Twenty-One (Game Show)
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40 free Twenty-One (Game Show) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Twenty-One was one of the most watched quiz shows of the 1950s, and then the most notorious. Two contestants stood in soundproof booths and tried to reach 21 points, while millions of viewers believed they were watching an honest contest of knowledge. They were not. Champions were chosen, coached and told when to lose, and the fallout reached a grand jury and the halls of Congress. This quiz covers the whole story: the rules of the game, the reign of Herb Stempel and the rise of Charles Van Doren, the contestant whose careful evidence backed up the cheating allegations, the hearings and the change in the law that followed, the people behind the cameras, the 2000 revival, and the 1994 film Quiz Show with its cast and its liberties. It is written for fans of classic television, for anyone who has just watched the film and wants to know what really happened, and for trivia hosts who need a round on game show history. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01Herb Stempel was ordered to answer wrongly on Twenty-One when asked for which Best Picture winner?
Marty
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.
Q 02What could Twenty-One's producers shut off in a booth to make its occupant look under strain?
The air conditioning
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.
Q 03Which star, who watched Twenty-One as a young acting student, directed the 1994 film Quiz Show?
Robert Redford
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.
Q 04Which iron-and-vitamin tonic, sold as a remedy for tiredness, sponsored the quiz show Twenty-One?
Geritol
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.
Q 05The stigma left by the Twenty-One scandal eased with the 1964 launch of which lower-stakes quiz?
Jeopardy
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.
Q 06Which tabloid talk-show host fronted the big-money revival of Twenty-One in early 2000?
Maury Povich
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.
Q 07Which president signed the 1960 law that outlawed rigged quiz shows after the Twenty-One scandal?
Dwight Eisenhower
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.
Q 08Quiz Show, the film about the Twenty-One scandal, lost the Best Picture Oscar to which hit?
Forrest Gump
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.
Q 09Which network aired Twenty-One from 1956 and later bought the quiz outright from its producers?
NBC
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.
Q 10Twenty-One's Charles Van Doren taught English at which university, like his father before him?
Columbia
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.
Q 11Charles Van Doren's run on Twenty-One put him on the cover of which weekly magazine in 1957?
Time
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.
Q 12After Twenty-One, Charles Van Doren became a regular on which program hosted by Dave Garroway?
Today
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.
Q 13Which actor posed as a lost motorist at Charles Van Doren's home to prepare for the film Quiz Show?
Ralph Fiennes
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.
Q 21James Snodgrass proved Twenty-One was rigged by doing what with the answers he was coached on?
Mailing them to himself
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.
Q 22What was the profession of Vivienne Nearing, who ended Charles Van Doren's reign on Twenty-One?
Lawyer
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.
Q 23Why did Twenty-One's sponsor demand changes after the first broadcast, which was played honestly?
Q 14Which famous film director plays the tough boss of Twenty-One's sponsor in the 1994 drama Quiz Show?
Martin Scorsese
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.
Q 15With quiz rigging not yet a crime, Twenty-One's Charles Van Doren pleaded guilty to which offense?
Perjury
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.
Q 16After the Twenty-One scandal, Charles Van Doren spent decades as an editor of which reference work?
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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.
Q 17Twenty-One was launched to compete with which Revlon-sponsored quiz, a ratings hit since 1955?
The $64,000 Question
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.
Q 18Which actor gained 25 pounds to play Twenty-One champion Herb Stempel in the 1994 film Quiz Show?
John Turturro
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.
Q 19Which host of Twenty-One, a co-owner of the company behind it, later fronted The Joker's Wild?
Jack Barry
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.
Q 20Which producer of Twenty-One admitted supplying answers and later rebuilt his career in Canada?
Dan Enright
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.
Both players kept missing
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.
Q 24How did Charles Van Doren first react when Congress sought his testimony about Twenty-One in 1959?
He went into hiding
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.
Q 25What did Charles Van Doren do when offered $100,000 to consult on the film Quiz Show?
He turned it down
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.
Q 26Which other quiz from the makers of Twenty-One was caught in the scandal and revived in 1978?
Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough lost its evening edition at the end of 1958 as the investigation spread. Its 1978 revival ran for eight years.
Q 27Twenty-One champion Herb Stempel, billed as a struggling ex-serviceman, studied at which school?
City College
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.
Q 28Mark Van Doren, father of Twenty-One champion Charles, won a Pulitzer Prize in which field?
Poetry
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.
Q 29Which congressional investigator of Twenty-One wrote the memoir behind the 1994 film Quiz Show?
Richard Goodwin
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.
Q 30Which actor earned an Oscar nomination as Charles Van Doren's father in the film Quiz Show?
Paul Scofield
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.