I didn't know any of this. Not one bit of it. And it turned out to be unexpectedly interesting. The POW part is especially interesting. I never heard of Wonderama but should have. And I did know about the 64,000 Dollar Question scandal, but I did not know about Joyce Brothers memorizing boxing stats to prevail in that line of questioning.
He describes early t.v. as being rather goofy and a lot of fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants.
It is an interesting podcast hosted by Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast here. I realize you can take Gottfried only in small doses, and that's okay, here he is very good listener throughout and only laughs (maniacally) here and there. I have a feeling you might enjoy this even more than I did.
i-Tunes
3 comments:
He must be in his middle 90s.
I remember Wonderama.
My aunt and grandmother lived in Bergen County in North Jersey, so I saw all the NY stuff.
And local TV was all live wherever you were in the 50s, so those guys had to make it work the first time.
Of course, having 5 year olds as your audience helped.
The whole country came to a halt when that show reached the $64,000 level.
Quiz Show was the Robert Redford directed film that came out of the $64,000 scandal, where Mark Van Doren's son Charles was caught cheating. And a very good film it was. The telling scene in that film came with Charles Van Doren (played by Ralph Fiennes I think) up before a congressional committee and the committee more than willing to exonerate the charming connected upper-class Charles. At which point a no nonsense congressman cuts through the gush and lays down the moral law.
Wonderama was on Metromedia (which eventually became Fox). Wonderama was a pretty good kids show. Sonny Fox must be really old. I did not know he was a POW. I remember Bob McAllister on Wonderama.
I liked Uncle Floyd too.
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