the 64,000 dollar question

A question that is very important and difficult or complex to answer. Taken from the title of the 1950s television game show based on the earlier radio program Take It or Leave It, which popularized the phrase "the sixty-four-dollar question." The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question now is whether he should choose his former opponent as a running mate. A: "Do you want to get Italian or Chinese tonight?" B: "Well, that's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn't it?"

If a question is the 64,000 dollar question, it is very important but very difficult to answer. Why should I, young, healthy and female, suddenly lose my hair? The sixty-four thousand dollar question remained unanswered. Note: Other large sums of money are sometimes used instead of 64,000 dollar. They asked the million-dollar question: `So what makes a good marriage?' The billion-dollar question is: how much are those benefits worth? Note: In the United States in the 1940s, there was a radio quiz show called `Take It or Leave It'. Contestants had to answer questions for prizes ranging from two dollars for an easy question to $64 for the hardest. A similar television quiz show in the 1950s increased the prize to $64,000 dollars.