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Rigged Game Shows From The 50's?

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Neumms:
[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Sep 30 2003, 03:36 PM\']

Also, when the scandals broke "TPIR" was accused of providing contestants with suggested levels to "FREEZE! FREEZE!"--when that hit the press, Goodson immediately announced that they were ending the practice. [/quote]
 Sorry to bring back an old thread, but can you or anybody else elaborate on this? I'd never heard this. Did they help all the contestants or some? And how did they merely stop the practice and go on, rather than be forcefully thrown off the air?

It reminds me of the old old Mad magazine parody, where a contestant keeps bidding exactly right but is crabby and dislikeable, so they let him win a rocket and blast him off in it.

uncamark:
[quote name=\'Neumms\' date=\'Oct 6 2003, 12:44 PM\'][quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Sep 30 2003, 03:36 PM\']

Also, when the scandals broke \"TPIR\" was accused of providing contestants with suggested levels to \"FREEZE! FREEZE!\"--when that hit the press, Goodson immediately announced that they were ending the practice. [/quote]
Sorry to bring back an old thread, but can you or anybody else elaborate on this? I'd never heard this. Did they help all the contestants or some? And how did they merely stop the practice and go on, rather than be forcefully thrown off the air?[/quote]
My sources on this was both Maxene Fabe's book and the press of the time (my term paper for a broadcasting course in college was on--surprise!--game shows).  I don't remember seeing any details on how extensive the assistance was, but the important thing is that instead of denying it like Enright, Goodson immediately owned up to it (and privately stopped the \"gambiting\" on the panel shows, which had never been revealed in the press of the time).  I'm sure there were those on his staff who thought that \"TPIR\" would die without contestant assistance, but it only ran another seven years in its original form.

The Ol' Guy:
Based on that comment on \"Two For The Money\", I remembered a story I had read about it - a third round question where the category was \"words that end in \"TH\". The writers thought it was a pretty safe question - the two players were struggling at first with words like \"with\", \"tooth\", \"booth\"...then one of them stumbled onto \"fifth\", and the teammate caught on immediately and rattled off \"sixth\", \"seventh\", etc. until time was up, and the pair made a bundle. The storyteller made it sound as though the writers hadn't thought of that possibility and the folks at GT were a bit chagrined over the cash won. I wonder if Brokaw was a bit mixed up - because there was a show called \"For Love Or Money\" on CBS that had a gimmick called \"the dancing decimal\"...never saw it, but the story goes that cash won by answering questions was registered on an electronic board with 5 digit slots - in other words, a win of $100 might look like ($) 10000. The decimal would normally be put right between the second and third zero (100.00). However, players were given choices of some sort ..perhaps between a prize of known value, or they could take a chance and take the cash that would be determined by the bouncing decimal - the player winning either $1, 10, 100, 1000, or $10,000. The rumor was that there was no way the decimal would land on the largest possible win - the prize total was fixed, as compared to the quizzing part. If anyone has more info on this, I'd love to hear it.

chris319:

--- Quote ---The storyteller made it sound as though the writers hadn't thought of that possibility and the folks at GT were a bit chagrined over the cash won.
--- End quote ---

This is a true story -- the writers hadn't thought of that exigency, and the incident gave (a probably fuming) Mark Goodson even more reason to be the \"worst-case-scenario\" planner that he was.

Matt Ottinger:

--- Quote ---I wonder if Brokaw was a bit mixed up
--- End quote ---
Definitely not.  His story about \"Two for the Money\" was a first-hand recollection that he describes in great detail in one of his books.

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