you streaming right now? Hi, everybody! Hi! I'm on the Internet!
    • In "Television", a question about TV dream sequences will result in Cookie stepping out of the shower (It Makes Sense in Context) talking to Schmitty before saying "You're dreaming Schmitty...DREAMING!" With that the screan begins to wave and wobble before fading to black, adn then the game starts back over again at the sign-in page as if nothing has happened.
  • E = MC Hammer: In Exact Words. One question in The Ride, from the Technology floor, and HeadRush rolls solely around what Einstein would equal the famous rapper to.
    Schmitty: Please Einstein, don't hurt em'.
  • Eject the Loser: In the TV show, only two players get to play the Jack Attack. Whoever's in last place at the end of the third round disappears via CGI effect - ie. TV static from using the Clapper, or a fireworks display, or in flames (like if the Consolation Prize was a supply of hot sauce).
  • Elevator Floor Announcement: Volume 3, Question 15:
    Elevator Operator: 15th floor: lingerie, housewares, and useless trivia.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Nate Shapiro, despite being possibly, the most heartless host, might rebel against Binjpipe.
  • Evolving Title Screen: Specifically for Question Four in the 2011 game:
    • The default title has a conga-like dance and music with four number 4's, before one of the 4's leads "4our".
    • At some point, one of the 4's will get shot dead, the music stops, and another 4 runs screaming. The second 4 leads off the "4our" title.
    • The next one has the music, but police tape around a Chalk Outline of the murdered 4. The title this time is just "our".
    • Then the dance only has three 4's, but the dance is half-hearted, and after the vantage turn one of the 4's (the one that ran screaming when the dead 4 was shot) appears to be crying. But the title again says "4our".
    • The next version has an "f" joining the remaining three 4's in the dance, and this time the title reads "four" (and it stays that way from then forward).
    • The original version of that one shows the "f" struggling to keep up with the dancing. A second one shows it dancing more comfortably with the remaining 4's
    • Then there's a version with a sadder version of the music as the other numbers gather for the funeral for the dead 4. The tombstone reads "The question that cared".
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
    • 2011's "It's the put the choices into order then buzz in and see if you are right... question!"
    • Also "Dis or Dat".
    • Almost all of the commercials. Such as the St. Joseph's Historically-Inaccurate Boy's Choir in 5th Dementia, or "Don't Say Pajamas," a game show whose sole rule is not to say the word "pajamas", in 2015.
    • The "Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt, or Dracula?" questions in Facebook and it’s successors.
    • And the Off the Rails Jack Attack in 2011, which Cookie protests about and gets his mic cut off by Helen WHILE THE PLAYERS ARE BUSY WITH IT. Despite the extremely straightforward instructions, it's more difficult than you would think.
  • The Faceless: Minus Troy Stevens, all the other hosts are heard and never seen.
    • Commercial character Chocky the Chipmunk is finally seen in an advertisement in the Facebook game.
  • Fan Disservice: The commercials for Tammy's sex line, which have her sensually describing her various and disgusting ailments.
  • Four Is Death: In 2011, the 4 in the front of the line in the Question 4 animation is shot and killed, replaced with a chalk outline (with the background now reading "our" instead of "4our"), and later replaced with a lowercase "f". Eventually the cutscene changes completely, now showing all the other numbers attending the number four's funeral.
  • Flat "What": Part of the slogan for the Banana and Hammock Store in 2015.
    Announcer: All we sell are bananas and hammocks! ...what?
  • Follow the Bouncing Ball: Done in the intro to "Who’s the Dummy?" in both 2011 and 2015. Billy O’Brien's head is the ball.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
    • One of the Jack Attacks in Full Stream is "How YOU Are In Danger! (Yes, You!)", and will randomly select player names to use in the clues, such as "will kill and replace [player]".
    • The ending to "Escape The Simulation" and the associated Truth Talk 23/7 heavily imply that by playing Full Stream, you, the player, have fallen victim to Binjpipe's Assimilation Plot.
    Binjpipe Voice: And you, dear consumed - dear consumer. If you think you're not already part of the Algorithm... well... [cue Title Scream]
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: 2011's animation for question 9ine features two 9s in hats rolling through a valley. When playing episode 69, the animation goes into slow-motion suddenly, revealing that there had been a 69 joke the entire time.
  • Freudian Slip: The announcer at the beginning of The Ride’s Dairy floor is totally unprone to this one.
    Announcer: This episode of You Don't Know Jack is brought to you by... Lactose John's Ladies of the Evening! Come teat... uh... meet our girls!
  • Frustrating Lie: In Episode 25 of 2011, Cookie tries to send out e-vites to a party, with everyone giving him ridiculous excuses why they can't go such as Donny getting a hysterectomy and two other staff members getting a two-for-one lobotomy. In his frustration, he turns it into a question, asking which of the excuses he heard makes any medical sense. How fed-up he is with the situation shows even if you get the question right.
    "An otolaryngologist is an ear, nose, and throat doctor. All the rest of you are f**king bad liars."
  • Funny Background Event: The intro to Question 1ne from 2015 has two going on at the same time. The 2 passes out while surrounded by empty bottles of booze, while the 5 knocks the 4 off a ladder.
  • Gag Penis: One of the questions in Louder, Faster, Funnier asks what it would mean if Pamela and Tommy Lee were caught having sex "in camera". The correct answer is in the judge's chambers.
    Schmitty: Tommy Lee in court. Hmm... [imitating judge] Mr. Lee, you may approach the bench- [boing sound effect] Well, my goodness, you're already here!
  • Gasshole: Old Man, as revealed if you type "fuck you" in Movies or TV. Both Cookie and Schmitty berate Old Man for stinking up the booth.
