Ian Lygo

Last updated

Ian J. Lygo (born September 1958) [1] is a British civil servant from Hemel Hempstead, [2] who made 75 appearances on the UK game show 100% in late 1998, with the 75th appearance occurring on 14 December of that year. [3] On 30 November 2004 this record was tied by Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! . However, because Jennings lost on his 75th appearance, Lygo became the sole holder of the record for most consecutive wins on a game show. [4] This record has since been broken, with a team from the Spanish version of the game show Boom! holding the current record at 505, [5] [6] although he still holds the record for English-language game shows. Since he won £100 for each game, his total winnings were £7,500. [7]

After his 73rd win, Grundy Productions, the producers of 100%, informed Lygo that they had changed the rules. From now on they were limiting the number of wins to only twenty-five, after receiving letters from viewers saying they were fed up of him winning day after day, week after week. "I was given no warning," Lygo told The Daily Mirror . "The producer came up and said, 'We are changing the format.' He said there was a new limit. I had no choice in the matter. I was told I could do two more shows and that was that. I wanted it to be made plain on the show that I was being stopped, but that didn't happen. The announcer (Robin Houston) just said, 'Well done' and 'goodbye.'" [7] According to UKGameShows.com, he believed that retiring after 100 episodes would have been more fitting with the show's theme. Lygo was, however, given a bottle of champagne by Grundy for his achievement.

After Lygo's run, the producers later decided to restrict the number of consecutive wins to 25. [3]

Lygo has a degree in history from the University of Kent. He was chosen for the show after an audition at a hotel in Devon. He works for the Highways Agency. [7]

Related Research Articles

Game show Type of television or radio program where contestants compete for prizes

A game show is a type of radio, television, internet, or stage show where contestants regularly compete for a reward. The history of game shows dates back to the invention of television as a medium. On most game shows, contestants either have to answer questions or solve puzzles, typically to win either money or prizes. Game shows often reward players with prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor.

The American quiz show scandals of the 1950s were a series of revelations that contestants of several popular television quiz shows were secretly given assistance by show producers, to prearrange the outcome of ostensibly fair competitions. The 1950s quiz show scandals were driven by a variety of reasons, including greed, willing contestants, and the lack of regulations prohibiting such conspiracy in game show productions.

Ken Jennings American game show contestant, host and writer

Kenneth Wayne Jennings III is an American game show contestant and host, author, and television presenter. He is the highest-earning American game show contestant of all time, having won money on five different games shows, including $4,522,700 on Jeopardy!. Jennings currently hosts Jeopardy!, sharing duties with Mayim Bialik.

Lieutenant Frank Spangenberg is an American game show contestant who garnered fame in 1990 when he set the five-day cumulative winnings record on Jeopardy!, becoming the first person to win more than $100,000 in five days on the show. He has been called one of the "veritable legends" of the show.

Thom McKee is a former United States Navy officer and 1977 graduate of the Naval Academy, who was a long-running contestant on Tic-Tac-Dough, an American game show, in 1980. He set a number of game show records for the time, appearing on 46 episodes of the series and winning $312,700 in cash and prizes. This total made him the biggest winner in the history of television game shows at the time.

100% is a television game show that was shown in the United Kingdom every weekday at 5.30pm from 31 March 1997, the day after the inception of its host television station Channel 5, until 24 December 2001, running for over 1,000 editions. Each show ran for 30 minutes with one commercial break. A Reg Grundy production, it was often billed as "The game show without a host" although it had a presenter, Robin Houston, who also presented One To Win, another daily quiz show on the same channel. He read the questions off-screen throughout the show and was never seen by the viewers nor, indeed, by the contestants. To keep production costs down, the shows were pre-recorded "as live" and in batches, normally over a weekend. The maximum number of shows that were recorded in one day was twelve, although the normal recording day saw ten shows being produced. There was a weekday afternoon spinoff series called 100% Gold which featured older contestants and was presented by Melinda Walker, plus a late-night series called 100% Sex which had questions of a more adult nature. All editions were recorded at Pearson Television's studios in Stephen Street, London.

Bradford Gates Rutter is an American game show contestant, TV host, producer, and actor. With over $5.1 million in winnings, he is currently the 2nd highest-earning American game show contestant of all time, behind Ken Jennings, and still the highest-earning contestant on the U.S. syndicated game show Jeopardy!.

A game show is a type of radio, television, or internet program in which contestants, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering trivia questions or solving puzzles, usually for prizes. Game shows are usually distinguishable from reality television competition shows, in which the competition consumes an entire season of episodes; in a game show, prizes can typically be won in a single match. Beginning with the first five-figure and six-figure game show jackpots in the mid-1950s, a succession of contestants on various quiz shows of the era each set records. Teddy Nadler of The $64,000 Challenge, the highest-scoring contestant of the 1950s era, was not surpassed until 1980, when Thom McKee won $312,700 on Tic-Tac-Dough. Between 1999 and 2001, during a brief boom in high-stakes game shows, the record was broken six times. Both the 1955–1958 and 1999–2001 eras of rapidly set and broken records were driven primarily by one-upmanship between the networks each trying to secure bragging rights and ratings by inflating their prize offerings, rather than the merits of the contestants themselves. American daytime television has historically had smaller prize budgets for game shows that air in that daypart.

