In a world where $80 cable bills and
monthly cellphone charges in excess of $100 are not uncommon, where
the cost of producing a penny exceeds the coin's face value by a
significant percentage, where the price of filling the gas tank can
sometimes exceed what many of us paid for our first car, it can be
refreshing to hear Old Time Radio Quiz Shows where the prize is often
ten dollars or less.
Obviously ten bucks had a lot more
"meaning" in the 1940s and 50s than it does in the 21st
century, but there is a definite feeling that the radio quiz shows were
more about fun and entertainment than about giving away or winning
large sums of money. There were exceptions; on the wildly popular
Queen
For a Day the contestants were often competing for some
serious help from the sponsors, as well as a suite of rather
glamorous prizes in the form of housewares, appliances, and beauty
supplies and treatments. It
Pays To Be Married also gave some rather significant prizes
in the form of merchandise, as well as a not insignificant $250 cash
prize. The merchandise was usually "product placement",
celebrity guests like Phil Harris and Alice Faye were probably well
supplied with kitchen appliances, but it is delightful to hear other
wives squeal with delight when they learn that a coffee percolator is
among their prizes!
On "Stump the Panel" format
Quiz Shows listeners would send in their questions for the panel to
answer, winning a small prize if their question was chosen, and a
larger prize if the celebrity panel blew the answer. On Information
Please the value of the prizes increased with sponsor turnover;
beginning as a sustained program questions were awarded $2 if they
were used and $5 if the panel wasn't able to come up the correct
answer, the prizes bumped up to $5 and $10 along with a set of
encyclopedias under Canada Dry's sponsorship, then to $10 and $25
with Lucky Strikes. Prizes topped out after American Tobacco was
"fired" as a sponsor because of untruthful advertising, new
sponsor Heinz made the top prize $57 in relation to their famous
spicy sauce.
Entertainment was definitely a higher priority than prizes on Ralph Edwards' Truth or Consequences. Again the show was supposedly based on questions sent in by listeners for a potential $10 prize, but the real fun of the show happened when the in-studio contestant could come up with a correct answer, and had to face the Consequences. The ever wilder stunts they were required to attempt were labeled by Life magazine as "the closest thing to insanity on the radio today."
One of the funniest quiz shows was
Groucho
Marx's You
Bet Your Life. As well known as Groucho was for his cutting
put downs, he seemed to be unhappy if his contestants walked away
empty handed, and would sometimes throw in a "give away
question". Groucho is given credit for questions like "What
color is the White House?" and "Who was buried in Grant's
Tomb?" entering popular usage. He did hae the tables turned when
a contestant got the Grant's Tomb question "wrong"; the
contestant pointed out that Grant's Tomb is an above-ground
mausoleum, so no one was "buried" in it!
Quiz Show prize money became rather
notorious on television. A notable exception was What's
My Line?, which paid $5 for each wrong answer from the panel
for a maximum payout of $50, this was to insure the game was played
strictly for fun. During the 50's there was scandal and accusations
of manipulations of the results of popular TV game shows, among them
The $64,000 Question. Sponsors allegedly either provided
answers to popular contestants, or saw to it that increasingly
difficult questions were given to less popular players (Dr. Joyce
Brothers was supposed to be eliminated in this fashion, but she
befuddled the producers by continually giving the correct answer).
For all the scandal on TV, The $64,000 Question was
inspired by the very fun radio quiz show, Take It Or LeaveIt, which topped out with a
sixty four dollar question.
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