40 Fun Facts About Twenty-One (Game Show)

Herb Stempel was ordered to answer wrongly on Twenty-One when asked for which Best Picture winner?

Marty was a film Stempel knew well and counted among his favorites, yet he was scripted to name On the Waterfront, the previous year's winner. The surviving broadcast shows the game still ended in a tie.

What could Twenty-One's producers shut off in a booth to make its occupant look under strain?

The air conditioning in either booth could be cut so that a contestant visibly sweated on camera. Contestants were also told when to mop their brows, as though they were actors.

Which star, who watched Twenty-One as a young acting student, directed the 1994 film Quiz Show?

Robert Redford said the contestants struck him as fellow actors, yet he never doubted what he was watching. His film about the scandal earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Which iron-and-vitamin tonic, sold as a remedy for tiredness, sponsored the quiz show Twenty-One?

Geritol was made by Pharmaceuticals, Inc., whose spokesman blamed falling ratings when the quiz was dropped in 1958. Regulators later fined the brand over its tiredness claims.

The stigma left by the Twenty-One scandal eased with the 1964 launch of which lower-stakes quiz?

Jeopardy won viewers back with small prizes and clues an ordinary viewer could answer. Its top champion across the original eleven-year run took home less than $12,000.

Which tabloid talk-show host fronted the big-money revival of Twenty-One in early 2000?

Maury Povich hosted the revival, which arrived once Who Wants to Be a Millionaire had made big-money quizzes viable for the networks again. One champion won $1,765,000 over six games.

Which president signed the 1960 law that outlawed rigged quiz shows after the Twenty-One scandal?

Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill in September 1960, because fixing a quiz had not been a crime while Twenty-One was on the air. The same law banned gifts to members of the broadcast regulator.

Quiz Show, the film about the Twenty-One scandal, lost the Best Picture Oscar to which hit?

Forrest Gump won six Oscars that night, while the scandal drama converted none of its four nominations. Its American takings were a small fraction of the winner's.

Which network aired Twenty-One from 1956 and later bought the quiz outright from its producers?

NBC carried the quiz from its first night and later owned it outright. When the fix came out, its president insisted the network had been as much a victim as the viewers.

Twenty-One's Charles Van Doren taught English at which university, like his father before him?

Columbia accepted his resignation after he confessed to Congress in 1959. He had earned about $4,400 a year there before the quiz made him a celebrity.

Charles Van Doren's run on Twenty-One put him on the cover of which weekly magazine in 1957?

Time put him on its cover while he was still champion, and viewers were sending him about 500 letters a week. So many strangers phoned that he took an unlisted number.

After Twenty-One, Charles Van Doren became a regular on which program hosted by Dave Garroway?

Today made him a regular and even let him fill in as host, under a network contract worth $150,000. He was dropped from the program after his confession in 1959.

Which actor posed as a lost motorist at Charles Van Doren's home to prepare for the film Quiz Show?

Ralph Fiennes found Van Doren reading on his porch and asked for directions, later calling the visit crucial to capturing his accent. The director had first hoped to cast an American.

Which famous film director plays the tough boss of Twenty-One's sponsor in the 1994 drama Quiz Show?

Martin Scorsese was cast for his rapid-fire delivery, which the film's maker thought would make a tough character quietly menacing. The real executive's name was changed for legal reasons.

With quiz rigging not yet a crime, Twenty-One's Charles Van Doren pleaded guilty to which offense?

Perjury was the charge because he had denied the fix to a New York grand jury. Record winner Elfrida von Nardroff and other former contestants admitted the same offense in 1962.

After the Twenty-One scandal, Charles Van Doren spent decades as an editor of which reference work?

Encyclopaedia Britannica hired him in 1959, and he rose to vice-president before retiring in 1982. At first he published his own books under a pseudonym.

Twenty-One was launched to compete with which Revlon-sponsored quiz, a ratings hit since 1955?

The $64,000 Question beat every other Tuesday program almost at once after its debut. It too was cancelled in November 1958 as the scandal spread.

Which actor gained 25 pounds to play Twenty-One champion Herb Stempel in the 1994 film Quiz Show?

John Turturro also changed his voice to match Stempel's, and the real Stempel advised on the production. Stempel still felt the portrayal of him went over the top.

Which host of Twenty-One, a co-owner of the company behind it, later fronted The Joker's Wild?

Jack Barry was kept off national television for more than a decade by the scandal. He bought a California radio station partly to prove that regulators would still license him.

Which producer of Twenty-One admitted supplying answers and later rebuilt his career in Canada?

Dan Enright chose to rig the quiz the morning after its first broadcast, when the sponsor rang to complain. He reunited with his old partner in the 1970s to make game shows again.