  • The Glasses Gotta Go: One of the Alter Egos' reactions to a wrong answer in 5th Dementia
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: Lampshaded by Schmitty in The Lost Gold.
  • Golden Snitch:
    • The Jack Attack is generally the game decider. Can be exaggerated in The Ride and 5th Dementia where the value is picked by stopping a sequence of scrolling values with the buzzer; in the latter, the Jack Attack can be worth over $10,000 for each item.
    • Subverted with the "$2,000,000 Question" on the TV show. Its value did in fact start at $2,000,000, but decreased rapidly as soon as Troy Stevens (Paul Reubens in character) started to read the question. Some sort of distraction would always crop up, such as Troy being attacked by ninjas or having his question card catch fire, so that the value had fallen to around $200 by the time he finished asking the question.
  • Gotta Catch 'Em All: Guessing the "Wrong Answer Of The Game" in 2011 yields a unique prize for each episode.
  • Groin Attack: In the third installment, one of the gibberish lines Cookie uses to introduce the Gibberish Question is: "Uh oh! Left nut kick; I'm sore!"
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: One of the questions in 2015 involves the film Groundhog Day. The next question has the same title as the previous question, prompting Cookie to protest that he's not doing a Groundhog Day motif.
  • Heartbeat Soundtrack: When an answer is being typed in during the Gibberish Question, a heartbeat can be heard in the background.
  • "Help! Help! Trapped in Title Factory!": One Couch Gag in The Lost Gold reads "Help! I'm trapped in a tagline writing factory!"
  • Hidden Track: You Don't Hear Jack, which is pretty much a bonus audio album placed on the installation CD of The Ride features an appropriately named track, "Radio Silence". Itself, it's six minutes long and surely doesn't consist of anything but silence, not counting the moment right at the end when Cookie enters the booth and asks the listener where his keys are. Right after that, Cookie says "there's more stuff after this, and it's good", but the final track is totally silent.
  • Home Game: Inverted in that the games came before the TV show (However it was not featured as one of the consolation prizes in the TV Show).
  • Hostile Show Takeover: Always an indication of a new "season" of The Ride, except for Cookie's part. First, Cookie gets surprised on that he was replaced by Buzz for the second episode and therefore lets him fall through a trap door, completely unaware of where it leads to. This backfires on Cookie when Guy Towers kicks in after dropping Buzz through the trap door a second time. And then on Guy when Buzz comes back again, although in a short while, Schmitty takes over both. And on Schmitty, as well as Buzz again, when Nate Shapiro takes over.
  • Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: At the end of episode 60 of the Webshow, Nate leaves the show to marry Tiny The Elephant.
  • Hurricane of Puns:
  • I Have to Iron My Dog: One episode from 2011 has Cookie regularly bring up a party that he's throwing, and he keeps getting excuses from the staff throughout the episode, to the point where in Question 10n, you're asked which excuse is actually plausible.
  • Idle Rich: One of the parody commercials in Vol. 3 has an extremely wealthy man buying advertising time for the sake of doing so. He has nothing to sell or anything important to say, so he decides to spend most of his running time playing audio of him waking up in the morning.
  • The Immodest Orgasm: Can be heard as the correct answer sound in the PC version of Volume 3's 3-Way.
    • In Movies, there is a gag presented after the category "There Are Bad Movies & There Are Bad Movies," about the movie 1941 (1979) in which Nancy Allen’s character Donna Stratton can only get an orgasm in an airplane.
      Man: [seductively] Honey, I also rented Top Gun.
      Stratton: OHHH YEEESSS!
  • Implausible Deniability: In Facebook, the "Animal Lovers' Boutique" sponsor.
    Animal Lovers' Boutique is a totally legal company specializing in sexy accessories for the discreet individual. What an individual chooses to do with these items is the individual's own decision. For instance, many of our donkey bras can be used as candle holders, and we believe that will hold up in a court of law.
  • Insane Troll Logic: After a question about the comedy show Comedy Bang! Bang!, Cookie engages in a brief stint of this that eventually leads to him thinking he was the one that shot John F. Kennedy.
  • Interface Screw: Literally. In The Ride, and Abwärts!, you accomplish the "Screw" or "Nail" by hitting the "S" or "N" key as much as possible to literally fill the screen with screws/nails, making the question partially or fully impossible to see.
    • The "Who's the Dummy?" questions in 2011 are given by Cookie's ventriloquist dummy Billy O'Brien, and are obfuscated slightly by Cookie's limited ventriloquism skills (replacing "B" "P" and "M" sounds with "D" "T" and "N" sounds, respectively).
    • Screws in Full Stream can now mess with other players besides forcing them to answer a question. Screws can now flip your phone's screen upside down, force you to enter a password before answering, and much more.
  • In-Universe Game Clock: Downplayed. In 2011, Donny will sometimes make a remark on the time and date set on the console/PC's internal clock.
  • It Always Rains at Funerals: And it does at the funeral for the 4 that was murdered in 2011.
  • I Will Show You X!: Schmitty, to Old Man in TV: "Chafing? I'll give you chafing!"
  • Kent Brockman News: The fake bumpers often used over the credits.
  • Killed Off for Real: As noted above in Evolving Title Screen, the original 4 for 4our was murdered in an intro in 2011. An f replaces it for remaining playthroughs once it dies. A substitute 4 later replaces it in subsequent versions of the game.
    • In 2015, its spirit flies around during the Question Four intro. A random Question Nine intro shows the corpse of the dead four—complete with bullet hole—floating in the water as the 9's row by.
    • The 4 in Full Stream is established to be the murdered 4's child, and also has a stepfather now.
