Celebrities on Game Shows: Flat-Out Dumbest and Most Surprisingly Smart?

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Well? Who has made you cringe with their utter lack of brain cells, and who has pleasantly surprised you?

The two most woeful performances I've seen would probably have to go to Kirsten Dunst (when she was an early teen) on Celebrity Jeopardy and Charlie Sheen on Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Can't remember their specific responses anymore (with Kirsten, it was on the level of "This bug with 100 legs..." "Uh...what is a spider?"), but they definitely left an impression that has stuck.

― Joe (Joe), Saturday, 13 August 2005 02:19 (twenty years ago)

Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray fuckin' cleaned up on Vh1's Musical Jeopardy show a number of years ago, which fleetingly won him my respect.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 13 August 2005 02:29 (twenty years ago)

Did Charlie Sheen do well? That wouldn't surprise me.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Saturday, 13 August 2005 03:03 (twenty years ago)

Charlie Sheen is best friends with Bret Michaels

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 13 August 2005 03:17 (twenty years ago)

We once saw Dick Clark on "Password" give the hint for "banana" as PEEL THE YELLOW FRUIT.

The way he said it in this low baritone ... it's become a family meme.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Saturday, 13 August 2005 03:57 (twenty years ago)

In other words, Dick Clark certainly knows how to play the game (obv).

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Saturday, 13 August 2005 03:58 (twenty years ago)

I once saw Lucille Ball absolutely dominate on an old B/W episode of Password.

Richard Dawson almost always gives the "good" answer on Match Game.

― The Yellow Kid, Saturday, 13 August 2005 04:04 (twenty years ago)

And he's so fucking smug about it, too.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Saturday, 13 August 2005 04:12 (twenty years ago)

LeVar Burton cleaned up on Star Trek Weakest Link

i can't remember who beat everybody when the WWE guys were on, tho. it's been like 5 years. Since it was 2000, i'm assuming Triple H did.

― kingfish completely hatstand (Kingfish), Saturday, 13 August 2005 04:14 (twenty years ago)

I guess all that reading he did paid off.

xpost:
And one by one, every kiss he gave on Family Feud erased every good answer he had given on Match Game, until finally he wasn't even half a Hogan's Hero.

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 13 August 2005 04:15 (twenty years ago)

On some (unremembered at this moment) celebrity game show, Alice Cooper managed to look like a Nobel Laureate among the other seemingly functionally retarded contestants.

(one of which was C.C. DeVille, so it might not have been a good sample group...just saying.)

― John Justen (johnjusten), Saturday, 13 August 2005 05:27 (twenty years ago)

It's been awhile since I've seen the old Passwords and can't really remember who was awful and who impressed. Yeah, Lucy, her husband (not Desi) and both her kids were all pretty good. The 4 of them would all play against one another. Carol Burnett was one of the best. As was Tony Randall. And Otto Preminger, which is amazing considering English is his second language. Steve Allen may have been the best. Peter Lawford was good, though sometimes he would be too smart for his own good, ie give some esoteric clue that would befuddle Joe Contestant. Sammy Davis was not so good. Alan King sucked. Um...

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 13 August 2005 05:54 (twenty years ago)

The only example I have of this is when they did a "National IQ Test" stupid thing on TV here and had celebs playing along in the studio - and Red Symons not only blitzed it, but got something like an IQ in the top 1 percentile in the country!

But you have to know who he is otherwise that story's a bit "huh?".

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 13 August 2005 06:01 (twenty years ago)

Oh and also, Molly Meldrum cleaned up and won the entire million on WWTBAM sleb version once. And he comes across as such a dumbarse dopehead!

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 13 August 2005 06:02 (twenty years ago)

(I bet he was pissed that the sleb version means they dont actually win teh moneh).

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 13 August 2005 06:02 (twenty years ago)

http://www.crappersquarterly.com/images/snl/snljtorg-gameshow-celebrity_jeopardy-an_anal_bum_cover-01.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 13 August 2005 06:07 (twenty years ago)

On some (unremembered at this moment) celebrity game show, Alice Cooper managed to look like a Nobel Laureate among the other seemingly functionally retarded contestants.

If Big Pussy from Sopranos was on this show (and he also did fairly well), then we're thinking of the same show.

― Leeeeeeee (Leee), Saturday, 13 August 2005 06:54 (twenty years ago)

I remember norm macdonald on who wants to be a millionare doing pretty well...

― The Original Jimmy Mod: A Negro (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Saturday, 13 August 2005 15:33 (twenty years ago)

george wendt yo

― älänbänänä (alanbanana), Saturday, 13 August 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

Cheech Marin, Celebrity Jeopardy, some time in the late 90s. Completely PWNED. It was, like, a stoner-college-student-cramming-for-finals fever dream. I felt sort've bad for not expecting him to clean up, but clean up he did.

― n!ckal!c!ous, Sunday, 14 August 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

nineteen years pass...

Based on seeing every available What's My Line? episode from 1950-1967

Surprisingly bad at playing the game:

Wally Cox
Victor Borge
Groucho Marx
Tony Randall
Ernie Kovacs
Carol Channing
Mort Sahl

Surprisingly good at playing the game:

Shelley Berman
Jerry Lewis
Buddy Hackett
Steve Lawrence
Jack Lemmon
Paul Anka

― Josefa, Saturday, 5 April 2025 22:21 (one year ago)

I'm 100% Team Gilbert. Even if you lose, you still win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5rzk_X_WhQ

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 5 April 2025 22:30 (one year ago)

Wally Cox was truly terrible at it

― The Yellow Kid, Sunday, 6 April 2025 01:18 (one year ago)

It almost seems like Wally Cox is doing some kind of proto-Andy Kaufman bit in his WML appearances

― Josefa, Sunday, 6 April 2025 13:36 (one year ago)

Wolf Blitzer was legendarily bad on Celebrity Jeopardy.

― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, 6 April 2025 14:51 (one year ago)

A friend of mine saw Eartha Kitt on some game show and was not impressed.

― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 6 April 2025 16:32 (one year ago)

It’s easier for me to think of celebrities who were duds on What’s My Line? than ones who were competent players (another dud: Peter Lawford), which leads me to think that WML is an especially difficult game for a newcomer to get the knack of. In not all of these cases can we say the celebrity is dumb.

― Josefa, Sunday, 6 April 2025 17:43 (one year ago)

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