You Don't Know Jack

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You Don't Know Jack

Developer(s) Berkeley Systems, Jellyvision
Publisher(s) Sierra On-Line
Platform(s) PlayStation, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh
Release date 1995-2000 and the netshow on Bezerk.com 1996, 2003 (on disc), 2007 (online)

NA
Genre(s) Party game
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (T), USK: Free for all
Media Various
Input methods Mouse, Keyboard, Gamepad (Playstation)

You Don't Know Jack (commonly abbreviated YDKJ) is a series of computer games developed by Jellyvision and Berkeley Systems, as well as the title of the first game in the series. YDKJ, promoted as the games "where high culture and pop culture collide", combine trivia with comedy. The series' title is based on the phrase, "You don't know jack shit."

The games are known for their humor and challenge, as well as simple presentation. The games are presented as if they are a television game show, complete with an emcee who is heard, but not seen. Players compete for a monetary score by answering trivia questions. With some rare exceptions, the games never use graphics, and instead rely only on animated text art for visual content. This was not a purely stylistic choice; the game was designed to minimise the amount of disc accessing needed by keeping files small.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

The game can be played by one, two, or three players. All versions of the game feature the voice of an off-screen host who reads questions aloud, provides instructions regarding special question types, and pokes fun at the players.

The game usually opens with a green room segment, in which the players are prompted to enter their names and given instructions for play. The audio during this segment includes rehearsing singers, a busy producer, and a harassed studio manager/host. The only graphics are a large "On Air/Stand By" sign in the middle of the screen, visual representations of the players' button assignments, and a box for name entry.

Most versions of YDKJ offer the choice of playing a 7- or 21-question game; some versions offer only 15 questions (Netshow, LFF, 5th Dementia), and others offer only 13 questions (The Ride) or 11 questions (HeadRush). The latest games are now only 7 questions (The Lost Gold, current online game). In a 21-question game, there is a brief intermission after the tenth question. Most questions are multiple choice, with some occasional free-entry questions, or mini-games.

Before each question, one player is given a choice of three categories. Each has a humorous title that has some connection to topic of the corresponding question. After a short animated introduction, which is often accompanied with a sung jingle about the question number, the host asks the question. Typically, the question is multiple choice, and the first player to "buzz in" and give the correct answer wins the money for that question and gets to choose the next category. If a player answers incorrectly, he or she loses money, but not before the host wisecracks about it. There are occasionally other question types offered (see below).

In multi-player games, each player is allowed one chance to "screw" an opponent in each half of a full game, or once in an entire short game. Using the "screw" forces the opponent to give an answer to a question within ten seconds. If the player who is "screwed" answers correctly, he or she wins the money while the player who "screwed" him or her loses money. This basic design has changed slightly in some versions of the game. For example, in the teen spinoff HeadRush, the screws are replaced by chompers, so players "bite" their opponent instead, and in The Ride, instead of just forcing an opponent to answer, players engage in "FlakJack", where they launch multiple screws into the screen (partially or totally obscuring the question), then force another player to answer the question, even though it may be unreadable.

In the previous games, different category options were worth differing amounts of money, which was revealed after a category was chosen. This amount indicated how difficult the question would be. Amounts included $1,000, $2,000, & $3,000, and were doubled during the second round of questions. However, other games in the series opted not to give players three randomly generated questions; now giving a set amount of questions in a set order. Instead of random questions, players 'buzz in' to set the amount of money the question is worth. Some questions may only be worth a few hundred dollars, while some may be over $10,000.

Some of the volumes have a feature called "Don't Be a Wimp", which is activated if one player has a very large lead. If no one answers a question, the host may deride the leading player, calling on the audience to shout "Don't be a wimp!", and forcing the leader to answer the question.

In some volumes, the host also punishes a player who buzzes in too early; the question and possible answers disappear, leaving the player with ten seconds to type the answer. For The Ride, this is replaced by a different punishment: the player is forced to pick from a list of four answers, all of which are wrong. This punishment is only triggered if a player buzzes in at the very instant that the question appears on the screen.

[edit] Question types

The majority of You Don't Know Jack questions are multiple-choice, with four possible choices. Some questions are fill-in-the-blank, correct requiring a typed response.