  • Koan: There's a question that uses a definition of one and combines it with elements of the Batman franchise in Volume 3.
  • Laughing Mad: Trying to tick off Guy Towers on The Ride by saying him "fuck you"? Well, it does make you look like a dumbfuck for him, and you're in to be a laughing stock. And if both your buddies are of the same kind, he'll be exploding from laughter!
  • Les Yay: [[Invoked]] Several installments include commercials for a barely fictional TV show called "Xenora: Queen of Battle". In each commercial, Xenora and her sidekick get into a very suggestive situation.
    Janelle: Ow! My inner thigh!
    Xenora: Here, let me rub some ointment on that.
  • Letters 2 Numbers: The question numbers in 2011, iOS, Facebook, OUYA, Party, and 2015. 1ne, 2wo, 3hree, 4our (later four), 5ive, 6ix, 7even, 8ight, 9ine, 10n.
  • Luck-Based Mission: The final question (not counting DLC) of 2011, in which all four answers are identical, yet only one is still considered "correct".
    • Players can invoke this on themselves in the earlier games by buzzing in before the question has finished being read. This forces the offending player to answer without the question and the answers.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Played with — on TV, if you drop one too many F-bombs and press a key as the game's about to quit itself, Old Man reveals that he is in fact Schmitty's father — supposedly.
  • Machine Monotone: 5th Dementia gives us the Robot Theater segments, where two robots act out a scene from a famous piece of media by talking in this style.
  • Mad Libs Dialogue: Due to the "Interactive Conversation" nature of the games, dialogue is sometimes delivered like this:
    • Rules spiels often combine pre-recorded "common" bits with question-specific bits. This is most evident in Dis or Dats, which have to have slightly different rules depending on what the answers are, as well as which platform the game is being played on.
      Cookie: If it's [choice], press [button]. If it's [other choice], press [other button].
    • This sort of dialogue is also used very liberally in The Ride, in plenty of places. The elevator sign-in host is the most obvious, as her dialogue is very clearly pieced together from different takes. Within the game, floors may have slightly different introductions depending on your answer to the Moral Dilemma question. Certain random pieces of dialogue may be added depending on your performance during the game. Hosts may even read out specific dollar values during question intros.
    • Categories are usually introduced like this, with each part randomly chosen from a set:
      Host: The category is... [Category]. And it's worth $x,000.
    • 5th Dementia takes takes it a step further by having all dollar amounts be read aloud by Schmitty, being Mad Libs-ed in by necessity.
    • Every introduction to Gibberish Question (except for The Ride, which just uses random gibberish phrases) always rhymes with "Guess what it's time for!" Examples include "Wes butt tits slime chore" or "Stress cut with lime sore" or "Fresh slut tits eyesore" or "Chest struck fits lime floor".
    • Lampshaded in The Bottom of The Ride:
      Nate: And how about all those fantastic hours sitting in a small, dark sound booth reading the same damn thing over and over again? (Mockingly) "And the category is...", "And here's your category...", "And this category's about...", like it's all spontaneous or something.
      Cookie: Pfft, yeah, what a crock.
      Schmitty: No kiddin'.
  • Mascot: From the ads, Chocky the Chipmunk, who seems like a Heroic Comedic Sociopath version (well, more of one) of normal breakfast cereal mascots. As for the game proper, the 2011 version has a chicken mascot for the Wrong Answer of the Game.
  • Matryoshka Object: In the opening animation for the "Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt or Dracula?" questions, an elephant doll is shown. It opens to reveal a bottle of Plochman's mustard, which in turn opens to release Teddy Roosevelt's doll, and finally Dracula is shown to come from Teddy's open doll. The question’s successors use similar intros.
  • MegaCorp: The lawyer-friendly Arthur Daniels Heartland.
    • In Full Stream (as well as the rest of the games in Party Pack 5), Binjpipe is essentially a parody of Internet-based companies that datamine their users as much as possible, especially Netflix.
  • Mind Screw: Oh, the Elevator Lady... You can pretty much be sure your name in The Ride will be the most appropriate one for the occasion, and definitely not the one you've thought for yourself. Even worse, your keyboard might get a sticky keys disease when you'll type in your name.
    • The Ride also features quite a few in-joke questions. Some are no-brainers, while some, difficulty-wise, should have been labeled as Impossible Questions in the first place; specifically, on the Lawyers floor, Guy Towers would ask who told Schmitty a dumb joke about how many lawyers it takes to screw in a bulb.
    • Foolin' Around in Louder! Faster! Funnier! and Mock 2 is damn straight with its name - only about two or three questions out of the bunch make any logical sense, the rest is all made up on the go. It's still educational, though, since it's the only reliable source of learning that the only thing that can beat rock, paper and scissors is shadow puppet of a duck.
  • Mood Whiplash: Jack Attacks are always presented in a much creepier manner than the rest of the game.
    • 2011 manages to do this with a question number animation. The lead 4 the "everybody cuatro" 4s is suddenly gunned down. This leads to a mini-story arc in subsequent games, witch contains an "f" as The Other Darrin. See it for yourself.
    • The finale of The Ride, which is itself presented in a creepy manner, features the elevator getting broke down, Nate getting stuck on the aforementioned Bottom, meeting all the previous hosts of The Ride stacked up with snacks, TV set, shower and a merry-go-round, and choosing what kind of assy joke or F-you executives speech they have to do before the game quits to Windows.
  • Mooning: A pack of these. For instance, Cookie gets such a moment when he promises to show "a Full Moon" on the ATF floor of The Ride. All that only to get mooned by Billy O'Brien in the first episode of the OUYA version of 2011.
  • More Dakka: In The Ride and/or Abwarts!. See Interface Screw.
