The Secret Word Is "Scandal" - June 8, 2009

 

We couldn't help but notice that June 7 is the 54th anniversary of the premiere of the television game show, The $64,000 Question.

The show, whose name and top prize now seem almost quaint, was simple to play. A contestant would answer a series of questions on a topic of their choosing. Prizes started at $1, and doubled with each correct answer. If the contestant got seventeen in a row correct, they’d go home with, yes, $64,000 (more than $500,000 in 2009 dollars). The program was wildly popular, and many of the contestants became nationally famous (perhaps none moreso than psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, who won the top prize for her knowledge of boxing, of all things.) But Question was one of only dozens of game shows and quiz programs that populated America’s TV screens in the 1950s.

In spite of their success, Question and almost all of the others were off the air by 1959. What happened? In a word: cheating.

While most of the shows were legitimate, there were a few -- most notably Twenty-One and Dotto -- that were rigged. Producers had come to the conclusion that not only did audiences want to see familiar faces playing their games, they also wanted to see those players win. So, producers being what they are, they decided to slip the players the answers to the questions while instructing them to pretend to struggle while answering. 

The most notorious of those cheating contestants was Charles Van Doren, who had no reason to cheat. The son of a poet and a novelist, he had degrees in astrophysics and English, as well as being himself an instructor at Columbia University, and was more than capable of coming up with legitimate answers.

While Van Doren denied the allegations of cheating at first, he finally admitted his culpability when called before a Congressional subcommittee investigating the scandal. While his own reputation never really recovered, game shows eventually made a comeback, though they would never again be as popular as they had once been and were now policed and regulated to the point of squeaky-cleanness. 

(My own experience on Jeopardy! was an example of that; we weren't allowed to speak to host Alex Trebek, and contestants were chosen for a particular game just moments ahead of taping-time, so there would be no chance to prepare or collude.)

That policing has guaranteed that contests on television nowadays are above reproach and that nothing untoward could possibly affect their integrity. Right?

Suggested Sites...

Nostalgia Central: The $64,000 Question - history of The $64,000 Question and its sister program, The $64,000 Challenge. American Experience: The Quiz Show Scandal - PBS documentary about on-air cheats. Wikipedia: The $64,000 Question - good history of the show and its predecessors and successors. The New Yorker: "All the Answers" - 2008 article by Charles Van Doren, wherein he comes clean about cheating on Twenty-One. Fifties Web: Quiz Shows - overview of the legitimate and tainted game shows of the 50s.