AustinCountry.com | Quiz Show Scandal

The Quiz Show Scandal:
A Nation Betrayed

Austin Helms
Mississippi College
2004

Television was a child in the 1950s still in the pains of growing up. Before 1950, there were only around 1 million television receivers owned by Americans. The next year saw that number increase to over 10 million (Rich, Classic TV, p. 1). Viewers soon put all their trust and love into their new child, and nothing captured their attention as well as television game shows. Various programs were aired—some for humor only, others for prizes, and most popular of all, some were played for big money. At one point during the 50s, there were 22 game shows on TV (Rich, Quiz shows, p. 1). However, television betrayed that trust and left a nation stunned. As Walter Karp (1989) put it, “It was only a TV-quiz show scam, but it left a while generation feeling betrayed.”

In the Beginning: The $64,000 Question

Game shows saw its media premier during the reign of radio. However, the shows were not the most popular during their tenure, and big prize money was unheard of, especially when compared to television where “everything had to be bigger and better” (Halberstam, 1993, p. 643). Lou Cowen knew this fact. He knew that in order to have a successful TV game show, there was going to have to be a way to keep viewers tuned in week after week. His solution was to simply up the winnings. $64,000 was sum, a substantial increase from the $64 that was the big prize for the radio show Take It or Leave It, from which the Cowen based his TV show (PBS, Program transcript, p. 2).

In June 1955, CBS aired its new offering to the TV public, The $64,000 Question. In this game, a lone contestant would answer as many questions possible in his or her chosen category to work their way up to the grand $64,000 question. Due to the fact that a contestant could not win more than $8,000 in a given night, multiple weeks were needed to carry a single player through to the end.

Revlon was the show’s main sponsor. In the first six months of the show, the cosmetic company saw a 54 percent increase in. Through its sponsorship of The $64,000 Question, Revlon soon became the leading cosmetic company in the country (Halberstam, 1993, p. 647). It is no surprise, therefore, that the company had a little say into the content of the show. They soon began to recognize a sales pattern that followed the rise and fall of various contestants. The pressure was quickly put on the show’s producers to “fix” the show. Although Lou Cowen refused the fact that the show needed any help to improve audience appeal (PBS, Program transcript, p. 4), his departure from the show left the new producers in a vulnerable position. They soon gave in to the company’s urgings to keep popular contestants on longer and ensure the failure of unpopular competitors.

This “rigging” was done usually by giving the contestant a test of question in their chosen field. The answers would then be analyzed to ascertain the contestant’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, answers could be geared to either keep a player successful or guarantee their loss (PBS, Program transcript, p. 5). This step, although indirectly done, was the first of many that would eventually bring down the game show industry of the 1950s.

The show was a shocking hit with television viewers. In a short span of five weeks, the show was rated number one and it is estimated that nearly 47.5 million people were tuning in (Busch, et al., p. 2). It was not long until the other networks saw the potential in game shows and started cutting out their piece of the pie.

The Temptation: Twenty-One Airs

As more and more producers started offer their own quiz show programs, the public grew more and more involved. Many of the newspapers and magazines of the time would publish results of the week’s quiz shows as if they were sports scores (PBS, Program transcript, p. 8). Programs such as Tic-Tac-Dough, The $64,000 Challenge, The Big Surprise, and Do You Trust Your Wife? were all protégés of the original Cowen productions. During the times that these shows were on, crime rates and movie theater attendance were reported noticeably lower (PBS, Program description, p. 1). Nearly all of these new game shows contained some sort secret manipulations by the producers to keep favorite contestants on the air.

It is safe to say that the early winners were in the dark about the events behind the scenes, at least at first. The show that changed all that was Twenty-One—a show Karp (1989) called “a quantum leap deeper into fraudulence and corruption.” The show, sponsored by Geritol, debuted on NBC in September 1956 under the production of Dan Enright and the show’s master of ceremony, Jack Berry.

The game show was designed after the card game of the same name. Two contestants would battle in a race to get the highest score or a score of 21 altogether. The questions were ranked from one to eleven points and drawn from 108 separate categories (Karp, 1989, p. 78). However, the questions were so varied and difficult that the show did not see a grand entrance into the quiz show arena. Instead, the public tuned in to see fumbling contestants and unimpressive scores of 0 to 0.

In order to save his show, Enright knew that he would have to do something. He said that in the beginning, “we felt that it had such great quality and content to it that we would not have to rig it. In fact the first show of Twenty-One was not rigged at all, and the first show of Twenty-One was a dismal failure. It was just plain dull” (PBS, Program transcript, p. 8-9).