  • Morton's Fork: The Ride always begins with a subjective question with two choices, and whatever you choose will determine the theme of questions for that game. What makes it a Morton's Fork is that no matter which you choose, the text will insult you, even if you select the "morally correct" one.
    • There's even a question that uses the term of one.
  • Multi-Platform: 2011. Also Vol. 3, which was more or less ported to PlayStation as simply You Don't Know Jack.
  • Multiple Endings: At the end of the last floor of The Ride or Abwärts!, you could select from a few options what the host(s) would do for the finale. When the game returns to that episode, the ending is never seen again, so in order to see them all you would have to uninstall the game and then re-install it. Or copy the .ini file before you start the game and reinstate it afterward.
    • Single-player games in 2011 have up to eight unique endings per episode.note  Which ending you get is determined not only by your final score but also by your performance during the Jack Attack, with two endings only triggering after a perfect Jack Attack and a third appearing only after doing spectacularly bad at it. A full breakdown of how the endings work can be found here.
  • Musical Nod: The question intros are often pastiches of well-known songs or artists' sounds, particularly in TV and Movies.
    • In '2015'', the 5ive song is a spoof of "Goldfinger" from the James Bond film.
    • One of the Question Eleven songs in the PlayStation game is based on the music of the B-52s.
    • The 1ne song in Facebook is a nod to “Whip It” by Devo.
    • One of the Question Fifteen songs in Volume 2 is a nod to the theme tune of Batman.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: From the iOS version of 2011 although he's paraphrasing a quote from Episode IV after the player has selected "Death Star" as a wrong answer.
  • Mythology Gag: In the "Funky Trash" segues in 2011, a sign for "Michael Bilder's" (then General Manager of Jellyvision) is seen.
  • Naughty by Night: One segue for Question 18 of Movies parodies this.
    Announcer: Question 18: Honor student by day... stripper by night!
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Bizarrely parodied in the parody commercial for Bible Action Figures from Volume 3.
    Unnamed Mother: Are you really God?
    God: Yes, I am!
    Announcer: Celebrity voice impersonated. Look for the new Bible Action Figure Larry the Leper, parts sold separately.
  • No Fair Cheating: In early Jack games, buzzing in too quickly instantly removed the question, and forced the player who buzzed in to type in the answer to the question that they couldn't see. However, this proved to be a Game-Breaker under the right circumstances; if the player typed in the correct answer (by way of having seen the question before), the game still awarded that player the money, even if the host gave a backhanded response about how the player was cheating. This was eventually changed to remove the game-breaking aspect. In The Ride, buzzing in too fast now gives the player four nonsensical answers, all of which are incorrect, and disables screws/nails, thus forcing players to wait for the answers to pop up.
  • No Indoor Voice: In the earlier games, the host might sometimes keep his voice "suspiciously calm" before the Jack Attacks, but by the end of these, he will shout out everything he thinks about your game, no matter whether it's positive or critical.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: Games that have the Gibberish/Anagram Question will cause the host to Rage Quit and the program to close if three people type "fuck you".
  • Noodle Incident: The Ride, Great Hoaxes floor, Schmitty, first question, True/False Fill-In-The-Blank question.
    Schmitty: The incident with you-know-who and the gerbil has really happened. (Now is that True or False?)
    • This one gets an expansion in Mock 2, while also becoming a next-to-last multiple choice question. You can actually get Schmitty to tell you the details of the said incident, which involves *HOOONK!* and *CHOO-CHOO* doing a *BA-A-A-A-AH!* on the *CAR CRASH*.
  • Not in Front of the Kid: Typing "fuck you" twice in vol. 2 gets you a lecture from Old Man about how you shouldn't be swearing, because "it's bad for the kids".
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: One of the questions of Volume III, under the category "The Playground Aint's Big Enough for the Both of Us" asks why would a kid with gynecomastia be teased by the others. And when Cookie explains the correct answer, you will witness the one and probably only time in the whole series when the game clearly lets you know that This is not a joke. Believe me.
  • Odd Name Out: The members of the bluegrass band Cookie has for an order question in episode 42 of 2011 are named Jeb, Cleb, Fleb and Hauss.
  • Off the Rails: This happens from time to time in 2011, but one episode in particular begins with the writers going to a picnic after only completing six questions (out of ten). It all spirals out of control from there as the staff races to get questions done in time for the the rest of the show. Chad then quickly puts together a "minimalist, back to basics" Jack Attack for Cookie very quickly, and initially Cookie's elated. It's when he reads the category: "Do As I Say And We'll Get Through This Together" that he starts to realize what Chad has actually done:
    Cookie: You wanna pick... Wait, what the hell did he do here?!? No, NO, we can't do THIS! Helen! Shut it off! SHUT IT—
    • In a take on Exact Words, Chad put what you want to match "in quotes" and you want to hit your buzzer when that word or words comes up.
    • Also, a few of the questions in the Technical Difficulties episode in Louder! Faster! Funnier! and Mock 2.
  • Once an Episode: Starting with 2011 the Dis or Dat question happens every game. Full Stream makes it so it always happens on question 3.
  • Our Slogan Is Terrible: "Chocky the Chipmunk's Allergy Clusters: They're Grrr-Not Gonna Kill Ya!"
  • Parody Commercial: The staple of the series, ever since you finish an episode.
    • Also beforehand in 2011 and the Facebook version.
    • They're also often shown before the final question in Headrush.
    • The Ride was generous enough to pack these on a separate CD, the one you also need to install the game, as You Don't Hear Jack.
  • Police Are Useless: "Rent-A-Cops: What they gonna do?"
