Survey says... Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most hilarious moments in which game show contestants crashed and burned, regardless of whether they ended up winning or not.
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00:00 "The Statue of Liberty is a pale shade of what color?"
00:04 "A. Pink, B. Brown, C. Green."
00:07 [Music]
00:12 "You've put... Pink."
00:15 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most hilarious moments
00:20 in which game show contestants crashed and burned, regardless of whether they ended up winning or not.
00:25 [Laughter]
00:26 "What? What is coupon?"
00:30 [Laughter]
00:32 Number 20. A slip of the carpet. The Price is Right.
00:36 There's something about guessing correctly on The Price is Right that sends contestants into an immediate frenzy.
00:41 While that reaction is now commonplace, few contestants have matched the enthusiasm of Kalen Allen from Arvin, California.
00:48 "$2,960."
00:50 After correctly guessing the price of a set of paddle boards, Allen joyfully sprints towards announcer George Grey with her arms outstretched.
00:57 However, her trip takes an unexpected turn when she slips on the carpet and falls face-first into Grey's crotch,
01:03 sending him right into a set of flat-screen TVs.
01:06 [Screaming]
01:08 "Oh! Oh!"
01:11 Model Chrissy Teigen then adds to the chaos by pretending to give Grey CPR.
01:16 By this point, host Drew Carey is in a fit of giggles, struggling to even complete his sentences.
01:22 "Spin the wheel, don't go around!"
01:25 [Screaming]
01:26 Number 19. Turkey, Turkey, Turkey. Family Fortunes.
01:31 They say a team is only as strong as its weakest link.
01:34 One contestant on the UK's Family Fortunes exemplified this during the Big Money Round in this classic 1983 episode.
01:40 The contestant, Bob Johnson, had apparently overheard the word "chicken" as the correct answer to the third question,
01:46 and confidently assumed that "turkey" would also be right.
01:49 "Name something people take with them to the beach."
01:52 "Turkey."
01:53 [Laughter]
01:55 While his assumption eventually proved true, Johnson unfortunately had no idea which specific question warranted the response.
02:02 This resulted in him answering turkey three times in a row, causing the audience to erupt in laughter.
02:08 "The food often stuffed."
02:10 "Turkey."
02:11 [Laughter]
02:12 We're not sure what exactly is funny. We never go to the beach without our trusted turkey.
02:17 "Name something people take with them to the beach. You said..."
02:21 [Laughter]
02:23 "The answer was..."
02:24 [Laughter]
02:26 Number 18. Pass on the win. Catch-21.
02:30 While Catch-21 isn't one of the most popular game shows out there, that doesn't make this fail any less epic.
02:36 Contestants who correctly answer a trivia question are dealt a card that they must decide to keep or pass on to one of their opponents.
02:42 Just like in Blackjack, the goal ultimately is to reach 21, a detail this contestant Robin certainly was aware of.
02:49 However, after she correctly answered her question and was dealt a 7,
02:53 "It's a 7."
02:55 "It's a 7."
02:56 which would have put her over 21, Robin decided to pass the card over to her opponent Paul.
03:01 "I'm gonna pass it to Paul."
03:03 This inadvertently landed him right on the target, securing him the win and leaving Robin to say her goodbyes.
03:09 "Robin, thank you so much."
03:11 Number 17. A brilliant choice. Countdown.
03:15 When forced to come up with the longest word he could with a jumble of 9 letters, one contestant offered the word "hentai."
03:21 The nervous way he gave the response showed he wasn't sure the judges would accept it, but surprisingly, they did.
03:27 "Hentai?"
03:28 Suzy Dent, Countdown's lexicographer, made it sound like "hentai" was a perfectly normal word,
03:33 going on to define the word as a "sub-genre of manga," and not mentioning its sexually explicit nature,
03:39 begging the question if she knew what "hentai" really was.
03:42 "Hentai is brilliant, yes. It's a sub-genre of Japanese manga and anime, etc."
03:48 But perhaps most surreal, "hentai" ended up winning the round,
03:52 because the longest word the other contestant could come up with was "padi," which was 5 letters and not nearly as fun.
03:58 "Thank you, well done."
03:59 Number 16. Seagull's Night at Chuck E. Cheese. Match Game.
04:03 Competing on a nationally televised game show is undeniably intense.
04:07 Add a panel of celebrities to the mix, and the pressure likely becomes overwhelming.
04:12 That must be the explanation behind this monumental fail.
04:15 Host Alec Baldwin reads out the clue about Seagull's Night at Chuck E. Cheese,
04:19 and proceeds to explain it to the celebrity guests.
04:21 "To heat things up, they emptied the ball pit and filled it with blank."
04:26 "Oh!"
04:27 Nevertheless, it all seems to go over the head of the contestant Barry, who confidently responds with "fish."