James Snodgrass proved Twenty-One was rigged by doing what with the answers he was coached on?

Mailing them to himself by registered post, before each broadcast, left Snodgrass with postmarked envelopes whose dates no one could dispute. Earlier accusations had been brushed off for lack of hard evidence.

What was the profession of Vivienne Nearing, who ended Charles Van Doren's reign on Twenty-One?

Lawyer Vivienne Nearing tied the champion in three straight games before beating him in March 1957. Her husband Victor had lost to him that January.

Why did Twenty-One's sponsor demand changes after the first broadcast, which was played honestly?

Both players kept missing, which left the first night without drama or suspense. The producers responded by rigging the games and coaching contestants on when to pause.

How did Charles Van Doren first react when Congress sought his testimony about Twenty-One in 1959?

He went into hiding to dodge the committee's subpoena, then reappeared a month into the hearings and confessed. He told reporters he had lived in dread for almost three years.

What did Charles Van Doren do when offered $100,000 to consult on the film Quiz Show?

He turned it down after a family meeting at which his wife was adamant that he should have nothing to do with the film. Herb Stempel, by contrast, worked on the film as a consultant.

Which other quiz from the makers of Twenty-One was caught in the scandal and revived in 1978?

Tic-Tac-Dough lost its evening edition at the end of 1958 as the investigation spread. Its 1978 revival ran for eight years.

Twenty-One champion Herb Stempel, billed as a struggling ex-serviceman, studied at which school?

City College charged no tuition, and Stempel said on air that he would give some winnings to its fund to repay the city for his education. In truth his wife's family was comfortably off.

Mark Van Doren, father of Twenty-One champion Charles, won a Pulitzer Prize in which field?

Poetry won Mark Van Doren the 1940 prize, a year after his brother Carl took the Pulitzer for a biography of Benjamin Franklin. The producers saw that literary family as the ideal face for their quiz.

Which congressional investigator of Twenty-One wrote the memoir behind the 1994 film Quiz Show?

Richard Goodwin was a young counsel to the House committee, and the film draws on one chapter of his memoir. He went on to write speeches for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination as Charles Van Doren's father in the film Quiz Show?

Paul Scofield played the professor father, and one critic called it his best work since A Man for All Seasons. Another felt the film found its soul in the scenes between father and son.

In 2008 Charles Van Doren broke decades of silence about Twenty-One with an essay in which magazine?

The New Yorker ran his memoir of the affair, in which he revealed he had not even owned a television set when he was recruited. He also objected to the film's claim that he never taught again.

Claims about Twenty-One gained weight when a notebook of answers was found at which other quiz?

Dotto was abruptly cancelled in August 1958 after a standby contestant reported the notebook, which held the answers meant for the reigning champion. A New York grand jury began its investigation soon afterward.

Herb Stempel's final error on Twenty-One was the title of an editorial by which Kansas newspaperman?

William Allen White wrote the piece for his Emporia Gazette, and Stempel told the host that guessing would not help. His better-known slip, about a Best Picture winner, had only produced a tie.

What rare step did a judge take with the 1959 grand jury report on Twenty-One and other quizzes?

The judge sealed it from the public, a move with almost no precedent in the state. The district attorney protested, and suspicion of a cover-up drew Congress into the affair.

Which game from the makers of Twenty-One took over its Thursday slot after the 1958 cancellation?

Concentration filled the gap with the same sponsor and the same host, but its evening run lasted only four weeks. Its daytime edition outlived the scandal and ran until 1973.

Congress answered the Twenty-One scandal by amending which 1934 law to ban fixed quiz outcomes?

The Communications Act was amended in 1960 so that fixing a contest of knowledge or skill became illegal. Until then there had been no law for the producers to break.

Before Twenty-One, Herb Stempel spent years in counterintelligence for which US military branch?

The Army kept Stempel for seven years after the war and sent him to its counterintelligence school in Baltimore. Charles Van Doren later misremembered his rival as a Marine.

On the original 1950s Twenty-One, what happened to a contestant's score after a wrong answer?

The points were deducted, though a score could never drop below zero. The 2000 revival scrapped the penalty and gave contestants a strike for each mistake instead.

In the 2000 revival of Twenty-One, the Second Chance let a stuck contestant get help from whom?

A friend or relative could be called on once per game, but the help carried a risk. A wrong answer after a Second Chance cost two strikes instead of one.

Which studio made the film Quiz Show through its Hollywood Pictures label after TriStar dropped it?

Disney put $20 million into the budget once a director had signed on. It opened the film in a handful of cinemas before widening the release.