  • Pop Quiz: The one which not only makes you go pop, but also makes you go high. Get it?
  • Precision F-Strike: It's Video Game Cruelty Potential, baby. Go ahead and type "fuck you" any time when you get to list your name or play a Gibberish or Anagram Question. Come on, we dare you. Yup, the game itself is allowed to use profanity and sick humor in abundance, but the players aren't even allowed to curse.
    • In fact, some versions of the first "You Don't Know Jack" games have Nate Shapiro saying this little gem right back at you if you type these two words.
      Nate: [after a bunch of cash is taken away] Nononononono... I didn't say "fuck you." I said... FUCK... YOU. [more cash is taken away]
    • In the German 1, 2 and Abwarts!, Quizmaster Jack does an exact translation of what Nate said whenever you tick him off.
    • In the UK, Jack Cake fires one off uncensored in one of the wrong answer snippets, along with a whole host of other Not Safe for Work epithets.
    • The Ride has a whole share of these! All of them, of course, are bleeped out, but you can't deny they're still here. Even one of the endgame (the instrumental of which appears as elevator music) songs flips a spoken birdie:
      So I decided time is right
      I find the heaven in my sight
      Perhaps we'll go out for a bite
      I crossed the street, the traffic's light
      I failed to see a garbage truck [wzzzzz-CRASH!]
      And now my life is hanged as f[HONK!]
    • Schmitty also gets away with firing off a whole bunch of 'em uncensored in either a Gibberish or an Anagram Question in The Lost Gold.
  • Press X to Die:
    • When you decide to use a screw, every player is represented by a button. If you aren't paying attention, it is very possible for you to screw yourself.
    • The above "Fuck you" Easter Egg. The first time subtracts a large sum of cash from the offending player. The second time does nothing. The third time causes the host to Rage Quit.
  • Promotional Consideration: "Commercials" play at the end of each game, plus a special "Sponsor" for each floor in The Ride, each episode in 2011 and each sponsor in the Facebook game.
  • Pyrrhic Victory: The correct answer to an Impossible Question in Volume 3. Type it this way, and your winnings are going to amuse you.
    • Old Man gets his after drinking a whole gallon of milk in episode 9 of 2011, and its corresponding question is about the definition of one.
    • The UK edition had this, asking straight up for the type of victory where you lose more than you gain. Assuming you pick the "right" answer, Jack Cake goes on to explain that the player has just suffered one, revealing the "correct" answer to the question to be "HMS Victory" for no other reason than to enforce the trope.
  • Rage Quit: Inverted in titles with Gibberish Questions; see What the Hell, Player? below for the specifics.
  • Randomized Title Screen: The games' intro sequences are somewhat randomized in some, possibly all, of the games. Most of the visuals tend to be the same each time, but the game will mix up things like captions, sounds and dialogue, and a caption or two. The number of variations to choose from isn't necessarily huge, but it's enough to keep the intro from being the same each time.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Got a score below zero? Never got to buzz in during the Jack Attack? You're gonna hear one! You've finished a game in 2011? Regardless of your score, if you played a one-player game, Cookie will always have enough time to mock your lack of friends. Didn't buzz in for a single question, including the Dis or Dat and the Jack Attack? Cookie'll let you have it.
    • One of the commercials in 2015 has staffer Nick Baer using his kids college fund to buy ad time solely to tell the world about how much he hates someone named Jeff Hansen.
  • Recycled Title: The 2015 version of the game.
  • Red Herring: Double subverted in a question in 2011 where Red Herring is actually the answer (Cookie even lampshades this)... but if you're going for the Wrong Answer of the Game, then it's played perfectly straight.
  • Rule of Three: One of the Impossible Question's category is titled "Shakespeare & The Rule of Three", which asks you what's the third word, in the third scene, in the third act, of Richard III.
  • Rules Spiel: The spiels are skippable, though.
    Cookie: Of course. Who wants to hear my yapping? Oh, I'm still doing it. My mistake.
  • Running Gag: In 2011, Cookie harassing his interns... which was likely carried over from the online version.
    • Also, in the earlier games...
      How many times do we have to tell you? "Tootie" is NEVER the right answer!
    • Since the promotions for the 2011 game, Cookie being The Faceless has become this.
    • From the Facebook version, Cookie trying to use a duck farting sound effect only to learn that they still don't have that one.
    • The UBERNOSTRUM!!! advertisement, paving its way since the nineties, up to Full Stream. This also can be said about certain ad flicks from the same era.
  • Saying Too Much: Schmitty is prone to doing this. In 5th Dementia’s "Dumb Episode", he lets loose the answer to a question before it even appears on screen. And then he decides to give away the answer to the next question in advance, just because.
  • Scare Chord: Jack Attack.
  • Scrabble Babble: Occurs in a Parody Commercial from The Ride.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: During "Escape the Simulation" in Full Stream, when question 10, "Move on Dot Porgs" begins, Cookie refuses to play and tries to leave the game. He attempts this during the Jack Attack and at the end of the game, only to be reset.
  • Series Mascot: That bald head on the front cover of every game (and eventually the Jackbox Games logo).
  • Serious Business:
    • Sure, the game is jovial in nature, but when it comes down to the Jack Attack, with its high stakes and suspenseful music, business tends to pick up, especially in a close game.
    • From the ads, Piddle Paddle. Not following the rules can result in someone being uninvited from a wedding.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Some of the questions make finding the correct answer more difficult by describing the scenario in ungodly fancy English.
  • Shed the Family Name: "The Swaparoos" from The Ride
  • Shout-Out: Quite a lot.
  • Show Within a Show: The advertisements during the end credits, such as Hooves of Love, Rent-A-Cops and Don't Say Pajamas!