04:33 "They emptied the ball pit and filled it with blank."
04:36 "Fish."
04:37 Turns out Barry misheard the clue as Seagull's Night.
04:40 By the time he realizes his mistake, it's a little too late.
04:44 His only consolation is a series of sympathetic hugs from the celebrities, and of course, Alec Baldwin's album.
04:50 "You can still get a copy of my album, 'Alec Sings to Hits'."
04:54 Number 15, the month of September, Family Feud.
04:58 Despite the many ridiculous answers given during the original run of Family Feud,
05:02 host Richard Dawson somehow always maintained his composure.
05:06 That is, until Cathy Trejo came along.
05:08 In the Fast Money round, Dawson asks Cathy what month of pregnancy a woman begins to show.
05:13 Naturally, she responds with September.
05:16 "September."
05:17 "Something...oh."
05:22 [Laughter]
05:24 While we're sure many pregnant women indeed start showing in the month of September,
05:29 that wasn't quite the answer Dawson was looking for.
05:32 "September, of course. It's so obvious, isn't it?"
05:35 The host manages to keep it together for the remainder of the first round.
05:39 However, when he has to repeat the question to the next contestant,
05:42 he nearly loses the battle to a fit of laughter.
05:45 "I'm fine, I'm fine, we'll do it. Here we go."
05:48 Number 14, Self Potato, Wheel of Fortune.
05:52 Look, we all have our moments.
05:54 It's just that our most embarrassing errors do not happen in front of a live studio audience
05:58 and millions of viewers, let alone become a viral sensation.
06:02 Sadly, fifth grade teacher and huge Wheel of Fortune fan Lolita Macaulay
06:06 had a massive brain cramp at the worst possible moment.
06:10 Faced with a puzzle whose fairly obvious answer was self-portrait,
06:13 Macaulay chose to go with, well...
06:16 "Lolita!" "Oh, self potato, sorry."
06:19 Yeah, we don't know what she was thinking either.
06:21 Hopefully, her class of students got a good-natured laugh or two out of her self-potatoing.
06:25 "But I just want to confirm, you did say self potato? Okay. Don't you worry about it."
06:30 Number 13, $7,000 for a hammock, The Price is Right.
06:35 You know your answer is way off when even your opponent calls it into question.
06:39 In this October 2014 episode of The Price is Right,
06:42 the contestants were tasked with estimating the cost of a lovely hammock,
06:45 while the others threw in reasonable offers.
06:47 Corey Sims opted for an outrageous bid of $7,000.
06:51 The usually lively audience was so stunned by the response, they immediately fell silent.
06:56 "$7,000!" "$7,000!" "$7,000!" "$7,000?"
07:01 Unsurprisingly, Sims was incredibly wrong,
07:06 as the actual cost of the hammock was only $880.
07:10 "$880!"
07:12 He may have lost out on the bid, but this moment eventually went viral,
07:16 lending him an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show,
07:19 where he got one last opportunity to redeem himself.
07:22 "I've never seen a hammock in my life, period, ever. I'm not lying to you."
07:26 "I believe that."
07:28 Number 12, Horsing Around, Wheel of Fortune.
07:31 Contestants aren't always the ones responsible for a game show fail.
07:34 Sometimes the blame lies with the host.
07:36 "Riding a brown horse. That's amazing, and it's wrong!"
07:43 In a 2014 episode of Wheel of Fortune,
07:45 Pat Sajak lost his cool in a big way when contestants kept giving answers
07:49 using the word "horse" for the category "What are you doing?"
07:52 This caused a frustrated Sajak to walk off the stage briefly
07:58 before returning to yell at the contestants.
08:00 In their defense, "What are you doing?" is a pretty open-ended category
08:04 that could include literally anything.
08:06 The phrase Sajak was looking for was "seeing a buddy movie,"
08:10 which is not a phrase that jumps out.
08:12 There was no need to yell, but it certainly made for a memorable moment of television.
08:16 "Who said anything about a horse?"
08:18 Number 11, Pork, Youpine, Family Feud.
08:22 This answer isn't just incorrect.
08:24 It's arguably the most creatively incorrect answer ever given on Family Feud.
08:29 The question is simple. Name something that follows the word "pork."
08:33 Despite an abundance of reasonable options like "chop," "pie," and "wood,"
08:38 this contestant decides to go for the most out-of-left-field choice, "youpine."
08:42 You know, as in "pork youpine."
08:44 "Name something that follows the word 'pork.'"
08:47 "Youpine."
08:48 "Huh?"
08:49 "Huh?"
08:52 To top it off, he confidently asserts that not only is it right,
08:55 but it would be the number one answer on the board.
08:58 "It's number one!"
08:59 "Oh, my, my, my!"
