March 11 - Goodbye, Charlie Van Doren...

 Posted on March 11, 2021

This is an update of my post published on March 11, 2010:

On this date in 1958, Charles Van Doren finally lost, after almost two months of victories, on the hit TV quiz show Twenty One.

Van Doren came to the show after attending a variety of prestigious colleges, including England's Cambridge University, and earning (in addition to his bachelor's degree) a master's in astrophysics and a doctorate in English. When he left the show, he was a game show star with $129,000 in prize money, a 3-year contract as a cultural correspondent for Today (morning TV show), and guest appearances on other NBC shows.

Pretty good, huh?

But soon accusations that the quiz show was “rigged” arose. Van Doren denied any wrongdoing and said that it was “silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows.” By November of 1959, however, Van Doren admitted in a Congressional hearing that he had been given questions and answers ahead of time.

It turned out that, not only was Twenty One a scripted show—with contestants coached in how to build drama with gestures such as wiping their foreheads or pausing with furrowed brow, apparently thinking hard—but other quiz shows popular at the time were rigged as well: The $64,000 Question, The $64,000 Challenge, The Big Surprise, Dotto, and Tic Tac Dough.

Van Doren was certainly not the major cheater in this plot. He testified that he had asked to go on the show honestly, and with his wide-ranging interests and learning, and his intelligence, he might have done very well, but the show's producers assured him that quiz shows were for entertainment only; scripting them, they claimed, was common practice and just a part of show business. The other producers and contestants were participants in the scheme as well.

Do you think that today's TV quiz shows are fair and above-board?

Watch Quiz Show (the 1994 movie about the scandal).

TV was a new medium in the 1950s, and quiz shows became very popular. For one thing, during this time intellectual knowledge was greatly respected. But the main thing that kept audiences interested was the amazing amounts of money awarded.

Before TV, there were some radio quiz shows. However, the money given out in those shows was almost never over $100. The show that was the “parent” of The $64,000 Question (on TV) was The $64 Question (on radio). And the prizes didn't go up gradually—they jumped from $64 to 64 THOUSAND dollars in just one step. (In today's money, that would be half a million dollars).

When the shows were “found out,” because there was nothing illegal about cheating on game shows, nobody went to prison. However, Congress quickly passed a law making any future cheating on game shows a federal crime. President Eisenhower said that the cheating was “a terrible thing to do to the American people.”

People felt particularly lied to because a ridiculous amount of effort was made to show that the contestants could not possibly know the questions ahead of time. On some shows, contestants were put into glass isolation booths (with no air conditioning, so they would sweat as if nervous or thinking hard), armed police brought sealed envelopes with the questions, or complicated machines delivered the questions as if they had been untouched by human hands.

Is “Reality TV” really real?

Do some thinking about what is known as “reality TV.” Do you think some of these shows are scripted, even though they claim to be UNscripted?

Is there any evidence, either for or against their reality?

According to a CNN poll, 57% of adults surveyed believe that “Reality” TV shows provide a “distorted” view of actual events, with clever editing to pump up the drama or suspense. Another 23% of adults surveyed believe that the shows are “totally phony.”

This supposedly real ad for a new reality TV show,
"Bad Bad Bag Boys: Clean Up on Every Aisle,"
was actually a statement piece on PBS - 
"The fact that you thought this was a real show says
a lot about the state of TV. Support quality programming."

I personally know someone who was approached at a mall and asked to appear in a reality TV show that focuses on mothers and daughters. The teenage girl immediately said that her mother would never go along with it, but she was told, “That's okay. We can find someone who's believable as your mother.” The girl still refused to take part. This tiny anecdote suggests that at least some show producers don't mind a big dose of “false” in their “reality.”

Do some online quizzes at FunBrain or FunTrivia.

Also on this date:

Author Douglas Adams's birthday 

Moshoeshoe Day in Lesotho

Eight Hours Day in Tasmania

World Plumbing Day

Anniversary of the discontinuance of two-stick Popsicles

National Oatmeal-Nut Waffle Day

Birthday of author / illustrator Ezra Jack Keats

Key Deer Awareness Day

Nametag Day

(Thursday of the first full week of March)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• March holidays
• March birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in March
  
  

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• April holidays
• April birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in April

October 20 - Happy Birthday, Dr. Joyce Brothers

Posted October 20, 2018

Do you think TV game shows are always fair? Well...they certainly should be, shouldn't they?

I think this cover photo is a
crackup, now that we know
the producers tried to rig (or
at least control) the show.

Doesn't that wink look sneaky?

One popular game show, The $64,000 Question, ran from 1955 to 1958. After it had been cancelled, The $64,000 Question producers got in trouble during the "quiz show scandals," along with a few other game shows. It was revealed that the show was controlled by the producers, I guess in an effort to make the show more dramatic and more fun to watch?

Today's famous birthday was able to thwart the $64,000 producers! Check it out:

Joyce Brothers went on the show in 1955. At that point, no woman had ever won big prize money, and only one man had ever won the top prize (you know, the $64,000). Apparently, the producers didn't want her to win - I guess because she was a woman? Or because they didn't want to have to pay out all that money?

From what I read, each contestant came onto the show as an "expert" in a particular topic. Brothers had several ideas for areas of expertise. The sport of boxing was not among her interests. 