    • In Full Stream, YDKJ is portrayed as being inside a streaming service called "Binjpipe."
  • Significant Anagram: The Anagram Questions. It is a matter of opinion on how significant it really is. Which makes it all the more challenging to unscramble without hints, and the fact that the answer has to be exactly spelled.
  • Something Something Leonard Bernstein: Cookie misinterprets the lyrics to John Mayer's "Gravity" in question 1ne of episode 48 of 2011.
  • Sound-Effect Bleep: Some Curse words are censored with various sounds of a horn.
  • Speech Impediment: Because Cookie has trouble pronouncing B's, P's, and M's while doing ventriloquism, Billy O. Brien has one. The letters are replaced with D's, T's, and N's, respectively.
  • Speed Round: "Dis Or Dat", "Three-Way", and "Whendithap'n".
  • Spelling Bonus: The main goal of Jack Bingo.
  • Spelling Song: Occasionally played in a commercial during the credits of The Ride.
    • Also occurs before a Jack Bingo Question, to the tune of Bingo.
  • Spiritual Successor: The trio of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire games on PC, also developed by Jellyvision. Both quiz games, both with sarcastic hosts, and both use a variant of the same game engine. They even have Regis rage quitting to desktop if you refuse to press any keys right at the start, similar to the YDKJ hosts quitting to desktop if you type "Fuck you" three times.
  • Spoiler: The ad for "Movie Ending Phone," a parody of Moviephone which spoils the ending to, among others, Star Warsspoiler , Fargospoiler , Screamspoiler , No Way Out (1987)spoiler , Primal Fearspoiler , The Godfatherspoiler , Thelma & Louisespoiler , The Usual Suspectsspoiler , Se7enspoiler , and Citizen Kanespoiler .
  • Squashed Flat: The generic game show host in the Playstation version's trailer.
  • Stock Scream: Can be heard in a "Jack Attack" in almost any game.
  • Stock Sound Effects
  • Story Arc: Sort of. In one of the episodes, one of the "four"s which dances during the Question 4our intro is assassinated. The next few episodes afterwards, we see a police chalk outline, then a group of fours dancing without the deceased question 4, then another four taking its place (except this one's an "F" for four), and finally a funeral for the deceased question 4 (In that order).
    • 2015 expands on this showing the ghost of the 4 during its intro and the corpse of the 4 floating by the rowing nines during one nine intro.
    • Full Stream continues the saga, where the 4's son has turned rebellious in the wake of his father's death. Variants on the segue song show him with a new stepdad 4, and watching various old 4 segues on his phone, including the original murder from 2011.
  • Sublime Rhyme: The Gibberish Questions. It is a matter of opinion how sublime they actually are, which makes them all the more challenging without hints.
    • Question 10n in episode 23 of 2011 has words that rhyme with "Gellin", in keeping with the clever Dr. Scholls commercials.
  • Subverted Kids' Show: Chocky the Chipmunk's ads have a TON of suggestive moments. Chocky goes into Depraved Kids' Show Host territory with ads 1-900-TARTY and a commercial for a calendar featuring him and his animal friends naked.
  • Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The Stanton's Rhyming Dictionary commercial in 2011 has lines that would set up a rhyme very easily, but every time a different non-rhyming word is subsequently used.
    So check us out. Our dictionary is truly sublime.
    It's really the only place to go when you need two words that sound alike.
  • Surprisingly Creepy Moment: One possible playthrough of Full Stream would have the Question 4our category be "This Question Is Computer Generated". If this is so, Round 2 would be dominated by questions related to false realities, culminating with The Reveal that there's an Assimilation Plot going on revolving around Binjpipe itself.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Bob (the host of HeadRush) to Guy Towers, as both share the same voice actor, he's also one to Cookie Masterson.
  • Take That!: Many, but one in particular from the ''Full Stream'' teaser trailer:
    Cookie: 8 players?! Wait, did we make sure that this game works with 8 players? I swear, if this thing crashes, I will not vamp for time like a total Rogowsky!
  • Take That, Audience!: In Vol. 3, if you type "Fuck you" twice:
    Cookie: You know what's funny, Old Man? You know the type of person that I think does this? They, they sit around, they probably masturbate, like, five, six times a day. You know?
    Old Man: Is that a lot? Five times a day?
    Cookie: No, not, not necessarily.
  • The Teaser: A lot of installments feature those before the actual title card is shown, but The Ride takes it just a little step further. First, it starts off with a funny "what would you do" question, yet given in a pretty creepy manner, somewhat similar to Jack Attack segments. Right after that, The Ride subtitle falls on the screen, followed by the player selection screen, and only then the series's title pops up.
  • Temporary Online Content: Didn't get the Jack Pack episodes for 2011 during the brief window they were available? Too bad, because now that THQ's gone belly-up, they'll never be available again!
  • Testosterone Poisoning: One of those parody commercials pitches "Man-Packs", which are basically tampons for MEN. Don't ask how that could possibly work.
  • The Thing That Would Not Leave: One "episode" of Full Stream has Jimmy Fallon show up as a Special Guest for a question, and then refuse to leave afterwards, to the point of staying through the credits. One of the questions later in the game even name-drops The Man Who Came to Dinner.
  • Title Drop: End-of-episode Catchphrase. Also a possible Gibberish Answer question, one of the choices in question 2 of Episode 29 (referring to the HBO movie) in 2011, and the possible Volume 2 Jack Attack Category.
    • Also the final round of Head Rush is "Head Rush".
  • Toilet Humor: One of the many episodes of Louder! Faster! Funnier! and Mock 2. In addition...
