QUIZ SHOW SCANDALS

The American 'quiz show scandals' of the 1950s were the result of the revelation that contestants of several popular television quiz shows were secretly given assistance by the producers to arrange the outcome of a supposedly fair competition.

Contents

Background

Prizes grow

Sponsor interference

The story is revealed

Aftermath

Law and politics

Contestants

Hosts and producers

Television

Other media

More recent scandals

References

See also

Background

In the 1950s, television burst into the mainstream. While at the beginning of the decade only 9% of U.S. households had a television, over half had one by 1954, and 86% had them by the end of the decade. The medium proved to be a powerful influence on American society.
Over the same period, the United States was engaged in a technology race with the Soviet Union, as a component of the Cold War. American military and political dominance was bolstered by the nation's technologies that harnessed the power of the atom. This focus on technological superiority contributed to a national reverence of intelligence and knowledge.
It was against this backdrop that quiz shows became popular. Questions asked on these shows required substantial knowledge across a broad spectrum of cerebral topics. The spectacle of people achieving huge financial success through the exercise of brain power was riveting to a nation that revered intellectualism as well as wealth.

Prizes grow

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling in ''Federal Communications Commission v. American Broadcasting Co., Inc.'' that quiz shows were not a form of gambling paved the way for their introduction to television. The prizes of these new shows were astonishing in magnitude, and gave them an aura of significance that went well beyond mere entertainment. ''The $64,000 Question's predecessor radio show was ''The $64 Question'', and few prizes exceeded even $100. There was no gradual escalation; ''The $64,000 Question'' burst on the scene on June 7, 1955, with a top prize a thousand times bigger than the shows that had gone before. ($64,000 in 1955 is equivalent to approximately $480,000 in 2006[1].)

Sponsor interference

In the 1950s, it was common practice for game shows and other shows to be sponsored solely by one company, even to the extent of having the company's name in the title of the show. Examples included Sylvania's ''Beat the Clock'', or Geritol's ''Twenty-One''.
It was empirically determined by show sponsors and the networks that influencing the outcome of a game show could increase the dramatic value, and therefore its attraction to viewers. More viewers naturally increased the advertising exposure a sponsored company would receive.
Outcome influence came in many forms, some relatively benign. For example, contestants would be given stage directions on how to act while on camera. On ''The $64,000 Question'', contestants were placed in an "isolation booth" when answering questions, presumably to prevent them from receiving any help from the audience. To heighten the drama, the ventilating fans in the isolation booth were turned off after the question was asked. Under the hot stage lights, the temperature rose quickly, causing the contestant to sweat visibly. This would lead contestants to mop their brows before answering the question.
Other forms of influence were less benign. More popular contestants would be asked questions within their areas of expertise, or even provided the answers to upcoming questions. Less popular contestants would be given more difficult questions in areas outside their expected knowledge.
Sponsor interference wasn't foolproof. Though Dr. Joyce Brothers was disliked by Charles Revson, whose Revlon cosmetics firm was the sponsor of ''The $64,000 Question'', and was therefore given difficult questions about boxing, she managed to answer without help and won legitimately against her coached opponent.
The most notorious participants in this deception were Charles Van Doren and Herb Stempel, leading competitors on ''Twenty-One''. Both were heavily coached by the show's producers, as told in the 1994 film ''Quiz Show''.

The story is revealed

After Stempel's scripted loss to the more-popular Van Doren on December 5, 1956, he blew the whistle on the operation. Initially, he was dismissed as a sore loser. It wasn't until August 1958 that his credibility was bolstered. Ed Hilgemeyer, a contestant on ''Dotto'', announced that he had found a notebook containing the very answers contestant Marie Winn was delivering on stage. But the final stroke came from ''Twenty-One'' contestant James Snodgrass, who had sent registered letters to himself containing the advance answers. Such evidence was irrefutable.
By October, the story was everywhere, and the quiz shows' ratings were dropping. The networks denied everything and canceled the now-suspicious shows. Meanwhile, New York prosecutor Joseph Stone convened a grand jury to investigate the charges. Many of the coached contestants, who had become celebrities due to their quiz show success, were afraid of the social repercussions. They were unwilling to confess, even to the point of committing perjury. The judge sealed the grand jury report.
Congress saw the political opportunity; in October, 1959, the Oren Harris-led House Committee on Legislative Oversight began to hold hearings investigating the scandal. Child actress Patty Duke testified to having been coached, as did Stempel, Snodgrass, and Hilgemeyer. But the bombshell dropped on November 2 when Van Doren said to the Committee "I was involved, deeply involved, in a deception. The fact that I too was very much deceived cannot keep me from being the principal victim of that deception, because I was its principal symbol."

