• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 16, 2024

A new quiz show on Amazon Prime is really an example of how Americans today aim low and settle for mediocrity.

Basically, the show is a contest in which ordinary grown-ups go up against adult “celebrities” (in quotes for a reason) to answer questions literally on an elementary school level.

How elementary? On the show -- titled “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” and hosted by Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce (pictured above) -- a sixth grade-level question is positioned as the game’s biggest and most difficult challenge.

Before contestants earn the right to get to that level, however, they have to get through questions they choose from grades one through five.

On an episode Amazon provided for preview, a contestant from Milwaukee -- “Jay” (no last name) -- picked “first grade animal science” from a list of 10 choices, which included third grade music, fourth grade foreign languages and fifth grade health.

The question for Jay, in the category of first grade animal science, was: “What long-legged bird gets its pink color from dining on algae and brine shrimp?” Care to guess the answer?

Jay answered it correctly, but prefaced his answer with a long anecdote about how he once took his wife to Florida to see these birds and how much she enjoyed it.

This is a feature of many quiz shows today. No matter how silly or simple a question is, the contestants must tell stories about how the subject matter relates to their life.

These stories are nothing more than fillers that pad and lengthen “Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?” and other shows like it.

In the case of “AYSTAC” (my clever acronym for “Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?”), the show is excruciating enough without having to lengthen it.

Jay won $1,000 for answering “flamingos” to the question and then bravely opted to move on to a $2,500 round. 

His next question, in the category of first grade social studies: “Labor Day is a U.S. national holiday that occurs in what month?” Obviously, this ain’t “Jeopardy!”

As for the celebrities, in this episode there were five of them besides Taylor Swift’s main squeeze. 

The celebs ranged from former NFLer Chad Ochocinco to two comediennes -- Natasha Leggero and Nikki Glaser. 

In that first round, Jay picked Ochocinco to join him on stage for his first two questions. Jay did not really compete against Ochocinco, so I never did learn what the title of the show really means.

For a subsequent round, Jay picked Glaser because he once heard she studied literature in college. 

When she came on stage, she bragged proudly that she never read a single assigned book in her college literature courses, but instead skated through with Cliff Notes.

America, what has happened to you? This show, “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” was likely inspired by “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?,” which aired on Fox starting in 2007.

On the new Amazon version, the fifth graders have been replaced by grownups, and some of the questions have been dumbed down to first grade.

In a TV Blog some years back, I proposed a show along these same lines that I called “Are You Smarter Than a Chimp?” “AYSTAC” comes pretty close.

“Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” premieres on Amazon Prime Wednesday, October 16.