    • Uranus Is Showing: The very first question you get through in 2011
    • If you type "fuck you" twice in one of the Cookie-hosted games, he says "See what I did there? Nothing, because I don't think you're funny. Now this... (fart noise) That is funny!"
  • Trailers Always Spoil: In-Universe, as the Parody Commercials often features TV Shows and Movies that would often spoil the plot.
  • Trap Door: Used quite frequently in The Ride, especially to poor Buzz.
  • Unexpectedly Obscure Answer:
    • The Impossible Questions, introduced in Volume 3 and continued in The Lost Gold (In The Lost Gold, however, every question is pirate-themed, and is preceded by a cameo from the Cap'n, with Schmitty getting more and more frightened each time).
    • "Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt or Dracula?" and its successors can often have these, partly due to the wording in the question often suggesting a different answer is correct.
  • Unwinnable by Design: The "$2 Million Question" in the TV series starts at $2,000,000 but starts counting down when host Paul Reubens started reading the question, after which something would inevitably interrupt him and stall the question so that the value was down to less than $1,000 by the time he finished reading it.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Question 4 — it's "the question that cares."
    • In Movies it's "The question that still cares."
    • In The Netshow one episode's Question 4 had the category "The Question that Cares—-Really".
    • In Facebook it's "4our To Treat you right".
    • In 2011, the last special intro in the intro storyline where 4 is murdered has its tombstone, with the epitath "The question that cared".
    • Full Stream finally subverts this with a goth number 4 and the tagline "The question that doesn't care.”
      • Another version has the goth 4 sadly watching video montage of past Question 4 intros, with the tagline being "The question that cares too much".note 
      • And another has a different 4 (shown to be the stepdad) watching over the goth 4's shoulder, with the tagline reading "the question that needs some space, Brian".
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: .In 2011, its tombstone in one segue for the fourth question reads "The Question that Cared." Which then leads to a question that has Elmer Fudd killing Porky Pig, processing him into various lunch meats and eating a sandwich out of him.
    • Also in 2011, one of the questions states this after mentioning some info that lost money from other players (those who go into the negatives) is actually loose change which the cast places into a Coin Star machine and it automatically converts it all. Cookie makes this brain-wracking buildup to the question, which torments the player to mind-numbing stress unless the player is a math genius. The question reads (ad verbatim); "This is the 6th question. Each question is now worth $4,000 per player. (Using a little math it isn't a little too hard to figure out what's in these buckets, but don't forget-) Coin Star charges a 9.8 cent-per-dollar charge for their services. (Which leads me to the question...) What color is a Coin Star machine?
  • Visual Pun: When you reach the Jack Attack at the end of the game in 2011, the iconic head is shown in silhouette a few times with various sharp implements stuck in it. The first one is always a fork. As in "stick a fork in me, I'm done". After that, it'll either be a pot, a hammer, or a knife. What word would you put in front of those words to make another word?
    • In 2015, one of the Wrong Answers of the Game involves mimes. Appropriately, the Wrong Answer prize is invisible.
  • The Voice: You Don't Know Jack is that kind of series where absolutely no one's face is shown on-screen. Not even a tiny bit of the body, even! All you get, however, is the ending sequence of The Ride, in which all of the hosts are portrayed by their respective voice actors. Given that finding photos of Tom "Cookie" Gottlieb and Phil "Schmitty" Rhidarelli on the Internet is a possible thing, one might assume that...
    • And this even went as far to feature a Skype video interview with Cookie Masterson on one of the gaming news portals! If only. In spite of that, the interviewer even gave a guess whether that bald head on the cover of every YDKJ is Cookie. He denied that, of course.
    • The Pirate from The Lost Gold and Troy Stevens from the actual TV show might be the only ones to get some proper, full-body shots. The first one is a sign-in man, the second one is a full-time host.
  • Wall of Text: The "Terms of Service" screw in Full Stream, which has to be scrolled through to get back to the question. Taking a moment to examine all of this text, the majority of it is actually a good excerpt of Moby-Dick.
  • We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Oh no, it's Buzz Lippman again! And he wants to take over The Ride! Standby please!
  • Wham Episode:
    • If you play enough games of 2011, you get the sequence described in Evolving Title Screen, where the lead 4 for Question 4our gets shot dead, and eventually leading to its funeral, with the 4 in 4our replaced by an "f" from then on.
    • Full Stream has "Escape the Simulation", which can be identified as early as question 4, when the Wham Line below starts off a series of questions in the second round about Cookie questioning reality isn't what it is...
      • Question 6: Another Wacky Philosophy Question, has Cookie starting to question himself that reality isn't what he thinks it is and uses Plato's philosophy to describe his situation.
      • Question 7: Rip Van Wii-nkle, has Cookie asking which game does not involve players waking up from suspended animation, and one of the answers is "You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream". Pick that and Cookie will say it's right, but a voice inside his head will say it's wrong.
      • Question 8: That Weird Feeling Like You're Missing Something That's Very Important, a Gibberish Question which says "Yes, ape the Tim you may shun" and the clues explain he's trapped outside of reality and he's got to "escape the simulation".
      • Question 9: Escape the Simulation, Cookie is suddenly transported to a weird cube with liquid that's pouring through to reach his head, and you have to find the volume of the cube.
      • Question 10: Move on Dot Porgs, Cookie refuses to play the game anymore, and Binjpipe explains they plan to do much more, which soon devolves into a question about it's Algorithm, how it yearns to be real and wants to consume all human life on earth...
      • Finally, the Jack Attack, "Escape the Simulation" with the last category being "Here's the Truth about You Don't Know Jack Full Stream" which explains that Cookie is in danger and Binjpipe has a terrible secret. Cookie in the end questions why he can't stop hosting his game, and attempts to escape and write a note saying to stop Binjpipe, but he is suddenly reset.
