After WWII, television started to invade households around the world,
bringing with it the television game show, which had evolved from radio game shows. We're all
familiar with TV game shows of today, but back then they were still in an experimental phase,
and hadn't quite nailed down all the elements that are ubiquitous today. For example, today almost
all gameshows realise a big part of the appeal is that you can play along at home - spinning a
big wheel is a nice bit of visual flair but you're most immersed when you're shouting
answers at the TV, or telling a contestant not to risk their winnings with a big gamble.
For quiz shows this means lots of questions that the average person can answer, but back
in the 50's a lot of these shows featured questions that required an encyclopedic
well of knowledge to be able to answer. I mean at that point you're just watching,
you're not participating. And look how long you'd have to sit there while
this guy thinks it over. Compare this to how immediate and gratifying TV shows are today:
This was actually a problem back in the day. The game show Twenty-One premiered on NBC in September
1956, with a broadcast that the co-producer described as a "dismal failure". The show was dull
and the contestants were dim, repeatedly failing to produce the correct answers in the long,
drawn-out wait between questions. The ratings were terrible and show sponsor Geritol was furious,
demanding that there would not be a repeat of this poor performance.
This was another problem with game shows back in the day, the sponsors. The amount of advertising
on these things was ridiculous - not only would hosts interrupt the game to sell you some crap
every ten minutes but the sponsors' names were often literally all over the show. Look at this,
the way this contestant is framed might lead you to believe her name
is Colgate, but no, that's the sponsor: Aerosol toothpaste, now there's an idea
with all the hallmarks of long-term commercial success. The reason the sponsors were all over
these shows is because they often paid for the price of production, as well as the fee for
network airtime. In a way, they basically owned the show. So when Geritol told the producers of
Twenty-One to up their game, they had to listen. So how would they make the gameshow more enticing
to viewers? Well, they could basically do it anyway they liked - the industry was a bit
of a Wild West where regulation was scant and lawlessness abounded. Well, it wasn't totally
lawless - in 1954 the Supreme Court had ruled that it was legal for a show to do giveaways,
even if it required some element of chance or skill, as long as a contestant wasn't putting
up their own money, which would be gambling. So basically it was legal for gameshows to exist,
but beyond that there was little to no regulation over how these gameshows were conducted.
This lead producers to come up with a genius idea - just rig the show. Twenty-One found
Herb Stempel, a genuinely intelligent man who was reported to have a photographic memory. The
producers thought they could paint him as a sort of nerd that would be seen as a know-it-all by
the average Joe who would hope his opponent would best him. They told him how to have his hair cut,
how to dress, how to talk to the game's host, Jack Barry, and even how to act while answering
a question. He was given instruction on little gestures he could do to add drama to the show,
like dabbing the sweat off his forehead during a tough question. And he was told the answers.
Stempel then of course went on a winning streak, defeating contestant after contestant - all
orchestrated by the show's producers. Geritol then once again stepped in, they weren't really
a fan of how this guy was becoming the face of the show. He was just some egghead, people don't
want to see that on TV, they want to see stars! This is showbiz! It's supposed to be fabulous,
and a nerd is not fabulous. It was time to give the audience the David to Stempel's Goliath.
So then the show found Charles Van Doren, a college professor from an intellectual family.
Both his father and uncle were Pulitzer Prize winners. Van Doren was exactly what Twenty-One
was looking for - he was a handsome fella, and charismatic too, a big hit with the ladies in the
audience and his soft spoken and intellectual nature made him non-threatening to the men.
Everyone liked this guy, he was a star fit for TV. That meant the show's previous golden goose, Herb
Stempel, was about to become the sacrificial lamb. In a contest between the two, Stempel was
instructed to take the fall. He answered incorrectly to a
question he genuinely knew the answer to. Marty was one of his favourite films,
he'd seen it three times, he knew full well it was the correct answer. With his loss to Van Doren,
Stempel was off the show. Van Doren was a big hit and became somewhat famous, he even appeared on
the cover of Time magazine. After his time on the show, NBC offered him a three-year contract
for $50,000 dollars a year. He would appear as a correspondent and sometimes as a host for Today.
In contrast, poor old Herb Stempel got nothing. Well, apart from about $50,000 dollars that he
had earned through his winnings. Yes, even though the game was rigged they still paid the winnings
honestly, although at that point they're less winnings and more payment for services rendered,
really. But, according to Stempel, he took the fall for Van Doren on the promise of a similar
well-paid job with the network that Van Doren had received. When this did not come to fruition,
he went to a journalist with the revelation that Twenty-One was fixed. However, with no proof,
and the potential for legal threats from NBC, the story was never printed.