Aftermath

Law and politics

The entire matter was called "a terrible thing to do to the American people" by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After concluding the Harris Commission investigation, Congress passed a law prohibiting the fixing of quiz shows.^[1] However, at the time, while the actions may have been disreputable, they were not illegal. As a result, no one went to prison for rigging game shows. The individuals who were prosecuted were charged because of attempts to cover up their actions, either by obstruction of justice or perjury.

Contestants

Quiz show contestants' reputations were ruined. Van Doren, who had become a regular on NBC's ''The Today Show'', lost his job in the television industry. He was also forced to resign his professorship at Columbia University.

Hosts and producers

Jack Barry and Dan Enright suffered the most from the scandals as the result of the rigging of ''Twenty-One''. Barry, who had no direct involvement in the rigging, did not work in national television for 10 years, while Enright headed to Canada to continue working in television. Although he went through a difficult five-year period (according to an interview he did with ''TV Guide'' before his death in 1984), Barry moved to Los Angeles and found work on local television as well as buying a Redondo Beach radio station. Barry and Enright would reunite their partnership in 1976 and the production of squeaky-clean game shows (notably ''Tic Tac Dough'' and ''The Joker's Wild'') of the mid to late 1970s resulted in millions of dollars in revenue and forgiveness from the public for their involvement in the scandals.
Other producers met the same fate as Barry and Enright, but were unable to redeem themselves afterwards.
Hosts such as Jack Narz and Hal March continued to work on television after the scandals. March died in 1970 from cancer, and Narz retired in 1980.

Television

Quiz shows all but disappeared from prime time American television for decades. Those that continued to air had substantially reduced prizes, and many shows adopted limits on the number of games a player could win (usually five). ''Quiz'' shows became ''game'' shows, shifting focus from knowledge to puzzles and word games. A quiz for big money would not return until ABC showed ''100 Grand'' in 1963; it went off the air after two weeks. The big-money jackpots returned to TV in 1973 with the success of the ''Pyramid'' series, starting with ''The $10,000 Pyramid''. Eleven years later came the Alex Trebek-hosted revival of ''Jeopardy!'' with its own increased dollar amounts.
Networks were forced to adapt winnings limits to meet standards and practices guidelines. The winnings cap limits on CBS game shows increased as follows:

★ '1959:' $500 (soon increased to $750) on daytime shows and $1,000 on primetime shows.

★ '1972:' Any contestants whose total winnings reached $25,000 would retire from the show on which they played, but could not keep any winnings over that amount.

★ '1978:' Contestants still retired after winning $25,000 but were allowed to keep up to $35,000 (increased to $50,000 by 1982) of their winnings.

★ '1984:' Contestants could keep up to $75,000. In November contestants retired after winning $50,000.

★ '1986:' Contestants retired after winning $75,000, but kept a maximum of $100,000.

★ 'early 1990s:' The limit for daytime winnings increased to $125,000.
NBC game show limits involved the maximum number of games a champion could play, with no limit on winnings. One contestant, Barbara Phillips, became the first daytime game show contestant to win over $100,000, by retiring with over $150,000 on Sale of the Century. ABC imposed a cap limit of $25,000 during the mid-1970s, despite requiring contestants to retire after winning $20,000. The limit would later require players to retire after winning over $25,000. The limit would be lifted by 1984. Today, the only network game show with a limit on winnings is ''The Price Is Right'' with a daytime limit of $125,000.
The game show earnings cap of $75,000, which resulted from the scandal, forced ''Jeopardy!'' contestant Frank Spangenberg to give up $27,597 of his $102,597 winnings to charity. After a second contestant gave up over $7,000, Jeopardy! raised its earnings cap on regular season shows, first to $100,000, then to $200,000 after automobiles were awarded for five-time champions, and removed after the show went to unlimited champions. Wheel of Fortune has imposed a winnings limit of $200,000, although no one has ever reached this amount as of 2007.
Networks required game shows to be heavily monitored by their standards and practices departments. Contestants were kept away from anybody who might know questions to be asked. The scandal also marked an end to widespread naming of television shows by their sponsors. Future game shows like ''The Price is Right'' or ''Let's Make a Deal'' were not sponsored by any one company.
It has been suggested that the scandals helped inspire Merv Griffin's 1964 introduction of ''Jeopardy!'' and its answer-and-question format, where contestants were given answers to the questions, but contestants had to give the question to win.
In addition, the major television networks took a greater hand in creative production to avoid similar problems in the future. This extended to changes to unrelated television series, like demanding that the premise of the dramatic series ''Mr. Lucky'' be changed from a riverboat casino to a restaurant to avoid the idea of games on prime time TV.