09:00 "Pow!"
09:01 "It's number one!"
09:05 Unsurprisingly, it is not.
09:07 In fact, it isn't anywhere close to the board.
09:09 That is a response that could have come from one person and one person only.
09:14 "You the only person that said 'youpine.'"
09:17 Number 10, Consenting to Fail, Jeopardy.
09:22 On a 2015 episode of Jeopardy, a clue was given about a term marking adulthood in common law
09:27 as 14 for boys and 12 for girls.
09:30 One contestant, Tom, gave the answer "age of consent,"
09:33 which made viewers recoil as the answer was not only wrong, but uncomfortably wrong.
09:39 "In common law, the age of this signaling adulthood is presumed to be 14 in boys and 12 in girls. Tom?"
09:48 "What is the age of consent?"
09:49 "No."
09:50 For the record, the right answer was puberty.
09:52 "What is puberty?"
09:53 "Puberty."
09:54 In all fairness, the question wasn't easy, but any answer would have been better than age of consent.
09:59 Even no answer at all.
10:01 Unfortunately for Tom, he offered up this unfortunate answer in the age of social media.
10:06 And so, the embarrassment, criticism, and judgment extended beyond the show in the form of online comments.
10:12 "It'll cost him how much? 9,300. He will finish in third place."
10:16 Number 9, Kelly Pickler, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
10:20 "I'm about to show you just how missing me feels in my red high heels."
10:33 Kelly Pickler's debut album, Small Town Girls, sold close to 900,000 copies.
10:38 That's less than 5% of the number of people who have watched her appearance on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader on YouTube.
10:44 "Like, I'm listening to what you're saying, but I only hear what I want to."
10:48 "That's just called being a woman."
10:50 When asked to name the European country of which Budapest is the capital city, Pickler exclaimed that she thought Europe was a country.
10:57 "Budapest? I never even heard of that."
10:59 She tosses the idea of France around in her mind, because they speak French there, but is also unsure of whether or not France is a country.
11:06 "France is a country, I will tell you that."
11:09 Thank goodness she had an elementary student to copy from.
11:12 "Your fifth grade classmate Nathan said...HUNGRY!"
11:18 "Great, you're the best, thank you. Yay, you tried to trick me!"
11:25 Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa were a popular morning show duo that most would call household names.
11:33 But as this contestant reminds us, the operative word there is "most."
11:37 During a tumultuous round of wheel, all three contestants failed at different times to properly pronounce Regis or Kelly's full names to correctly solve the puzzle.
11:46 "Let's solve the puzzle please."
11:47 "Alright."
11:48 "Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa."
11:50 "No, I'm sorry, we can't accept that, and Lee, it's your turn."
11:54 One guessed Regis Philburn and another contestant said Regis Philman, while also pronouncing Kelly Ripa's last name as "Reepa."
12:02 "Regis Philman and Kelly Ripa."
12:04 "No, that is not correct."
12:07 The third contestant looked like he was going to solve the puzzle when it was spelled out for him, but he also mispronounced Ripa's last name as "Rypa."
12:14 "Regis Philbin and Kelly Rypa."
12:16 "No."
12:18 Clearly, none of these contestants were morning people.
12:21 "Why do I have a feeling this is going to be played a lot?"
12:23 Number 7. Grandma, Family Feud
12:26 When asked to name something a burglar would not want to see when he breaks into a house, one contestant responded enthusiastically with...
12:32 "Wrong! Naked Grandma!"
12:34 The answer was so oddly specific and disturbingly graphic that Steve Harvey couldn't help but give the guy grief for making such a strange choice.
12:41 However, everyone had to admit that it was something no burglar would want to see.
12:46 "What are the chances of you breaking into the house and running up to your grandma naked?"
12:52 In the end, the joke was on Steve because "Naked Grandma" did technically wind up as an answer on the board because it could be interpreted as "occupant."
13:00 Though, that is the only time "Naked Grandma" is ever going to be the right answer to anything.
13:05 "Woo! Grandma! Woo!"
13:11 Number 6. Grand Slam Fail
13:13 Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
13:15 During a college week on "Millionaire," one student from Harvard didn't exactly make her school proud.
13:20 At the $4,000 question, the young woman was asked which Denny's menu item was named after a sports term.
13:26 Any red-blooded American should have known the answer was "Grand Slam" without so much as a second thought.
13:31 But this contestant got mixed up and made "Slam Dunk" her final answer.
13:35 "A. Slam Dunk, final answer. Oh, I meant Grand Slam."
13:41 Only once the answer was locked in did she realize her mistake.
13:44 After such a horrific blunder, she probably never wants to step into another Denny's again.
13:49 "Sorry, you said Grand Slam. I'm so sorry. It was Grand Slam."
13:54 And that's why you should always take a second to reflect before uttering the word's final answer.
