In America, building a better mousetrap is the name of the game - and in our "win or go home society" we pride ourselves on not just catching the mouse, but luring, trapping and beating the hell out of it. From corporate execs to street vendors, cabbies to store clerks, we're all looking to get up on the next guy.
So why should game shows be any different? This get-ahead attitude took us from games of chance ("The Joker's Wild"'s luck o' the pull) to those requiring a little thought ("The $100,000 Pyramid) to those requiring common sense ("The Price is Right") to the ultimate in smart-guys-win ("Jeopardy"). Then came the home version, and the chance to prove that you could beat all those doctorate-holding plumbers on TV, with hand-held, electronic, play-along versions of "Jeopardy!" and the ultimate in intellectual board-game prowess, Trivial Pursuit.
With the advent of home computers and the time suck that is computer gaming, the mousetrap has become more elaborate. And while the silicon Netheads of L.A., San Jose, San Francisco and New York all tried to beat each other to the next big thing, in Chicago a small group of would-be actors, improvers and writers created one of the most successful computer game companies in America - all because the mousetrap has a smart mouth.
With You Don't Know Jack, the folks at Jellyvision gave us something that's a little bit "Jeopardy!," a little bit "Press Your Luck," and plays like a game show, with a twist. Questions are as likely to test intellect and fast-thinking as they are pop culture IQ and the ability to call forth useless facts. And then there's your host. "Cookies" may work like Alex Trebek, but answer incorrectly and he's got better put downs than a chorus of cackling whammies, supporting the main point that no matter how much you think you know, you don't know jack.
In a field where most games involve shooting someone before they shoot you, You Don't Know Jack burst onto the scene, knocking down standard variations - humans versus aliens, karate guys versus aliens, aliens versus predators. The "you're not as smart as you think you are attitude," combined with incredibly clever questions and a format that puts you right in the game, has kept Jack flying off shelves. Since its release around Christmas, 1995, the game has sold 1.8 million copies, is available in PlayStation format and on the Web in a weekly Netshow, as gameheads and regular folks alike keep daring the game to test their knowledge - and hear Cookie's newest put downs.
Take too long to answer and the always-caustic game announcer mocks you. Choose the wrong answer and he gleefully corrects you. Programmed into the game are thousands of sound files - comic asides and smart-ass remarks for every occasion. If you happen to be playing the game on a Saturday night, the game show announcer will call you a loser. Like the idea of being insulted by waitstaff at Ed Debevic's, it may sound off-putting, but it's amazing just how well the Jellyvision folks have pegged human nature - nothing keeps you coming back for more like a well-placed zinger.
Harry Gottlieb, Jellyvision's founder, is the ultimate whip-smart nerd boy. Quiet and self-effacing, the brain behind You Don't Know Jack is reluctant to take credit for his game's success.
Mention that the game is phenomenally successful, as journalist Neil Chase did in a recent profile, and Gottlieb will remind you that 1.8 million is nothing compared to the 15 million viewers who tune in to "Jeopardy!" five days a week.
Growing up in suburban Glenview, Gottlieb's dream was to become a filmmaker. Terry Hackett, Gottlieb's childhood friend and now director of educational products at Jellyvision, remembers he and Gottlieb spending long hours in the basement playing with a video camera.
"Harry's dad was very supportive of Harry's interest," says Hackett. "I remember he even bought him a video camera. This was back in seventies, when video cameras were not that common." At 13, Gottlieb convinced his father to pay the production costs for a short, Super 8 film. "My dad agreed," Gottlieb remembers, "Thinking it would be twenty-five bucks or so. Four hundred dollars and a year later, we ended up with a fifty-minute-long film with a full soundtrack on a separate tape. I had to start the projector and the tape at the same time to get them in sync."
Ten years later, Gottlieb was making a go at professional filmmaking when he stumbled across the world of interactive gaming. Founding Learn Television as a way to break into the educational film market, Gottlieb completed one film, "The Mind's Treasure Chest," which won a slew of awards, including a Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival and a First Place Gold Camera at the U.S. Film and Video Festival.
But the film took three years to complete, and once it was finished Gottlieb was left wondering: Is that all there is? "I got a little disillusioned about the impact that something like that film can have on educationÉ for all the time I put into it," he says.
Then a friend at Apple Computers, who had been on the original team that developed the Internet video player QuickTime, invited Gottlieb to check out the new generation of multimedia software. Gottlieb saw what the media did - and what it would soon be able to do - and was bowled over. He immediately traded his cameras and editing equipment for a couple of fully equipped computers. His original plans were small: Create a series of interactive, educational CDs, each built around a specific work of children's literature. The premise was an interactive game show with questions about, say, "Huckleberry Finn" or "The Yearling" or "Are You There GodÉ It's Me, Margaret." Gottlieb had two gimmicks he hoped would set his software apart from the rest of the educational software on the market. First, his questions would have a kick: they would entertain as well as inform. He wouldn't ask what river Huck Finn and Jim floated down, he would ask if Huck Finn went to the mall, which stores would he be most likely to visit.