Enright decided to do whatever it took to make Twenty-One a success. He began, as David Halberstam (1993) put it, to “cast it as he might a musical comedy.” He wanted “heroes and villains,” not just winners and losers. Enright’s first try was with Richard Jackman, a young writer, with whom he went over some questions with the day before the show. When he appeared on Twenty-One, Jackman realized that the questions that he was being asked were the same as Enright had asked him the night before. Skeptical about the situation, Jackman asked to leave the show. Enright agreed, but only if he would go on the next week and lose instead of vanishing suddenly.

Enright needed someone who he could make a co-conspirator and would be willing to stay with the show for the while. He found this man in Herbert Stempel. Herb was an Army veteran and working his way through New York City College. Stempel had a photographic memory and was extremely intelligent. In the Twenty-One entrance exam, Stempel scored an impressive 251 out of 363—no one had ever scored that high (Halberstam, 1993, p. 650). Enright rushed over to the Stempel residence. After going over some more questions, “he very, very bluntly sat back and said with a smile, ‘How would you like to win $25,000?’” according to Stempel (Karp, 1989, p. 78). Everything seemed to working out nicely. The only problem was that Stempel was a short, stocky man who was relatively unattractive, especially for television.

However, Enright decided he could emphasize Stempel’s obvious faults. He told Stempel to wear his worst clothes: a double-breasted blue hand-me-down suit from his father-in-law with a matching blue shirt with a frayed collar. Stempel was told to get a marine-style haircut and wear a cheap watch. Enright even coached the ex-GI in how to answer each question—when to pause, how to mob, not wipe, his brow, what questions to stumble over. Stempel was even told to never call Jack Berry, the show’s master of ceremonies, by his first name as everyone else did. Rather, he should refer to him as Mr. Barry (Halberstam, 1993, p. 651).

Stempel became an instant star. He said, “As weeks went by, people began to recognize me more and more. I got more fan mail. My classmates at college were very proud of me. My professors were proud of me […] I was overwhelmed” (PBS, Program transcript, p. 10). However, his fame was not to last. Geritol, who pretty much controlled the producers, told Enright that Stempel was giving off the wrong image and that he had to go. The show really needed more of a hero type.

Fortunately for Enright, a young man showed up at his offices to audition for Tic-Tac-Dough, small daytime game show on NBC. This man was Charles Van Doren, a Columbia professor and son of Mark Van Doren, the acclaimed poet, professor, and Pulitzer Prize winner. His uncle was a famous historian and his mother was an author. Van Doren was one of America’s famous white-collar families. Charles not only had the name, but he had the looks and personality as well—the “kind of guy that you’d love to have your daughter married to,” as Enright described him (PBS, Program transcript, pg. 11). Enright let the man in on the deal.

At first, Van Doren was very dubious about the whole situation. However, Enright and his associate, Al Freedman, enticed the young professor by saying that his appearance would make learning popular again for the children. He would, they said, be doing a “great service to intellectual life, to teachers and to education in general” (Karp, 1989, p. 81). Soon enough, though, the man began to give in.

With their new contestant in tow, Enright and Freedman set up a series of tie games that would ultimately lead to the defeat of Stempel, who was less than excited about the whole deal. Enright told Stempel personally that he would have to lose. When Stempel grew angry, Enright reminded him that he had agreed in the beginning. He reluctantly and dejectedly agreed, though he begged Enright to let him play Van Doren fairly. The producer refused and told Stempel that he would have to lose when asked what movie won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture. The correct answer was Marty, however Stempel was told to answer On the Waterfront. This was an added blow to the man, because he had seen Marty four times—it was one his favorites. Stempel was a good soldier, though, and did what he was told.

Van Doren, the new champion, became an instant success. During his record 15-week tenure on the show, he won $129,000, had his face on the cover of Time magazine, appeared on numerous talk shows, and even gained a job as NBC’s The Today Show culture correspondent (a job that paid over 10 times what he was paid at Columbia). Van Doren received hundreds of letters to commend him on his popularizing intellectualism, and being single, Van Doren got requests from women asking to marry him. There were offers from other universities for him to teach, and he was even asked to star in motion pictures (Halberstam, 1993, p. 658). However, the guilt never seemed to leave him, and he eventually asked to get out, which Enright arranged. No one was going to talk, they all agreed. Everything seemed just fine with Twenty-One.

