Quiz, the dramatisation of the attempted swindle on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? by an army major, his wife and a fellow contestant in 2001, reveals the obsessive nature of the pastime’s fanatics, some of who went to extraordinary lengths to appear on Millionaire.
Quizzes have always appealed to obsessives, especially those with a knack for storing and retrieving specific information about capital cities, recurring characters in The Simpsons, and which western astrological star sign is represented by the twins Castor and Pollux (Answer: Gemini, the twins sign – the clue is in the question, quizzers).
The first publically-organized quizzes, US spelling bees of the 1930s, favored alphabet aficionados.
- Radio gave the quiz a boost with shows like the BBC Transatlantic Spelling Bee, which featured Harvard, Radcliffe, and Oxford university students as contestants. Once television got in on the act, quizzes got more entertaining and general knowledge questions gave the public an opportunity to exercise their grey matter
- In the Post-war era, the US television networks added a fresh incentive to quizzing: the chance to win big money
- University Challenge originated as an antidote to scandal hit quizzing – no prize money was involved, and the questions were mostly high-brow
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? upped the money stakes in quizzing
- Millionaire brought us closer to the hotseat with multiple-choice questions and no clock to beat
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Dave Clark, Mastermind champion 2008, knows the feeling of being right
“I have a naturally inquisitive nature, I’ve always amassed useless knowledge without even trying,” he says.
- The first time he played Mastermind, he discovered he was good at it, which appealed to his competitive nature
- He bow out of tournaments because of “bad feeling” when his team kept winning
Motivation is less about beating others than getting stuff right
You actually learn from quizzes
- It’s a way of being with people
- In times of uncertainty, quizzing adds an element of surprise to group chats
- Provides comfort in knowing someone always has the right answer
