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Has a good friend or family member ever witnessed an example of your superhuman intelligence or watched you perform some incredible scholarly feat and exclaimed to you half jokingly: 'hey, you should be on a game show or something'? Through this question they were actually telling you that in their opinion you are so smart or so knowledgeable that you may as well pick up some cash or prizes on the way.

Well, believe it or not, it's people just like that (just like you?) who have done just that for years. Though it may be a bit difficult to comprehend through the magic of television that the people on the screen are normal everyday people just like you and me, 'ordinary folk' have been having their brains picked on TV for years in exchange for billions of dollars worth of cash and prizes'and entertaining us in the meantime.

Game shows have been giving away cash, home appliances, vacations; you name it, for years and years. Even before the advent of televisions, game shows were aired on the radio and were just as popular as they are today on our television screens. Players came to compete either with one another or sometimes as a part of a larger team to get a higher score or answer more questions correctly than their counterparts.

These participants would ultimately compete to advance in whatever style a particular game show was designed and ultimately come out victorious by winning first the honor of being the winning team, or course, but more importantly to hear the following phrase: 'And what do our winners receive'? At this point the announcer backstage would describe to the ecstatic winner and to the viewers at home a particular cash prize or vacation package that the evening's lucky winner was going to take home- all to the background of the 'ooh ahh'! of the audience.

As time moved on and television became more liberal, a beautiful woman wearing what could be described as an indoor bathing suit would escort the winners to collect their prizes or would slowly appear from backstage with a certain piece of home appliance in order to 'introduce' it to its new owner.

As time moved on and the television rating wars became what they are today, the prizes became bigger and bigger: from the tens of thousands, to the hundreds, to the late nineties show: 'Who wants to be a millionaire', which gave participants the opportunity to walk away with a million dollars in their pockets in one evening by answering a series of questions. It was also just a matter of time before celebrities would come and join these shows and show the gossip-hungry viewers at home how much their celebrities know (or in many cases, don't know). With the celebrities taking place in these shows it wasn't all about money though.

Understanding that they were for the most part already quite financially stable, celebrities would come on the show and announce at the outset that they were planning to donate all the winnings from that evening's show to a particular charity. The game show gained a philanthropic element through the addition of celebrities to its casting that way.

These days, game shows are such a major part of our every day life that we don't even notice when a new game show arrives to our television sets. We play along trying to answer questions while having our dinners and take part in that 'rush' that engulfs the participant on the screen as he or she is faced with the next brain tease. When they win we momentarily feel like we have won and begin cheering as if our favorite team just scored a touchdown. And when they miss out on the big prize we enter a moment of empathy as we painfully exclaim to our unlucky player: 'close but no cigar'.

Today you don't need to wait till you get picked! Trivia buffs can play anytime they want just by going online. Internet trivia sites such as triviaonnet.com provide games at every hour of the day, where you can compete with other players from all over the world, or play by yourself to win jackpots. These game platforms are graphically pleasing as well as fast and sophisticated. With prizes reaching thousands of dollars, who needs to wait for the tv?

So if you been told long enough that you're certainly smarter than any other player (and certainly celebrity) who has graced your screen? You think it's time for you to get a piece of that pie and collect some winnings for yourself? Well, it's simpler than you think, it's right there online!