TFTP On This Day: "Winner Takes All" from CBS (Apr. 17, 1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Game Shows n' Stuff'
Length - 28:46

It Was 67 Years Ago Today: "Winner Takes All" is a landmark program in broadcasting history, especially for game show history--it was the first game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. In addition, it was the first show hosted by game-show icon (and Goodson-Todman mainstay) Bill Cullen. "Winner Takes All" began on radio in 1946 and on TV in 1948; the episode above, which is from the program's brief daytime stint in 1951, first aired 67 years ago today.

Barry Gray is the host of the above episode, and he's not exactly the most endearing game-show host ever. He's a bit dismissive of the contestants and seems more interested in cracking wise than in facilitating the gameplay. The gameplay is pretty simple and consists of the host asking the contestants questions (many of them based on brief little skits that are presented) to which the contestants try to "buzz in" on. One contestant had an actual buzzer, the other a bell--with respective symbols for buzzer and bell displayed in front of them. (TV game shows were young. Viewers needed some help.)

The radio and TV versions of "Winner Takes All" combined had about six years on the air, from 1946 until 1952. In these earliest years of TV history, networks tended to keep bringing back programs again and again, and networks more often picked up existing programs that had been dropped by other networks. Both happened with "Winner Takes All": CBS kept the game going in a few different formats (including as a segment on the daytime variety program "Matinee in New York") for several years before cancelling it for good in 1951, when it was picked up by NBC, where it ran for an additional year.