Special questions are also played during the game. Each version of YDKJ has its own different types of special questions, but some of the most common are:

  • DisOrDat: Featured in all versions except Volume One and Sports, the DisOrDat is only played by one player, with a 30-second time limit. The player is given two categories and seven different subjects, and it is up to the player to determine which category the subject falls under (or, in some cases, whether the subject fits both categories). (For example, a player might have to determine if Jay Leno was a daytime or a nighttime talk show host, or if orecchiette is a type of pasta or a parasite.)
  • Gibberish Questions: Players are given a mondegreen: a nonsensical phrase that rhymes with a more common phrase or title. (For example, "Pre-empt Tires, Like Crack" could be the gibberish to "The Empire Strikes Back".) The first player to buzz in and type the correct answer wins the money. Clues are given as time passes, but the amount of money the player can win decreases with the amount of time that elapses.
  • Impossible Questions: Impossible questions, which appear in the later versions, are worth very large amounts of money, but as the name implies, they are very, very difficult. An example of an impossible question is one which asks the players what the word 'pyrrhic' means: even if answered correctly, the player still loses that amount of money, in keeping of the meaning of the word "Pyrrhic".
  • Anagram Questions: These follow the same ruleset of the Gibberish Questions; however, instead of trying to figure out a rhyme, players must rearrange the letters given to you into a saying, name, or other group (as in the famous example of "genuine class" being an anagram of "Alec Guinness").
  • HeadButt: These only exist in HeadRush, and also follow the ruleset of the Gibberish Questions. You're given a word equation such as "color of pickles + opposite of night" and you have to put it together to form a name or other group (in this case, the color of pickles is "Green", and the opposite of night is "Day", so the answer would be "Green Day").
  • Fiber Optic Field Trip: These only exist in the early games. A random person is called from out of the phonebook and asked to come up with a trivia question.
  • Celebrity Collect Call: These exist in Volume 2 only. The host calls a celebrity who is asked to come up with a question. Celebrities include Tim Allen, Florence Henderson, and Vanessa Williams. Sometimes the conversation between the host and the celebrity lasts a very long time.
  • Pub Quiz: This replaces the Fiber Optic Field Trips and Celebrity Collect Calls in the British edition of the game. Instead of calling a random person in a city, the host calls a bartender in a random pub within the UK to host the question.
  • Trash Talkin' with Milan: Only existing in HeadRush. "Milan the Janitor" (voiced by Igor Gasowski) hosts a standard multiple-choice question about grammar.
  • Bug Out: Existing only in 5th Dementia, the goal is simple: Bugs will crawl and display a choice. When you see a choice that doesn't match the clue, buzz it. If you're right, your opponents pay you money. If you're wrong, you pay your opponents.
  • Fill in the Blank: Instead of having four answers to choose from, you have to type the answer out.
  • Wendithap'n: In this question type, you are given an event, followed by several more events which you have to decide when it happened in relation to the main event: Before, after, or if it never happened at all.
  • Pissed About A Question: Jellyvision creates new questions about angry letters they've received from irritated players.
  • Road Kill: In this fast-paced question type, you're given two clues. Then a series of words fly by. You have to buzz in when the word the connects the two is on the screen. Pay attention to all the answers for a chance at the bonus at the end.
(This was also called Coinkydink in YDKJ Mock 2, same type of question, just with a different name.)
  • Jack BINGO: Here, you are given a five-letter word. Then you're given a series of clues. Your job is to buzz in when the first letter of the answer is lit up. If you collect all five letters, you get the bonus prize.
  • The Three-Way Question: Players are given three words that have something in common and several clues that only relate to one of words. Players must match the clues to the proper words.
  • Guest Host Question: Someone else hosts and gives a question.
  • Super Audio Question: A sound will play, and you'll be asked questions about it.
  • Whatshisname Question: In this question, the host is trying to remember a certain someone's name. They'll give you a bunch of clues and you have to buzz in and type in the name. (In HeadRush, this question type is known as Old Man's Moldy Memories and the character of "Old Man", voiced by Andy Poland, poses the question.)
  • Picture Question: In this question, you are shown a picture and then asked a question about it.
  • Yes, we are all bitches at Jellyvision: only appearing in YDKJ 2, it asks the players to type the answer to the last question.

