For more than fifty years, the quiz show has thrived on American television and radio. From Pot o' Gold and The $64,000 Question to Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, quiz and game programs have entertained and informed millions of Americans, promoted and sold untold quantities of products, generated fortunes for their creators and producers, and filled the pockets of a multitude of jackpot winners. In this volume, Thomas DeLong offers the first in-depth history of quiz and game formats available in print. He describes how mass communications transformed the old parlor guessing games into enormously popular features on radio and television and examines their impact on American society and the consumer marketplace. DeLong also explores their decline in the wake of the quiz scandal inquiry of the late 1950s and their subsequent revival as new shows on daytime TV that began to build up a loyal following. Quiz Craze is enhanced by the recollections, insights, and anecdotes of many who brought the quiz show genre to listeners and viewers. Producers, directors, gamemakers, writers, emcees, panelists, and advertisers have added their first-hand observations on the inner workings and widespread influence of quiz show programming. Former contestants and their families offer reminiscences from shows such as To Tell the Truth, What's My Line?, Name That Tune, and many others. DeLong also draws on the resources of key organizations in the broadcast field, archival records, and published media reports to demonstrate the extraordinary popularity of the game show format.
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
This history of radio and TV quiz shows is an enjoyable and informative look at a truly American media phenomenon. DeLong, author of Pops: Paul Whiteman, King of Jazz ( LJ 1/84), marshalls a vast array of anecdotal perspectives as well as hard facts to show the effects, for better and worse, of quiz shows over the past 50 years. His chronicling of the early days of quiz-mania on radio is particularly welcome, as is his discussion of the little-known attempt by the FCC in the late 1940s to shut down the shows on the basis that they were illegal lotteries. The quiz scandals of the 1950s, a pretty worn topic, are given lean but significant treatment. An appendix entitled "Program Data" lists quiz and game shows in alphabetical order by title, and also includes original running dates, network, and masters-of-ceremony information in each entry. This is an especially good choice for public libraries, and academic libraries with pop culture interests may wish to consider as well.
- David M. Turkalo, Social Law Lib., Boston
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- David M. Turkalo, Social Law Lib., Boston
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A conscientious but uninvolving history of American quiz shows from the 30's on. Hundreds of dedicated radio and TV fans could have outlined this book themselves: the pioneer radio successes of Vox Populi and Professor Quiz; the rapid spread of quiz shows across the country; the phenomenon of the Quiz Kids; the impact of WW II (mostly uniforms and boosterism) on the genre; the shift to the competing medium of TV; the 1958 quiz-fixing scandals; the return of game shows on daytime TV. DeLong (Pops: Paul Whiteman, King of Jazz, 1983) adds breadth--details culled from old newspaper and magazine stories, published reminiscences, and more recent interviews--without depth. The result is a breathless Cook's tour of over 250 game shows with few memorable portraits (Groucho Marx, Charles Van Doren, Mark Goodson) and even fewer insights along the subtitle's promised line (a typical conclusion: ``Quiz and game shows remain a part of a new Horatio Alger story: get on a show and strike it rich''). DeLong's determination to say something about so many different shows leads him to say pretty much the same thing--opening date, thumbnail sketch of emcee, one or two anecdotes (enraptured audiences, intransigent contestants, unzipped flies)--about each one. As social history, the text adds surprisingly little to the appended production credits; as narrative, it rarely strays from the ``that-reminds-me-of-Allen-Ludden's-other-show'' category. (Twenty-one photographs, mostly of emcees lording it over their studio sets.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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