I've been watching the old Fifteen To One episodes on Challenge and there have been a few dodgy decisions already.




Here is one example:
What would a Methuselah be used for?
and the chap said - Wine

WGS - No, it's for Champagne

Champagne is a type of wine. Wiki also states that it's also used for Burgundy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_bottle#Sizes


I don't think not accepting the answer was harsh. I think it was plain wrong not to accept it.






I've heard there's been a few on Pointless but I don't view that thread.
In the Only Connect thread there's usually discussion about accepted/refused answers.


Any you can think of?

I can vaguely remember a tennis question in the heyday of WWTBAM causing quite a stink, as an incorrect answer bagged the contestant quite a considerable sum of money. Something to do with the theoretical minimum number of strokes required to win a match, or along those lines.

They have been a bit lax on 15-to-1, haven't they? The other day, he asked somebody what nationality Columbus was; they said Venetian, and it was accepted for some bizarre reason.

It rather stood out more when Will G penalised a contestant later on in the same episode for giving a (this time correct!) city when he asked for a country.

Genoa is no where near Venice.

Not sure if this counts but when I went to see Countdown the contestant picked a different word for the conundrum and it was in the dictionary so they decided to refilm it and the contestants had to pretend they didn't know and only that contestant could buzz and guess.

Poor Richard was very sheepish as the other contestant was not happy.

Can't remember the show, but contestants were given the names of various films and they had to say whether they were set in the past, present or future. Apparently the correct answer for Star Wars is 'the future'.

On 15-1 the other day.
What colour are the odd numbers on a roulette wheel?
There are equal numbers of red and black odd numbers.

The classic from 15 to 1 is 'What was the surname of the first three Roman emperors?' 'Caesar - their Christian names were Julius, Augustus and Tiberius'.
Wrong on three separate counts.

Yes. It's quite surprising. I've only watched 3 or 4 episodes and there's been a dodgy decision in every one!

I seem to remember there was an episode of Mastermind where a contestant gave an answer which John Humphrys said was wrong. It was the contestant's specialist subject, she argued, they stopped recording, the researchers checked and it turned out the contestant was correct because the question had been slightly ambigous.

My sister and I went to Media city a year back to watch three recordings of Mastermind
One contestent on if memory serves four occasions contested the answer to questions
This caused the recording to overrun so drastically that they actually brought around sandwiches and drinks to keep us going
One question in particular stuck in my mind
The guy had to provide the second part of rather a lengthy quotation and whether he misheard John or was trying to be a smart a##e answered in the original French as opposed to English
The recording had to be stopped until the producer contacted the original question setter to verify the contestent was right
The other contestants by this time were understandably a bundle of nerves !

It has always been common that when you know something about a subject you often notice questions where there are either several possible answer and not just the one 'correct' one or even the 'correct' answer is wrong.

Know it's slightly OT but...I forget what I was watching the other day (was at mum's) but I think it was an old rerun of 'Bob's Full House' on Challenge.
Question: Which animal do we get mohair from?
BUZZ!
Answer: Mos
Woman immediately realised her mistake and fell about laughing. We laughed too. Mos indeed.
(Angora Goat was given as the 'proper' answer but IIRC there are also angora sheep and rabbits).

Not quite the same, but I believe there's an episode of WWTBAM where there are two correct answers to the question. I saw the video of it on Youtube once but I just did a quick search and can't spot it.

I believe it went undetected on the show - the contestant got it correct and moved on. I wonder what would've happened if he had picked the other correct answer though..

They had a couple of errors on there:

One was the tennis one you alluded to: as you mentioned, it was the theoretical minumum number of strokes needed to win a set (not a match), as it was 12 that were needed (your opponent double-faults each of their serves and you ace each of yours). They acknowledged their mistake and allowed the contestant to keep the money they had won (£125,000). Incidentally, 12 was one of the answers.

Another one was the motto of the United States, when translated from Latin. Which is irrelevant, as the American motto isn't of Latin origin. (They were allowed back to answer a different question - although they decided not to risk it and kept the half-million they won for charity, as it was a celebrity edition).

On Pointless a couple of weeks ago there was an incorrect answer that George Foreman beat Muhammed Ali in the rumble in the jungle.

Questions on older quiz shows can sometimes be so vague -- I remember watching Strike it Lucky on Challenge and thinking some of the general knowledge questions could potentially have multiple answers.

I think contemporary quiz shows have more stringent verification processes, but it's inevitable that some mistakes will slip through, particularly on shows with a lot of questions or obscure answers. I would hate to verify Only Connect questions! Imagine trying to research all those different connections then finding out it could have a whole other connection.

Oh, and not a quiz show, but reality show Survivor once had a situation similar to this.

In the final four stage, the remaining players were given a quiz about the eliminated contestants, with the person with the most correct answers claiming immunity from the next vote. Contestant Kim was meant to be the next to be voted out, but she answered one more correct question than her opponents and claimed immunity, resulting in Tom being voted out in her place.

The question that decided the game was "which female contestant had no piercings?" Kim answered correctly, but nobody had realised that her opponent Lex had also given a correct answer. The mistake was only noticed months later when that girl saw the episode on TV and she quickly called the network to point out that she also had no piercings. In the end, the network decided to give the contestants who finished third and fourth the same prize money as Kim, who had gone on to be the shows runner up.

I complained about Million Pound Drop, where a couple was eliminated on a Dr Who question which was "who was the longest serving Doctor" and of the options they chose Sylvester McCoy - which was correct.

However the idiot producers said the answer was David Tennant.

McCoy of course briefly appeared at the start of the Paul McGann Tv movie so played the part for 9 years - technically.

They let the couple come back in another show, and they actually won some money next time around - as they got really easy questions - wonder why ???

I was playing along with Countdown once and was proper chuffed when I got an 8 letter word (I'm more of a numbers man). One of the contestants got the same word (forelegs) only for Susie Dent to disallow it.

Never trusted that woman since.

On Pointless a few months back they gave a team that featured in the Scottish Cup as Auchinleck Town when they were in fact Auchinleck Talbot. Richard did apologise profusely via Twitter.

If I remember rightly it wasn't Columbus but Marco Polo who was the subject of the question and he actually was from Venice. Given that the question asked what his nationality was and Italy didn't exist at the time but Venice was an independent country with its own empire then Venetian was actually the correct answer.

There was an issue earlier in the series though when he didn't give a contestant the point when he answered Muslims instead of Islam. They ended up inviting the guy back at a later date.

On a radio quiz a few years ago:

"Name 2 of the 4 countries which have borders with Italy"
The correct answer is that there are 6: France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Vatican City. The answer according to the programme included "Yugoslavia" which already didn't exist.

"Who was the fourth Marx brother?"
The correct answer is Gummo (the 4th) but the programme said it was Zeppo (who was in fact the 5th).

OK - there were no Christian names. The family was lulli Caesares (Caesar was adopted as a title after Nero). If you were looking at names Augustus would be Octavian. Still I am not sure that's really three errors.

Octavian (Augustus), Tiberius and Gaius Julius (Caligula)

I never watch any of these cheap to present sort of quizzes.

One of the objectives seems to be to include many questions that are not really difficult to make the audience "think they're brighter than they really are." That's what keeps many of them watching.

Some of the questions could be answered by children.

Ambiguous question, which they were allowed to change since as you say, the present motto ("In God we Trust") isn't Latin. However, the original one (on the Great Seal) "One out of Many" is.