Gottlieb's second gimmick was more revolutionary: he would use the full arsenal of high-tech tricks at his disposal to make it seem, at every moment, that the students playing were engaged in a live, real time game.
Gottlieb took his protagonist Jack Patterson from "The Mind's Treasure Chest," made him the host, and called the game That's A Fact, Jack! In January, 1994, Gottlieb struck up a partnership with Follett Software Company to produce the new CD. Learn Television would be responsible for the questions, as well as the ideas for graphics and sounds to accompany them. Follett would take care of the more hardcore software problems - in particular programming - and would also have a hand in the product marketing and distribution.
As development on That's A Fact, Jack! went better than expectations, Gottlieb began seeking help, inviting friends from his past to join. Hackett leaped on board from a staff job covering education for the Daily Herald. Michelle Sobel, who knew Gottlieb at Brown, left behind a hand-to-mouth living as a film editor in New York for a temporary job - now a full-time gig for Jellyvision. Gottlieb also fished for talent in Chicago's crowded theater pool, reeling in comedic theater writers from the Annoyance, the Neo-Futurists and the Factory Theatre. This method of recruitment grew increasingly fruitful as the company ranks swelled.
With a larger company also came a hipper name, and Gottlieb says everyone decided on Jellyvision - though he refuses to analyze what it means. "It means whatever you want it to mean."
But the playful Hanna-Barbera/Flintstone/Jellystone/Yogi Bear influence on the name cannot be denied. Even the lettering looks like something out of the prime-time sixties animation house. It was while That's A Fact, Jack! was being written that someone - no one is certain who - first floated the idea that this game, or one very similar to it, could be created for the general public. Jack Patterson would not be a character in this new game. But his spirit would live on in the game's name: You Don't Know Jack.
A rough prototype for the new game was created. The game was shopped around and snapped up immediately by Berkeley Systems, which would handle programming the software and distribution.
Suddenly, Gottlieb's tiny film production company transformed into an interactive game factory, with a team of writers - both freelance and staff - cranking out kooky questions for two very different markets.
As luck would have it, You Don't Know Jack hit the stands first. The first twenty-five editions of That's a Fact, Jack!, each one keyed to a different book, were released six months later, in April 1996.
And computer games have never been the same.
You Don't Know Jack always begins with a question.
Not a trivia question, but a question meant to probe a player's personal preferences, sometimes as simple as: Paper or Plastic?
Sometimes the question poses a moral dilemma. A raunchy sex scene unexpectedly pops up during a cartoon you are watching with a 12-year-old. What do you do? (1) Cover their eyes and ears or (2) Play it in slow motion.
If you decide your kids can't watch porn, the game's announcer accuses you of violating free speech. And all the questions you are asked from then on have to do with censorship. If you decide to watch the porn with your kids, the announcer hints you're a pervert. And every question posed to you has to do with parenting.
How you answer determines which of the roughly 800 programmed questions you will be asked. The questions are far from the average trivia fare. One writer, reviewing the second edition of You Don't Know Jack, sourly observed "Trivial Pursuit this ain't."
The folks at Jellyvision agree - and they're happy it ain't. It takes a staff of nearly fifty writers and editors to keep up with demands for more questions - questions at least as clever as the quips that follow.
Eschewing flatfooted trivia, the Jellyvision gang takes a more interdisciplinary approach. It's not What does an alchemist do? or, Name Dorothy's three companions in the "Wizard of Oz"? You Don't Know Jack asks, "If the Wizard of Oz was an alchemist, which of the following could he do? 1) Make bricks out of the Scarecrow, 2) Give courage to the Cowardly Lion, or 3) Turn the tin man into gold." (Hint: Alchemy is the science of trying to make regular metals into gold.)
And they love combining science, math, health and history with pop culture or conspiracy theories. Consider this conundrum: Of the Bradys, the Waltons, the Partridges and the Cleavers, which family has a number of children that is not a prime number? (Hint: There are six Brady kids. Go from there.)
Or how about this: If John Wilkes Booth had robbed Lincoln instead of assassinating him at Fords Theatre, which of the following items would not be part of the presidential loot? 1) Lint-covered stick of chewing gum, 2) Ivory-handled pocket knife, 3) Broken glasses fixed with a piece of string, or 4) A Confederate $5 bill. (Curiously, the answer is 1; as Honest Abe preferred those curiously-strong Altoids.)
