What is the $64K Question?

In 1950, NBC produced a radio quiz show entitled “The $64.00 Question.” Contestants were asked questions of increasing difficulty. The first question was worth $1.00. Yes, that’s one dollar. If they answered the first question correctly, they were asked if they wanted to take the prize money or move on to a more difficult question which offered double the money. The final question was worth $64.00. Yes, that’s sixty-four dollars. The show enjoyed a twelve-year run. For the television version, which premiered in 1955, the prize money was increased to $64,000, hence the $64K question.

Sixty-four dollars and then sixty-four thousand dollars became synonymous with “very difficult questions.” “Well, that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question” is now a common catchphrase for “questions don’t get any more difficult than this.” This cliché is repeated frequently because there seems to be a never-ending supply of questions that are very hard to answer. There are a number of websites that post “impossibly hard quiz questions.”

Here are some good ones:

(1) What is the Olympic sport in which athletes cross the finish line backwards?

(2) How many sides does a dodecahedron have?

(3) What are the first three books of the Old Testament?

(4) What were the names of Henry VIII’s six wives? Or how about

(5) Which British singer has a tattoo of Heinz tomato ketchup on his arm?

By today’s inflationary standards, these questions might be worth $64,000,000!

Want to Read More? 

Check out Dr. Carolyn Lee’s blogs on her website, she features a new cliché each week or you can order her new book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By. You can also find several more short cliché stories Carolyn’s very own Cliché Dictionary. Curious about the author? Read more about Carolyn here. We hope you enjoyed this article learning more about the cliché, the $64K question.