Other media

The altered reality of Philip K. Dick's ''Time out of Joint'' (1959) is a science fiction reworking of the deceptions Dick saw on the quiz shows.
These scandals are dramatized in the feature film ''Quiz Show''.
This scandal is an element of John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent.
A possible reference to the quiz show scandals was mentioned on The Simpsons Episode 9F08 "Lisa's First Word." Homer encourages his father to sell his house, to which Abe Simpson objects "I built this house with my own two hands". Homer replies "No, Dad. You won it, on one of those crooked 1950s game shows." Abe then laughs and remarks "I ratted everybody out and got away scot-free!"

More recent scandals

In 1984, ''Press Your Luck'' contestant Michael Larson memorized the patterns of the game board (which were believed to be random but in fact were predictably repetitive) to help him stop the board where and when he wanted. He took 47 "spins" without stopping on a "Whammy", which would have erased all his winnings; as a result, he accumulated $110,237 in cash and prizes. Larson's tactics became evident because, apparently, he had not devised an exit strategy. He had no way to stop to give other contestants a turn without the risk of losing his substantial winnings. Because Larson didn't cheat, but instead used his intelligence to exploit a flawed game design, ''Press Your Luck's'' network, CBS, gave him the money after Larson threatened a lawsuit. Afterward, CBS made the pattern of the game board more complex.
In an episode of the British ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' show (which airs on ITV1) recorded on September 10, 2001, Major Charles Ingram won the £1,000,000 prize. Following subsequent analysis of the tape by the producers of the show, it became apparent Ingram was being helped to select the correct answers by a fellow contestant coughing. The prize was not awarded and Ingram and accomplices were taken to court. Martin Flood, the second $1,000,000 winner on the Australian version of said show (which airs on the Nine Network) was also rumored to have been cheating in the same way Ingram did, but the rumor proved to be false thanks to an airing of the current affairs program ''Today Tonight'' (in fact, unlike Ingram, Flood wasn't even aware of the rumor until it came out following taping of his second episode). According to the show, the rumor was nothing more than a false report in need of boosting up Aussie ''Millionaire's ratings.
During a playing of 3 Strikes on ''The Price Is Right'' in 1992, a contestant was believed to be cheating; with two strikes against them and one number remaining in the bag, the contestant (allegedly) grabbed a number from the bag, noticed that it was the strike, and quickly dropped the chip to pull the number out of the bag and win the car. Despite the suspicion, the contestant was nevertheless awarded the prize; however, for the next several months, 3 Strikes used a new set of strike chips that were the same color as the number chips. Another contestant playing the same game on the same show four years earlier also appeared to be cheating in a similar way, but Bob Barker did notice, and he forced her to pull the chip out, and she lost the game.
Late in 2004, a phone-in game show from Greece suffered another scandal. TV presenters, station officials, and producers were arrested after being charged with fraud, after it was revealed that show organizers were only taking the calls of accomplices, who all gave purposefully wrong answers on an "outlandishly stupid quiz", according to an online article. They had made €10,000,000 of toll charges, with over 115,000 people calling over a 5-month period, without any of the honest participants getting through into the show. Some were kept on their phones for over 15 minutes before disconnection, although most gave up before that time. The producers tried out this system for themselves, running up a €225 bill for each attempt before being arrested.
In early 2006, some viewers of the UK version of Deal or No Deal noticed that the distribution of the prize amounts in the 22 numbered boxes did not appear to be random, and instead followed one of a small number of distinct sequences, with only the start point of the sequence varying. This was raised on a number of fan sites for the show and later made the national press. The show's producer revealed that the problem was due to a faulty Microsoft Excel random number generator used by the show's independent adjudicators, which was not being seeded properly which led to the same sequences being repeated, and had been noticed before most of the shows were broadcast, leading to the system being replaced by manual drawing of numbers. There was no evidence to suggest that any of the contestants, or the unseen Banker who makes monetary offers for the contestant's box, knew of the sequences - in theory, a contestant who had been aware of this could have won the £250,000 top prize by working out which box contained it, leaving it until last if it were not their own box, saying "no deal" all the way and then accepting the offer of a swap from the Banker (although there is no guarantee the swap will be offered in any particular game).

References

1. Enacted in the 1960 amendments to the Communications act. See 47 U.S.C. §509 and assoc. legislative history.


★ Prime Time and Misdemeanors: Investigating the 1950s TV Quiz Scandal, , Joseph, Stone, Rutgers University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8135-1753-2

★ Intellect on Television: The Quiz Show Scandals of the 1950s, , Richard, Tedlow, American Quarterly, 1976

See also

★ College Bowl

★ Quizbowl