13:59 "Thank you for accepting our second challenge. That was fun."
14:03 Number 5. What Does Urban Mean? The Newlywed Game
14:06 "Cathy?"
14:09 "I don't know what they mean."
14:12 We don't know the origins of the dumb blonde stereotype, but this contestant certainly fits the bill.
14:17 When asked if her new husband was more urban or rural, Cathy looked completely dazed
14:22 before admitting she was unsure what either term meant.
14:25 "Heck, he's urban." "He's urban?" "Yeah."
14:28 "How long has he been that way?" "About two months." "Two months he's been there."
14:33 She decided that her husband was urban and, to the delight of both the host and the audience,
14:38 answered several questions about her husband's urban problem that required the attention of a doctor.
14:44 Host Bob Eubanks leads the oblivious lady down the rabbit hole of questions
14:48 that get more uncomfortable as they progress.
14:50 By the end, the audience is in stitches and Eubanks isn't too far off himself.
14:55 "Did the doctor give him anything for his urban?"
15:01 "He gave me something."
15:05 Number 4. Toronto in the USA. Jeopardy!
15:08 Back in 2011, before the rise of self-driving cars and chat GPT,
15:13 IBM supercomputer Watson made a notable appearance on Jeopardy!.
15:17 Watson, which was built specifically for this purpose,
15:20 faced off against two of the show's greatest champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.
15:24 The supercomputer triumphed in the initial two rounds.
15:27 However, when it came to final Jeopardy!, Watson stumbled and fell.
15:31 Presented with a clue about a U.S. city and its World War II-related airports,
15:36 Watson was surprisingly the only contestant to get the answer wrong.
15:40 "And the response was, 'What is Toronto?'"
15:46 Not just that, it responded with Toronto, a city obviously not in the U.S.
15:51 Good to know that even supercomputers don't know it all.
15:54 "And the wager, how much you gonna lose? Oh, you sneak. $947."
15:59 Number 3. You fool! Hollywood squares.
16:02 The late Gilbert Gottfried was widely known for his distinctive screeching voice
16:06 and strong New York accent.
16:08 But two lesser known things he gained recognition for were the words, "You fool!"
16:12 "Having a child." "I disagree." "You fool!"
16:17 Gottfried famously uttered the phrase during an October 1999 episode of the game show Hollywood Squares.
16:23 The two contestants needed Gottfried's square to win the game,
16:26 but neither could accurately read his poker face to discern whether he was lying or telling the truth.
16:31 As a result, they made a series of incorrect guesses,
16:34 each quickly followed by Gottfried yelling, "You fool!"
16:37 "I'm gonna agree." "You fool!"
16:40 The hilarity continued until one contestant finally made the correct guess,
16:44 answering the easiest question possible and bringing the game to a close.
16:49 "I'm gonna agree." "You fool!"
16:52 [Laughter]
16:59 Number 2. An animal with three letters in its name. Family feud.
17:04 "Something that comes with a summer storm." "Snow."
17:07 Back to the family feud fast money round.
17:10 They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and this father-son duo certainly proves that claim.
17:15 When asked to name an animal with three letters in its name, Bob answers with, "Frog."
17:20 When asked the exact same question, Bob's father, who is also named Bob, answers with, "Alligator."
17:26 Prompting host Richard Dawson to ask if he uses narcotics.
17:30 "No, but I will." "I mean, I thought frog was bad."
17:35 The pair somehow managed to win $415, despite younger Bob thinking that snow comes with a summer storm.
17:42 "Please watch us tomorrow and see if he has the nerve to show up again, will ya?
17:47 We love ya, we'll see ya here on the Family Feud."
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18:04 Who would have thought that watching Brad Pitt run around with long blonde hair would have been all you needed to do to win a million dollars?
18:21 On this episode of Wheel of Fortune, all Indiana University student Julian Batts needed to do to win that sum was pronounce Achilles correctly.
18:29 Instead, he said something.
18:31 Later, Julian had a chance to win a car, but thought the puzzle was "World's Fastest Car" instead of "World's Fastest Man."
18:45 Can I solve?
18:47 Yeah.
18:48 The World's Fastest Man!
18:49 Yeah, that's it!
18:51 Wheel of Fortune may just be this kid's Achilles heel.
18:54 On the spot, dice spin!
18:56 Uh, Shelby?
18:59 On the spot, decision!
19:01 Yeah, that's it, uh-huh.
19:03 I don't think anyone has ever taken a more circuitous route to victory.
19:10 Did you watch any of these game show fails live?
19:12 Let us know in the comments below.
19:14 Name Popeye's favorite food.
19:16 Chicken!
19:19 Did you enjoy this video?
19:21 Check out these other clips from WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
19:28 [music]
19:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]