Game show buzzers and buttons
How quickly can you push a button? Can you push it with milliseconds to spare? How about in front of a television audience for thousands of dollars?
The other night, I was watching Deal or No Deal and heard Howie Mandel say “this button is worth $880,000.” It hit me: I completely forgot about game shows. Here I am, digging up esoteric histories of buttons, and even though I was a child of the 1970s, I completely forgot about game shows.
Game shows often incorporate buttons as a crucial part of the game play (even though they usually call them buzzers). Pressing the button is what separates you from your opponent. Speed surpasses intelligence. Knowing the answer isn’t enough. Knowing it faster is at the heart of almost every game show, as in Family Feud, shown here with the only host that mattered, beloved Uncle Arthur, Richard Dawson. They pitted two opponents face to face. One hand behind their back, the other on the podium, ready to slap the buzzer. “Name something that you’d find in a doctor’s office.” “Name something that you twist.” “Name something that you’d order in a malt shop.” Push the button first to earn the right to keep going.
The Jeopardy! buzzer is perhaps one of the most famous game show buttons. The principle is the same. Three people, hard trivia questions. Push the button first to earn the right to answer the question. Or in Jeopardy’s case, question the answer.
Consider the all-time Jeopardy! champion, Ken Jennings, who won 74 games in a row, earning over three million dollars along the way. Yes, he was smart and knew a lot of trivia, but the real secret to his incredible streak was his skill in pushing the button with perfect timing. He recently wrote a book about Jeopardy! and his time on the show. From Brainiac…
…those tricky Jeopardy! buzzers, perhaps the most crucial element to winning the game. On TV, it’s easy to see one contestant ringing in consistently and to think, “What’s up with those other two?” Or, even worse, to see one contestant flailing fruitlessly away with his buzzer… All you get to see on TV is the one contestant who’s figured out the timing well enough to beat the other two by milliseconds. Jeopardy! skill is largely buzzer technique, and the buzzer is a cruel and fickle mistress.
Here’s how it works. You can’t just start pressing the buzzer as soon as you know the answer. Once Alex Trebek finishes reading each question, a staffer sitting in front of the stage flicks a switch, activating rows of lights beside and below the game board. At that point, your signalling device is activated. Ringing in early actually deactivates your buzzer for a fifth of a second or so, long enough for somebody else to beat you. So ringing in too early is as fatal as ringing in too late. There’s a narrow “sweet spot” somewhere in there, just like swinging a baseball bat or a tennis racket…
Just anticipate Alex’s last word, wait a discernible pause — say, one extra syllable, giving the staffer a moment to flip his switch — and then hammer the button like crazy.
Dexterity with the button wins game shows. Intelligence helps too, but on its own, you only win the Rice-a-roni.
Back to Howie Mandel. On Deal or No Deal, the contestant plays a probability game as they try to win up to a million dollars. At key points in the game, a mysterious banker offers them a deal. They can take the deal and walk away with a bunch of money, or continue to weigh probability vs. greed and keep going. Thus the succinct name, Deal or No Deal.
The show uses a big button as purely a ceremonial symbol of the deal. You can see it there under the plexiglass box under briefcase #7. When the deal is offered, Howie lifts the plexiglass lid and presents the button, symbolizing the offer. To heighten the symbolism, to refuse the deal, the contestant must reclose the lid. To take the deal, they must push the button. In reality, the button functionally does nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s connected to nothing at all. Unlike other game shows where the button is used to gauge timing, here, the button is pure metaphor. It represents a decision, a signature, a fingerprint, an affirmation of “I agree, and I am bound to my decision.” The button equals “Yes.”
We humans really love our buttons.