CULVER CITY, CA — Producers of the popular game show Jeopardy! announced that this year they’ll air their inaugural “Tournament of Dolts.”
“Our Tournament of Champions is always a ratings bonanza,” said producer Michael Davies. “After all, who doesn’t like to marvel at the best and brightest egging each other on to supreme feats of trivia recall? So it was a no-brainer that audiences would get an even bigger kick out watching our worst losers sputter and drop their ringers and demonstrate what a bunch of bumbling goofs they are.”
The month-long tournament will alter certain elements from the show’s usual format, including costuming contestants in shirts that say “I’m with Stupid,” with arrows pointing to the other contestants, signalling that time for a given question has run out with a slide whistle, and encouraging the studio audience to jeer wrong answers with braying, cruel laughter while pointing and jumping up and down.
“Most importantly,” said Davies, “players whose totals wind up in a deficit will owe Sony Productions that money. And since we’ll advance the losers instead of the winners to reach our ultimate booby prize, whoever gets crowned Supreme Dolt will be so massively in debt that it’ll take them generations to pay us off.”
In spite of the potentially disastrous consequences, all of the contestants to whom the producers extended invitations have agreed to return, although some have objected to the tournament’s premise.
“I’m not dumb,” said returning contestant Albert Mills, a librarian from Bozeman, MT. “I’ve got two masters’ degrees. I just didn’t do great under the pressure of the lights and the cameras and being put on the spot like you’re doing to me right now, and… and…” Mills’s statement ended here as anticipatory stress caused him to faint.
At press time, producers declined to confirm or deny the veracity of a leak claiming the tournament’s questions will cover such topics as “Great Blacksmiths,” “Latvian Hairstyles,” and “Songs About Broccoli.”
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