The home edition offers similar questions, a system of buzzers to "ring in" and a large silver screw that allows you to "screw" your opponents by making them answer the question. Of course, if they answer correctly, the announcer - in reality a Jellyvision writer - is quick to point out that you're the one who got screwed.
The first thing you notice walking into Jellyvision's offices, two floors in a converted warehouse next door to the Crazy Horse Too strip club, is the unearthly quiet. Especially on the first floor, where the tiny reception area is flanked by half a dozen desks, so neatly appointed and so artfully spaced, it seems more like a hip office furniture showroom than a working business.
Upstairs, things are a little more lively. The desks are crowded with toys, plastic animals, wind-up robots, desk-size basketball hoops. The computer terminals display exotic homepages devoted to Japanimation, Hong Kong martial arts films and Thomas Dolby's sound archives. Even though things are pretty quiet, don't be deceived. Within these walls are some of the most intense, talented writers on Chicago's theater scene.
Phil Ridarelli, original cast member of "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind", has been writing for Jack since 1996. Edmund O'Brien, a force behind the long-running Hyde Park-based improv troupe Sheila stepped in around the same time. For a time, Factory wunderkind Sean Abley scribbled away at Jellyvision before turning his sights to L.A., where his experience at Jellyvision landed him work in the TV game show biz. (Abley has since put in time at "Jep!," "Just for Laughs" and "The Dating Game.")
Everyone works hard to make the Jellyvision offices as conducive to creativity as possible. The unofficial Jellyvision library is packed with reference books. "Still, you'd be surprised at how much you can pull out of dictionary, " O'Brien quips. "If you are determined only to use that."
The break room has an almost decadent assortment of treats, non-alcoholic drinks, more varieties of cereal than your basic grocery store aisle and enough salty snacks to stop a compulsive nibbler's heart. The atmosphere feeds into the company's casual air - in the grand tradition of youngblood computer companies, T-shirts and jeans are de rigeur.
As Jack's fame has grown, the word on Jellyvision has leaked, making jobs hot properties. Yearly auditions for writers have netted a landslide of applicants - last year 250 for two positions.
And even if you think you have what it takes, the hiring process is rigorous. Applicants whose clips or cover letters pass creative muster are invited in, given a tour, allowed to play the game, and then sent home with a huge packet of material. Included are product descriptions, sample questions and writing criteria, with the assignment being to create a series of game questions. "You're expected to swallow all that and then spit it back in eight full questions, plus an essay, plugging in blanks of dialogue. It took me fifteen to twenty hours of work to put it together," says comedy writer and Jellyvision staffer Jeremy Hornik. "Its a pretty exhaustive process. They give you a week or two."
And even if you're good, you may not make it; Hornik was rejected the first time around. "I wanted them to keep me in mind for the next time, so I sent [the woman interviewing candidates] a note saying, 'Thank you for keeping me in mind. In order to keep me in mind I've written this letter on a picture of Brad Pitt. Please put it on your wall.' In a P.S. I wrote, 'In case you are a lesbian, there is a picture of k.d. lang in the corner.'"
So what does the future hold for Jack?
Some believe You Don't Know Jack has peaked. Once unique in the marketplace, the game now has a host of imitators, both in stores and on TV.
"The best knock-off of Jack," Sean Abley says, "was a porn trivia game I saw once called You Don't Know Dick."
Jellyvision's attempt to market a teen version of You Don't Know Jack, HeadRush, has not gone as hoped. Released last fall, the game, which comes off as faster, dumber, more immature version of You Don't Know Jack, has not sold to expectations.
Original plans called for a second edition of the game last spring, but those plans were set aside. Everyone's energy is focused on finding a niche for the original edition of HeadRush.
Still, the Net version of You Don't Know Jack remains strong. The newest CD-Rom version of the game, You Don't Know Jack: THE RIDE, is selling well. And That's a Fact Jack has proved very popular in schools, passing the 300th book point in November, 1997.
Also, Jellyvision, now a company with more than sixty employees, continues to grow, with new projects on the boards - which no one will discuss on the record - and a growing need for Jack copy for the Net show, for the books and for the new versions of the game. Rumor has it that they may be outgrowing their two floors in the converted warehouse.
All of which leaves everyone at Jellyvision with questions about the future. But then again, questions are Jellyvision's bread and butter.
So, suppose Corporal Klinger from MASH had Munchausen's syndrome to go along with his transvestitism. Considering these peculiarities, where might Hawkeye find him? 1) In a small box wearing panties, 2) In a lady's shower wearing panties, 3) In a cheese Danish wearing panties, or 4) In a hospital bed wearing panties.
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.