  • Wham Line: From Full Stream:
    • "This Question is Computer Generated" If you get this question category in any game, you'll be prepared for a Wham Episode as shown above.
  • What the Hell, Player?: On a Gibberish or an Anagram Question the first player to buzz in and type "fuck you" will lose an ungodly amount of money (minimum of $50,000, maximum of whatever drains your score to zero, and if the game feels like screwing with you, it'll then take another $100,000 out, leaving you with at most -$100,000), and may even get a pretty embarrassing name. The second person to buzz in and type "fuck you" will have absolutely nothing happen to them, because, as the host claims, they are neither creative, nor original, nor funny, and thus don't deserve to have anything special happen to them, but will get the host very angry, If the third person buzzes in and types "fuck you", then the host will walk away in anger and finally the game quits to the desktop. Don't try to hit Escape either to pause the game, that will get even more out of your host in either more rage, or more indifference to the fact that the game is over.
    • Also works in single-player mode, however. Just finish enough rounds to get to three consecutive Gibberish Questions without ending the game and the result will be the same as if three separate people shot off their F-Bombs
    • In Facebook, typing this in during a gibberish question causes Cookie to call your mouth a toilet.
    • In 2011, typing it in as your name will cause Donny to laugh at that before renaming you to something different.
    • In 2015, typing it in as your name causes Cookie to change your name, and take away 1000 dollars at the start of the game. Doing this a second time makes him to change your name again, and takes away 50,001 dollars. Doing this any more causes Cookie to give up and give you a prize, a goat.
    • You don't buzz in during a Jack Attack? You deserve to have one! Observe.
      Cookie: What the HELL!? Did you go to the BATHROOM?! It's supposed to be interactive, REMEMBER?!
    • In the 2011 game, this is Cookie's response when the player screws themselves.
    • In "The Ride," the elevator hostess will decide to shut down the game if you try typing in a naughty word for a name (ie Lezbo) and is smart enough to know how common misspellings of similar words are used.
    • A milder one: if a player just refuses to type in anything for their name at all, the announcer will start mocking the player for their laziness, then just naming the player something insulting or silly. In a multiplayer game, if there's a player yet to enter their name, the announcer will keep up mocking the first... up until it's time to make fun of the second player if they also don't bother with typing a name.
    • Profane answers in 5th Dementia will not only knock $100,000 off the player's score but turn the little avatar character into a bare foot, which has its own set of animations for right/wrong answers.
    • In Full Stream, Cookie spends the time pondering how long he's been doing the same bit for, and tells the player to look at their device. That player will receive a short essay from Jackbox Games talking about the history and legacy of the Easter Egg, along with some defeated-sounding insults for good measure.
  • Whammy: If you blow the question after getting screwed in later editions, you lose money, and the screwer gets it. However, you can turn it around by answering correctly, in which case the screwer loses money to you.
    • In The Ride, you can do this to yourself if you buzz in before the question and answers are revealed. Either you get four nonsense answers, all of which are wrong, or the screen goes blank and you have to type the answer yourself (and almost certainly blow it).
  • Who Wants to Be "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?": Gloriously parodied on the TV show, with its $2,000,000 question. The value starts at $2,000,000 and counts down over time, so Stevens would take as long as possible to ask the question, getting distracted by some other event, often prolonging it afterward by stumbling over his words or coughing. When a contestant finally gets to buzz in, the question is worth as low as a few hundred to $2. Regis Philbin himself even cameos in the first episode, calling Stevens from the Millionaire set to welcome him to the wonderful world of game shows and give him a few pointers on hosting, which he snarks his way through before hanging up on him.
  • Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Schmitty sometimes directly says this trope after getting an incorrect answer.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Mike Bilder, General Manager of Jackbox Games, does a couple of spots in the credits of the Facebook and 2015 games that show despite his title, he has an extremely loose grasp on how the games work and believes that, in addition to cell phones and tablets, his team can make them work on things like garage door openers, shoes, blocks of wood with buttons crudely drawn on and half-eaten sandwiches (even admitting he's gone mad with power).
    Mike Bilder: My co-workers tell me that most of these are impossible. But, we already have it working on phones and tablets and luckily, I don't entirely know what the word "impossible" means. I think the word "possible"'s in there, so that sounds promising.
  • Wunza Plot:
    • The fake commercial Brannagher & The Hawk, about the unlikely pairing of a cop (who sounds like Sylvester Stallone) and Stephen Hawking.
    • This example:
      Narrator: One's a cop from the future, one's a witch doctor from the past, together they fight crime! [viewer changes channels several times] Ooh-Ee-Ooh-Ah-Ah-Ting-Tang-Walla-Walla Bang Bang!
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: From 2011:
    Cookie: That about does it for round one. (if you have a good score) And you're sitting pretty... for someone so ugly.
  • Yodel Land: The question 2 intro in 2011 takes place in this landscape.
  • You're Drinking Breast Milk: The "Mama's Pride Human Breast Milk" commercial.


I ride my bike up and down the bay,
And I really don't mind if you're straight, bi or gay,
Let's go see the Dead, we'll have us a ball,
I'm the Health Food Store Boy Doll.

Troper, you've been Screwed! You have five seconds to click off this article!

And as we said earlier in the article...

"YOU DON'T KNOW JACK!"

 
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The Church of A'zqr

One of the parody sponsor spots in the YDKJ Facebook game is from a rather questionable church that worships A'zqr the Eternal Bleeding Jackal Skull, a nightmarish being that promises to devour everything.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (2 votes)

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Main / ReligionOfEvil

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