Jeopardy! is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, in which contestants are presented with trivia clues in the form of answers and must phrase their responses in the form of a question. The show has experienced a long life in several incarnations over the course of nearly a half-century, spending more than 11 years as a daytime network program and having currently run in syndication for 36 seasons. It has also gained a worldwide following with a multitude of international adaptations.

Jeopardy! is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show features a quiz competition in which contestants are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in the form of questions. The original daytime version debuted on NBC on March 30, 1964, and aired until January 3, 1975. A nighttime syndicated edition aired weekly from September 1974 to September 1975, and a revival, The All-New Jeopardy!, ran on NBC from October 1978 to March 1979 on weekdays. The syndicated show familiar with modern viewers and produced daily premiered on September 10, 1984.

Roger Alan Craig is an American game show contestant and computer scientist. He held the record for highest single-day winnings on the quiz show Jeopardy! from September 14, 2010 to April 9, 2019. In 2011, Craig returned to win the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. In 2014, he competed in the Battle of the Decades tournament, finishing third overall behind Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

Harry Friedman American television industry executive (born 1946)

Harry Friedman is an American television industry executive. He was the executive producer of the syndicated game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune from 1999 to 2020. Initially he shared the title of executive producer with the shows' creator, Merv Griffin, but from Griffin's 2000 retirement until his own 2020 retirement, he served as their sole executive producer.

Jeopardy! is an American media franchise that began with a television quiz show created by Merv Griffin, in which contestants are presented with clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in the form of a question. Over the years, the show has expanded its brand beyond television and been licensed into products of various formats.

The Chase is an American television quiz show adapted from the British program of the same name. The show originally premiered on August 6, 2013, on Game Show Network (GSN). It was hosted by Brooke Burns and featured Mark Labbett as the "chaser". A revival of the show premiered on January 7, 2021 on ABC. It is hosted by Sara Haines and initially featured Jeopardy! champions James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings, and Brad Rutter as the chasers. Labbett returned as a chaser in June 2021.

David Madden is an American game show contestant, academic competition organizer, and art historian. He is a former 19-day champion on Jeopardy! and holds the fifth-longest streak in Jeopardy history. Madden is the founder and executive director of the National History Bee and Bowl, the International History Bee and Bowl, the United States Geography Olympiad, the US Academic Bee and Bowl, the National Science Bee, the National Humanities Bee, the International History Olympiad, and the International Geography Bee. These are all organized under the umbrella organization of International Academic Competitions.

Matthew Barnett Jackson is an American paralegal and former contestant on the syndicated game show Jeopardy! who is known for winning 13 consecutive games and earning $413,612, the seventh-highest total in regular play in both categories, after Ken Jennings, Matt Amodio, James Holzhauer, Julia Collins, David Madden, and Jason Zuffranieri. His 13-episode streak ended with a loss on October 14, 2015. Jackson's total winnings place him fifth on the all-time money-winning list in regular (non-tournament) games.

James Holzhauer American professional sports gambler and game show contestant

James Holzhauer is an American game show contestant and professional sports gambler. He is the third-highest-earning American game show contestant of all time and is best known for his 32-game winning streak as champion on the quiz show Jeopardy! from April to June 2019, during which he set multiple single-game records for winnings, and for winning the following Tournament of Champions that November.

<i>Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time</i> American game show tournament

Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time was a special tournament series of the game show Jeopardy! that took place in January 2020. The tournament was produced for ABC and aired on the network in prime time. This was the first time any Jeopardy! competition aired on network television since 1990, when the special tournament series Super Jeopardy! was carried by ABC.

References

  1. ↑ England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007
  2. ↑ (December 20, 1998). "TV quiz ace gets the boot", News of the World , p. 21.
  3. 1 2 Lamer, Tony (July 11, 1999). "Trivia of Channel 5's most successful show", Sunday Mercury , p. 32. Convenience link.
  4. ↑ Berkowitz, Lana, and Parks, Louis B. (December 1, 2004). "Jennings is out of 'Jeopardy!': But game-show record-setter plans book and lecture tour", Houston Chronicle , p. 1.
  5. ↑ "Most consecutive wins on a TV quiz game show". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  6. ↑ "How Much More Does Matt Amodio Need to Win to Break the All Time Winning Streak Record?". BuzzerBlog. 2021-10-10. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  7. 1 2 3 Arnold, Harry (December 17, 1998). "Tv Quiz Chiefs Drop Mister 100 Per Cent: They alter rules after his 75th win", Daily Mirror , p. 27.
Additional sources
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.