But the producers wanted her to fail, so they urged her to come on as an expert in boxing.

Brothers was confident that she could learn anything, so she agreed - and then she read a LOT about boxing so that she would be able to answer questions.

In the meantime, the producers came up with their questions. They deliberately gave Brothers harder questions than they'd given other contestants. They made sure that the some of the questions would be too hard for Brothers to answer correctly.

Brothers answered them correctly, anyway! 

After seven weeks on the show, Brothers ended up becoming only the second person and the first woman to win the $64,000 question. And she won even more fame than money!

Joyce Brothers went on to get a job on CBS as a commentator during a boxing match! She is said to be the first female boxing commentator. 

Brothers appeared on the spin-off show, called The $64,000 Challenge, and she earned the maximum prize in that show, too.

Then Brothers was able to land more radio and television shows. She was able to transfer her fame to a topic she actually WAS interested in: psychology. She became the first television psychologist. She not only had numerous shows, she wrote magazine advice columns for more than forty years, she was able to help people, and she was able to have an exciting, star-studded life. She even got to interview The Beatles during their first visit to the U.S.!

By the way, once she was a TV psychologist, rather than a game show contestant, she was DOCTOR Joyce Brothers. That's how I grew up knowing her, and it sounds just wrong, to my ears, to say her name with the word doctor.

Today, let's remember Dr. Brothers by soaking up some of her advice:

Also on this date:

Anniversary of Maria Theresa inheriting a throne 

Anniversary of the first public school in North America - and:

Education reformer John Dewey's birthday

Heroes' Day (Mashujaa Day) in Kenya

Architect Christopher Wren's birthday

Baseball great Mickey Mantle's birthday

Anniversary of the capture of Calico Jack

Revolution Day in Guatemala

Bridge Day
(Third Saturday of October)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• October holidays
• October birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in October

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• November holidays
• November birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in November
  
  
  
  

March 11, 2010

Goodbye, Charlie Van Doren...

On this date in 1958, Charles Van Doren finally lost, after almost two months of victories, on the hit TV quiz show Twenty One.

Van Doren came to the show after attending a variety of prestigious colleges, including England's Cambridge University, and earning (in addition to his bachelor's degree) a master's in astrophysics and a doctorate in English. When he left the show, he was a game show star with $129,000 in prize money, a 3-year contract as a cultural correspondent for Today (morning TV show), and guest appearances on other NBC shows.

Pretty good, huh?

But soon accusations that the quiz show was “rigged” arose. Van Doren denied any wrongdoing and said that it was “silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows.” By November of 1959, however, Van Doren admitted in a Congressional hearing that he had been given questions and answers ahead of time.

It turned out that, not only was Twenty One a scripted show—with contestants coached in how to build drama with gestures such as wiping their foreheads or pausing with furrowed brow, apparently thinking hard—but other quiz shows popular at the time were rigged as well: The $64,000 Question, The $64,000 Challenge, The Big Surprise, Dotto, and Tic Tac Dough.

Van Doren was certainly not the major cheater in this plot. He testified that he had asked to go on the show honestly, and with his wide-ranging interests and learning, and his intelligence, he might have done very well, but the show's producers assured him that quiz shows were for entertainment only; scripting them, they claimed, was common practice and just a part of show business. The other producers and contestants were participants in the scheme as well.

Do you think that today's TV quiz shows are fair and above-board?

Watch Quiz Show (the 1994 movie about the scandal).

Did you know...?

• TV was a new medium in the 1950s, and quiz shows became very popular. For one thing, during this time intellectual knowledge was greatly respected. But the main thing that kept audiences interested was the amazing amounts of money awarded.

Before TV, there were some radio quiz shows. However, the money given out in those shows was almost never over $100. The show that was the “parent” of The $64,000 Question (on TV) was The $64 Question (on radio). And the prizes didn't go up gradually—they jumped from $64 to 64 THOUSAND dollars in just one step. (In today's money, that would be half a million dollars).

• When the shows were “found out,” because there was nothing illegal about cheating on game shows, nobody went to prison. However, Congress quickly passed a law making any future cheating on game shows a federal crime. President Eisenhower said that the cheating was “a terrible thing to do to the American people.”

• People felt particularly lied to because a ridiculous amount of effort was made to show that the contestants could not possibly know the questions ahead of time. On some shows, contestants were put into glass isolation booths (with no air conditioning, so they would sweat as if nervous or thinking hard), armed police brought sealed envelopes with the questions, or complicated machines delivered the questions as if they had been untouched by human hands.

Is “Reality TV” really real?

Do some thinking about what is known as “reality TV.” Do you think some of these shows are scripted, even though they claim to be UNscripted?

Is there any evidence, either for or against their reality?

According to a CNN poll, 57% of adults surveyed believe that “Reality” TV shows provide a “distorted” view of actual events, with clever editing to pump up the drama or suspense. Another 23% of adults surveyed believe that the shows are “totally phony.”

I personally know someone who was approached at a mall and asked to appear in a reality TV show that focuses on mothers and daughters. The teenage girl immediately said that her mother would never go along with it, but she was told, “That's okay. We can find someone who's believable as your mother.” The girl still refused to take part . This tiny anecdote suggests that at least some show producers don't mind a big does of “false” in their “reality.”

Do some online quizzes at FunBrain or FunTrivia.