[edit] The Jack Attack

The final round of the game is known as the "Jack Attack," which is a word association question. A clue is given, which generally describes the desired correct answers (such as "movie stars") and after that a word, phrase, or name appears in the middle of the screen, to which the contestant must find an associated word or phrase that fits the overall category. For example, Star Wars might be the associated word, and the corrent answer fitting "movie stars" could be Harrison Ford. Other possibilities offered might include actors not in that film, or other objects or concepts related to the film but which are not stars of the movie. Potential matches appear on screen one-at-a-time for only a few seconds each before disappearing, and only one is correct. The topics and/or potential answers are sometimes humorous.

Players win money if they buzz in when the correct match is displayed on the screen. An incorrect guess deducts money from the player's score. Multiple players play simultaneously, playing to the same words.

The winner of the game is crowned after the seventh Jack Attack word is matched, or the contestants take too long to reach that point. In HeadRush, this final question is called the "HeadRush".

[edit] Commercials

One of the unique features of the game takes place after it has ended. Before you start a new game, you can choose to listen to YDKJ staff performing parodies of various radio commercials. The commercials vary in absurdity, selling products such as scented suppositories or foreign language cassettes to help you learn how to speak American.

They also featured phony news stories about everyday things. Examples: "Oxygen: Gas of Life? or Secret Military Death-Vapor?" or "People are falling unconscious for 8 hours every night. What is the 'sleeping disease'? Do you have it? Find out tonight."

Most YDKJ games feature recurring characters like "Chocky the Chipmunk", a breakfast cereal mascot with the catchphrase "Gotta motor!" or "Xenora: Queen of Battle", a parody of Xena, Warrior Princess that gets involved in overtly erotic situations.

The First CD-ROM for The Ride features a CD of a selection of these commercials from the previous games in the series. The Disk was titled You Don't Hear Jack.

[edit] Hosts

There have been many different hosts of You Don't Know Jack over the years. The following is a list of hosts and the games they appear in.

  • Nate Shapiro, voiced by Harry Gottlieb: Nate Shapiro was the first host of the series. He hosts the first YDKJ, the Netshow, the tabletop game, and hosts for part of YDKJ: The Ride. He is not to be confused with "Nate the Intern" from the current Flash incarnation (voiced by Production & SQA Coordinator Nathan Fernald).[1][2]
  • Guy Towers, voiced by Andy Poland: He appears in YDKJ Sports, YDKJ Sports: The NetShow, and part of the Ride. Poland also played 'Bob,' the host of HeadRush.
  • Cookie Masterson, voiced by Tom Gottlieb: He is one of the most well-known of the hosts. He originally served as the sign-in host, taking down players names in the opening green room segments of Volume One, Sports, and Volume Two. He hosts Movies, Volume Three, The Netshow, the first Playstation version, part of the Ride, and Offline. He also was the announcer for the YDKJ TV show in 2001. He also hosts the newer webshows and daily DisOrDats that started appearing on the YDKJ website in December 2006.
  • Josh "Schmitty" Schmitstinstein, voiced by Phil Ridarelli: Josh Schmitstinstein, or "Schmitty", is the most recent of all the American CD-ROM hosts. He hosts in TV, part of The Ride, The Netshow, Louder!, Faster! Funnier! (a second Offline game), 5th Dementia, Mock 2 (the second PlayStation game), & 6: The Lost Gold. He also hosted one particular question in Offline
  • Jack Cake, voiced by Paul Kaye. The host of the only British version of YDKJ.
  • Quizmaster Jack, host of the German volumes, voiced by Axel Malzacher (Vol. 1) and Kai Taschner (Vol. 2, 3: 'Downward', PlayStation, & 4).
  • Troy Stevens, played by Paul Reubens. The host of the 2001 YDKJ TV show.

[edit] Game List

This is a list of the You Don't Know Jack games released:

  • YDKJ (Vol. 1) - 1995
  • YDKJ Sports - 1996
  • YDKJ Vol. 2 - 1996
  • YDKJ the NetShow - 1996-2000
  • YDKJ Movies - 1997
  • YDKJ Sports NetShow - 1997
  • YDKJ Vol. 3 - 1997
  • YDKJ TV - 1997
  • YDKJ Vol. 4: The Ride - 1998
  • Headrush (a teen spin-off game) - 1998
  • YDKJ Offline (the best of the NetShow on Disk) - 1999
  • YDKJ (PlayStation) - 1999
  • YDKJ Louder! Faster! Funnier! (2nd Offline game) - 2000
  • YDKJ 5th Dementia (1st Online playable game) - 2000
  • YDKJ Mock 2 (2nd PlayStation game) - 2000
  • YDKJ about MonsterFest (AMC web game) - 2001
  • YDKJ Vol. 6: "The Lost Gold" - 2003
  • YDKJ (Online game on website youdontknowjack.com) - 2007

