Dear Matthew Alice: How did Jeopardy! get its name? What does it have to do with the game and how it's played? Besides the obvious jeopardy of not winning and having to take home a year's supply of Paul Mitchell or an all-expense-paid trip for two to Mission Bay, what is the danger? Also, why do the contestants answer in the form of a question? What does that have to do with anything, let alone the name of the show? — What is, Puzzled in North Park

As far as I’m concerned, your biggest jeopardy is the risk of acquiring a major pain in the butt from being forced to spend a half-hour with the insufferable Alex Trebek. (Professional jealousy you say? I think not. Simply observable, easily duplicated scientific fact.) But at least Alex can’t be blamed for the convolutions of the Jeopardy! game plan. Responsibility for that rests squarely on the show’s developer, Merv Griffin, with a little help from his wife. Merv has grown rich and fat on the profits from his game shows, the two most popular of all time being Wheel of Fortune (based on the game Hangman, sez Merv) and Jeopardy! The big J was devised in the mid-’60s, the days of the TV quiz show scandals, when it was revealed that certain contestants had been secretly coached in advance to improve their on-air performance. According to Merv, he was telling his wife how much he liked those shows, which tested your knowledge, but he worried about the credibility questions raised by the scandals for any future shows of that type. Her joking reply was, “Well, why not just give them the answers to start with?” Music up, cut to Merv excitedly designing his next offering. Working title: What's the Question? The game plan included three levels of dollar risk and difficulty, Jeopardy!, Double Jeopardy! and Final Jeopardy! Somewhere in the development process with NBC, Griffin dumped What’s the Question? for the more exciting Jeopardy!, luring viewers, of course, being the name of this particular game.

More than you ever dreamed of wanting to know about the show, Merv, Alex, et al. can be found in that supreme waste of trees, The Jeopardy! Book. Look for Alex’s smug mug on the cover.

And now a little quiz I can’t resist. I’ll take Contemporary Ironies for a thousand, Alex. The answer: This quiz show was recently accused of secretly coaching some of its contestants in advance to improve their on-air performance. The question: “What is Jeopardy!?"