When I was a child my father told me that he invented Jeopardy.  Yes the TV game show. He said it came to him while he was reading a comic book and pondering the universe. I was a child at the time so every word from my father's mouth was like gospel written in stone. I would tell all my friends at school that my father had invented Jeopardy and they'd laugh at me but seeing as we were children they werent totally sure what to believe.  My father would instruct me to answer any and all doubters, in the form of a question.  Example, to "you're a liar," I was to say, "What is something a layperson thinks but cannot prove?"  Or "You're dad's crazy," to which I would reply, "What is a conclusion not supported by any facts presently available?"

This never really worked for very long but they were usually so caught off-guard by the fact that I didn't just answer with, Is so or wanna bet, that they'd usually believe it and thereby leave my parentally-induced fantasy intact. Now I know this might sound like a form of child abuse to some of you but I was a kid.  It's like when your dad tells you that some guy on a baseball team he admires is the best player in the league and you go to school and tell all your friends that so-and-so is the best.  Now if you are an adult you look at the stats and discern which ballplayer is the best and correct the fanboy but as a child you go with what you're told - a blessing for a parent and an eventual lie that needs to be corrected - until you meet a well-read child or know-it-all adult.

As I grew older I wasn't really telling the Jeopardy story much because like most kids, I wasn't really talking up the parents anymore.  Then one day I met a new kid and we started hanging out.  One day he mentioned in passing that his father had invented Jeopardy. I must have been standing totally still in a state of shock because he tapped me on the shoulder asking if I was alright.  After a few minutes I told him that was impossible because my father had invented Jeopardy. I tried to catch him off guard with my usual question response but he wasn't having any of it.  He just looked at me and responded, I've heard about you. 

Seems that, unbeknownst to me, my childhood claims had spread.  And they apparently reached the ears of this kid. He told me that he had heard about the lies I was spreading and he was making it his duty to tell anyone who would listen of his father's achievements in a effort to set the record straight.  Now we are kids and to have another kid setting the record straight with your peers is a little like an attack.  So I felt it was my duty to protect my father's and my family's honor. 

To clear the air and end the conflict I insisted we have a battle in the spirit of the game.  He gladly accepted.  We picked a day for the competition and had a teacher prepare the questions and answers under the guise of helping us in our quest to be game show question scribes.  Yeah it sounded dumb then too. I think the teacher was humoring us but I felt like a real grifter at the time. The category we agreed upon was pop culture references. We flipped a coin to see who went first and rock/paper/scissored our way through the rest of the questions since we didn't have access to any sort of buzzer system. 

Question #1

It was the first R-rated motion picture.

Question #2

Classic Sci-Fi movie E.T. the Extraterrestrial is watching in the film.

Question #3

To which Ralph replied, chicken necks.

Question #4

Not a friend to the radio star.

Question #5

Kitty Carlisle starred on this game show.

I'm not going to tell you whether I won or lost. But I will tell you this, questions 3 and 4 really stumped me and my father never invented Jeopardy.  I don't think the other kids father did either.  I don't really know or care to be honest. It appeared to me at the time that both of our fathers were fond of telling tall tales to impressionable youngsters.  We remained friends for a short time and then kind of went out separate ways as kids tended to do. I still love my dad and I think the other kid, I think his name was Charlie Griffin, did too. I only tell you this story to remind you that the truth has a lot of power to control and influence.  Always use it wisely.  The truth can set YOU free. The only way to free your mind is to keep it open.