There is also UK version, a French version, a Japanese version, and these German versions:

  • YDKJ Vol. 1
  • YDKJ Vol. 2
  • YDKJ Vol. 3: 'Downward'
  • YDKJ (PlayStation)
  • YDKJ Vol. 4

[edit] Miscellaneous

You Don't Know Jack was an adult version of the company's earlier game "That's a Fact, Jack", which was a series of CD-ROM games and books intended to teach children how to read. The game would give a title for a child to read, and then ask questions related to that title. That's a Fact, Jack was produced when the company was still called "Learn Television."

Tom Gottlieb is also the host of a syndicated program called Whacked Out Sports.

During the 2000 presidential election, Sierra On-Line president David Grenewetzki challenged the presidential candidates to play a political version of YDKJ. The game had been distributed to a few radio stations, and was described as a "litmus test" of the candidates' political knowledge.

The hosts of YDKJ have never shown their faces on-screen, and even upon reaching 'The Bottom' in YDKJ: The Ride, the hosts only reveal the bottom half of their faces.

There are also several YDKJ collections, which bundled different games into one box. These include:

  • YDKJ XL (Vol. 1 + the Question Pack)
  • YDKJ XXL (XL + Vol. 2)
  • YDKJ HUGE: XXL (Vol. 1 + Vol. 2 + Vol. 3)
  • YDKJ The Irreverent Collection (Vol. 1 + 2 + 3 + The Ride)
  • YDKJ Jack Pack (Sports + TV + Movies)
  • YDKJ JUMBO (Vol 1 + 2 + 3 + The Ride + Offline)
  • YDKJ 2001 (Offine + Louder! Faster! Funnier!)
  • YDKJ Snack Pack (Vol. 1 + TV + Movies + The Ride)
  • YDKJ 5th Dementia Party Pack (2 copies of 5th Dementia)
  • YDKJ Quiz Pack (the German Vol. 1 + 2)

YDJK also appeared as two books: You Don't Know Jack: The Book and You Don't Know Jack: The TV Book. Both were published in 2001.

You Don't Know Jack was briefly aired as an actual television game show in 2001 on ABC.[3] Starring Paul Reubens (best known for his role as Pee Wee Herman) as over-the-top game show host Troy Stevens, with 'Cookie' as the announcer. The show lasted only six episodes.

After the You Don't Know Jack TV show ended, another show from the makers of YDKJ called Smush aired on USA Network. It was a game of taking two or more words and combine them into one long word. The show started late at night, but was later pushed to later and later times, even up to 3:00 A.M.; until it was eventually canceled.

In 2001, AMC released You Don't Know Jack about MonsterFest, an online game on their website hosted by Schmitty, and the MonsterFest movie marathon was hosted by Clive Barker and Carmen Electra, who gave clues for the game.

Tom Gottlieb was also the host (voice only, you never saw him) of the Blind Date spin-off TV show The 5th Wheel, a dating game featuring 2 men & 2 women, then a 5th man or woman is added to change the pace. They then voted on which one they wanted to go out with.

Phil Ridarelli also did voice over work for both Mortal Kombat: Deception and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. (Though he is credited as "Josh 'Schmitty' Schmitstinstein".)

[edit] Cheats

There are three particular cheat codes for YDKJ.

Demo mode: If you push the letter D at the beginning of the game when it says "Press Esc for volume control and other options", you will see the words "Demo Mode Activated".

Gibberish Question Cheat: On any gibberish question, if you answer by typing in "Fuck You" the host will get very mad. Volume one is the only edition where the host curses back. The host will sometimes take away $50,000, $100,000, and/or change your name to something insulting like jerk. If you do it again the host will do nothing with your score and say that it's not original anymore. If you do it for a third time, the host will get so mad he will make the game close and you will return to your desktop.

At the end of the game, if you press the letter B during the credits, you unlock bloopers during the recordings of the booth.

[edit] References

  1. ^ doNATE page on the You Don't Know Jack website
  2. ^ Nathan Fernald's bio on the Jellyvision website
  3. ^ You Don't Know Jack at the Internet Movie Database (2001 television game show)

[edit] External links

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Winner, 1997 award in the category Games
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