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.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Rate Your Mate" from CBS (1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'videoarchives1000'
Length - 26:31 (total)

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

Every single year of television history there have been pilot episodes made for programs that were never picked up by the network. The game show genre has had more of these pilots than most types. Here we have one of these game show pilots that was never picked up as a regular series.

"Rate Your Mate" was an early game show pilot by Goodson-Todman Productions, based on a radio version of the same concept, that was made for CBS in 1951. Goodson-Todman had been producing TV game shows for a few years by '51, with its early flagship program, "What's My Line?", having premiered the previous year. "Rate Your Mate" has some characteristics that are similar to other early-1950s game shows (Goodson-Todman or otherwise), including a format that features a married couple as contestants, relatively simple gameplay, extremely small stakes for winning (maximum $100 here), and fairly crude production values.

In "Rate Your Mate", hosted by comedian Joey Adams, one spouse goes into a soundproof booth while the other spouse guesses whether or not they will correctly answer questions that are posed to them. Some of the questions are straight factual questions but other ones involve models either wearing or displaying objects which must be correctly identified. Three different couples appear in this pilot, each with varying success.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "Cavalcade of Stars" from DuMont (Oct. 26, 1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'WABDtv'
Length - 49:48

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"Cavalcade of Stars" started in June of 1949 on the DuMont network as a garden-variety early TV variety show--with dancers, singers, comedy sketches, and rotating hosts. Starting in July of 1950, one of those rotating hosts -- soon to become the show's only host -- was comedian Jackie Gleason. Gleason had been kicking around Hollywood for a number of years by 1950 and had appeared the previous year in the first version of the "Life of Riley" TV sitcom. "Cavalcade of Stars" would become the vehicle by which Gleason rocketed to stardom in TV comedy.

By fall of 1952, Gleason had been snapped up by the more prestigious CBS and "Cavalcade of Stars" moved over to the Tiffany Network, renamed "The Jackie Gleason Show". But before that, Gleason had a couple of solid seasons on DuMont as his star rose, and this episode is from the middle of that period, October of 1951. Most of Gleason's famous characters originated on the DuMont show, including Charlie Bratten ("The Loudmouth") and Reggie Van Gleason (both of which appear in the above episode), as well as the Honeymooners--which had appeared for the first time a few weeks before this episode aired.

This episode, after a brief monologue from Gleason (and his signature line "And away we go!"), begins with a dance number by the June Taylor Dancers, followed by a song from Georgia Gibbs. Gleason does a magic act which is followed by a musical/dance number called "Hangin' Around With You". The Loudmouth makes his appearance (with Art Carney's Clem Finch supporting) followed by a pair of songs. The show closes with a long sketch (that includes a comic musical performance) featuring Reggie Van Gleason, a character that lampoons upper class pretensions.

TFTP's Monochrome March Will Return After These Messages: Westinghouse ads from CBS (Apr. 2, 1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'
Length - 7:04

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

And every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. Monochrome March will return after these messages...

Here are all of the Westinghouse commercials from an April 1951 episode of CBS' "Studio One". In the first ad, Westinghouse celebrity spokeswoman Betty Furness demonstrates an electric dishwasher, an appliance that was still quite a novelty in the early-1950s and that was certainly not commonplace. (Note how she has to explain how to load dishes into the dishwasher, the model being demonstrated a top-loading drawer-style machine.)

The second ad features Furness showing off a frost-free refrigerator/freezer. She explains in some detail the process of automatic defrosting (where does that melted frost water go?) to those viewers who might wonder how such a thing is possible. The third and final Westinghouse ad, without Furness, is not for any particular appliance or product but is rather a general promotion of Westinghouse's research and development activity in the area of ultrasonic sound waves.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "You Asked for It" from DuMont (1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MeditationsBySharri'
Length - 29:22

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"You Asked for It" is a program that defies categorization and which has no real counterpart in today's TV landscape. The title is quite literal in that viewers sent in letters asking for something (an answer to a question, a particular type of guest or presentation) and the show gave it to them--with host Art Baker declaring "You asked for it!"

Airing on the DuMont network from 1950-51 and then ABC until 1959, "You Asked for It" fulfilled hundreds of such requests over the course of its run. In the episode featured here, soldiers get to see pin-up girls act out the pin-up photos they've appeared in, a pair of trained birds do charming tricks, a Hawaiian country music singer performs, and a group of actors from the "Our Gang" comedy shorts has a reunion. Baker interviews each of the former child actors about their lives since "Our Gang" and the actors are also reunited with crew members from their films (plus there is cake!).

Sponsored by Skippy peanut butter, several commercials are included here as well, including one very weird one in which host Art Baker tries to hypnotize the audience into liking Skippy.

TFTP Kids: "Quiz Kids" from NBC (1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'ClassicTVShows'

"Quiz Kids" was a renowned program that aired on both radio and TV throughout the 1940s and 1950s and gave inspiration to a generation or two of youngsters. Several children ranging in age from 12 to 16 formed a panel to which the moderator asked challenging questions sent in by viewers/listeners based on various areas of knowledge. The child panelists were regulars who rotated on and off of the panel for extended periods of time, thus fostering viewer/listener identification and familiarity. This is why many of the questions asked seem to hint at familiarity with the particular child on the part of the letter writer asking the question.

"Quiz Kids" was on radio on NBC from 1940 to 1953 and on TV on NBC and CBS simultaneously from 1949 to 1953, returning for a brief run in 1956. For most of this time, the program was sponsored by Alka Seltzer, thus the commercials for that product included here. The producer of the show was Louis G. Cowan, who would go on to produce the massively popular "$64,000 Question" on CBS in the mid-1950s, success that he would then parlay into the presidency of CBS for a short time before stepping down amid the quiz scandals of the late-1950s. At the time of this "Quiz Kids" episode in 1951, the show's host was Joe Kelly; "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie" host Fran Allison is subbing for him in this episode, which she addresses in a statement near the end of the episode.

"Quiz Kids" had a long-lasting influence on television, inspiring every high-school quiz challenge program that has appeared since, mainly by local stations drawing on children in their local area. Quite a few national versions or extensions of the program were tried over the years as well, and the program even was the inspiration for the quiz program and related characters in the Paul Thomas Anderson film "Magnolia".