This wasn't the only instance of this happening - another popular gameshow in the 50's,
the Big Surprise, had a contestant file a lawsuit against the show's production company seeking
either $103,000 in damages or reinstatement on the show as a contestant - I didn't think
judges had that kind of power, "well now I want to give a warm welcome to our next contestant,
who joins us under legal obligation". She claimed that the show had warm-up
sessions off air, during which she was asked a question she didn't know the answer to. This
question was put to her again during the televised show, leading her to believe the producers were
using the warm-up sessions to assess contestants' knowledge, so that they could could essentially
decide who would win and who would lose, because they knew what the contestants knew,
and more importantly what they didn't know. This lead to the show's sponsor, Revlon,
to ask the producers if this was true - they denied it. But no one could deny...
Another instance in 1958 was discovered when a stand-by contestant on the gameshow Dotto sent
an affidavit to the FCC that claimed the show was rigged. One of the winning contestants on
this show was Marie Winn - her name was Winn - you couldn't make this shit up. Anyways this
fella alleged he found a notebook back stage with all the answers Winn would later deliver.
With more and more accusations becoming public, a grand jury was convened in
Manhattan that heard over 150 witnesses, but its conclusion was never made public.
The United States Congress stepped in, and asked many gameshow contestants to testify
about the legitimacy of these gameshows in 1959. One of these contestants was Charles Van Doren,
who had previously denied the allegations to the grand jury in Manhattan. Now, this counts as lying
under oath but you kind of can't blame the guy - it wasn't really his secret to divulge and a lot
of people's jobs were potentially at stake. He was probably under a lot of pressure and didn't
want to just throw these people under the bus. Or maybe he was just protecting his own image.
But now that he was in front of a Congressional subcommittee, he admited that the show was indeed
rigged in his favour, claiming he had wanted to compete honestly, but the show's producers
convinced him that the fix was just a part of show business, as they wanted him to be the new
face of the show but knew that Herb Stempel was too smart to risk a genuine contest.
Of course this was just his word, and many other people had said the gameshows were legitimate.
Congress needed indisputable evidence. And they got it. A contestant on Twenty-One,
James Snodgrass had written down the answers he was coached on during his time on the show.
Not only that, he had then mailed these notes to himself in registered letters, so the dates they
were sent were verifiable. Thus, he had proof he knew the answers before the show was even filmed.
The next year in 1960, Congress ammended the Communications Act of 1934 to make rigged game
shows illegal. The wild west was at an end. 18 game show contestants pleaded guilty to lying
under oath to the grand jury, including Van Doren. They all received suspended sentences. The grand
jury suspected that about two-thirds of the 150 witnesses had lied - the problem was only 18 of
them admitted it, and it would be hard to prove each one of them had knowledge of the fixing.
Charles Van Doren was now seen by the public as a cheater and a liar. He resigned from his
post at Columbia college and NBC dropped him. His reputation was tarnished and apparently
even his own father was disappointed in him. That seems a bit harsh I mean he was kind of
put in a tough situtation - it's the game show producers who were really at fault. The scandal
had a big impact on the public's perception of showbiz - for all its glitz and glamour it was
a dirty industry that had been exposed for what it was - shallow, fake and consumed by greed.
Twenty-One, Dotto, and the Big Surprise were all cancelled in the wake of the quiz show scandal,
as well as a whole host of other gameshows. For a few years there was no successful quiz show,
a fact that tv host and producer Merv Griffin lamented with his wife in 1963. A game show is
such a great concept, but since the scandal, everyone would think every show is giving
the contestants the answers. His wife replied; "well why not give them the answers? Then they
have to think of the question. Like if you tell me the answer is 5,280, I have to tell
you the question is how many feet in a mile?" "Good idea, but where's the tension?" "Well,
they lose some of their winnings if they ask the wrong question, that'll put them in jeopardy."
A year later Jeopardy debuted to massive success. The game show was back in business,
and business was good. Jeopardy remains one of the longest-running game shows of all time. Today,
gameshows are a far cry from their 1950's predecessors - they're fast, they're exciting,
they encourage audience participation and the sponsors are... well they're still there
but it's not as bad as it used to be. 1950's gameshows thought they had to rig the whole
show to make it entertaining, when really this is better achieved with smarter game design,
which also comes with the benefit of not lying to your audience. It's kind of funny no one saw
any value in that until it was literally made the law, but that's just how it goes,
I suppose - wow I'm a poet and I didn't know it, but my feet show it cuz they're Longfellows.
Anyways, if you liked the video or learned something I have plenty more for you to enjoy,
like this one about a gameshow contestant who learned a trick in the game's design
and used it to cheat his opponents out of the prize money. I make a new video every
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