The Fall from Eden: The Truth Comes Out

During all the time that Van Doren was growing in popularity, Herb Stempel did not remain idle. When Enright began to avoid his phone calls, Stempel started to look for reporters who would hear his story. No one would cover his claims, however, especially when it was just his word against the producers’. The evidence they need would soon come.

Dotto was another popular quiz show during this time. It was also the show that would bring down the game show empire of the 1950s. A standby contestant noticed the current show’s champion as she looked over a notebook before the show. When she began the game, the standby contestant noticed how easily she knew the answers. He went back to the dressing room and the notebook was still there. When he looked through it, he found all the answers for the show written in it. Grabbing the notebook and storming out of the studio, he yelled, “This is a fixed show” (Karp, 1989, p. 84). The papers had what they needed. The Journal-American printed Stempel’s story, but Enright persistently claimed Twenty-One’s innocence. He even began an aggressive campaign to compromise Stempel’s credibility. He had a recording that he had made of Stempel that made the man sound hysterical. Enright also had a letter in hand that claimed that Twenty-One was not a rigged program, which Stempel had signed.

A grand jury was convened to investigate the claims. Some 150 witnesses spoke before the jury, including producers and former contestants. Over 100 of them lied under oath (PBS, Program transcript, p. 15). It seemed Stempel was the only one telling the truth. Even Van Doren was constantly insisting on his and the show’s innocence. At the end of the investigation, Judge Mitchell Schweitzer scaled the findings from the public. This caused Congress to become involved, suspicious of a cover-up. They started their own investigation.

All this time, Van Doren was under pressure from NBC to testify (falsely, of course), but the man went into hiding instead. It was former contestant James Snodgrass who provided the evidence they needed to condemn Twenty-One, however. While he was a contestant, he began mailing the questions and how he would answer them to himself before the show aired. This was irrevocable evidence and a deathblow to America’s game shows.

Eventually, Van Doren did come forward, but only after a subpoena had been issued. He wrote out in detail everything that had happened, from the day he auditioned for Tic-Tac-Dough to the present. “I would give almost anything I have to reverse the course of my life in the last three years,” he began his 95 minute speech, “I cannot take back one word or action. The past does not change for anyone. But at least I can learn from the past. I have learned a lot in the last three weeks. I’ve learned a lot about life. I’ve learned a lot about myself, and about the responsibilities any man has to his fellow men. I’ve learned a lot about good and evil. They are not always what they appear to be” (Halberstam, 1993, p. 663). Van Doren left the courtroom in shame and has been reclusive ever since that day.

The Steady Climb to Grace: The Aftermath

The age of quiz shows was gone. Americans, who were had grown up trusting the newspapers and radio broadcasts, felt deceived by television. As David Halberstam (1993) pointed out, the entire ordeal showed the incredible power of television over the public. Viewers believed that television was innocent and unforced, but this debacle showed television for what it really was— simulated, engineered, and manipulative (Venanzi, 1997, p. 4). Many saw this scandal as the beginning of moral decay that would eventually take over the entire country.

Despite the obvious wrong of the television networks, the entire affair does display one of televisions most enduring characteristic—the ability to continually mold and shape itself in order to survive. Even though the public was outraged at this scandal, television has continued to thrive, as it will continue doing for a long time to come.

References

Busch, M., Tank, M., Limbach, M. & Zachary, B. (n.d.). Quiz show. Retrieved on March 25, 2004 from http://course1.winona.edu/pjohnson/h140/quiz_show.htm

Halberstam, D. (1993). The fifties. New York: Villard Books.

Karp, W. (1989, May/June). The quiz-show scandal. American Heritage, 40(4), 77-88.

PBS Online. (1999). The quiz show scandal: Program description. Retrieved on March 25, 2004 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/filmmore/description.html

PBS Online. (1999). The quiz show scandal: Program transcript. Retrieved on March 25, 2004 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/filmmore/transcript/index/html

Redford, R. (Producer/Director), Jacobs, M. (Producer), & Krainin, J. (Producer). (1994). Quiz show [Motion picture]. United States: Hollywood Pictures

Rich, C. (2003). Quiz shows of the fifties. Retrieved on March 25, 2004 from http://fiftiesweb.com/quizshow.htm

Rich, C. (2003). Classic TV – Those old TV shows. Retrieved on March 25, 2004 from http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv50.htm

Venanzi, K. (1997). An examination of television quiz show scandals of the 1950s. Retrieved on March 25, 2004 from http://honors.umd.edu/HONR269J/projects/venanzi.htm