Posted on 05/31/2020 11:46:08 AM PDT by Borges
In the isolation booth, Herb Stempel bit his lip to show tension. He dabbed sweat from his brow and sighed into the microphone. And as 50 million viewers hung in suspense, he seemed to agonize over the question in his last appearance on the rigged NBC quiz show “Twenty-One.”
What movie won the Academy Award for best picture in 1955?
It was Dec. 5, 1956, and Mr. Stempel, a City College student from Queens, was in his eighth week on the show, posing as a nerdy know-it-all. He had won $49,500. But his new rival was Charles Van Doren, a golden-boy Columbia University instructor, and the uninspiring Mr. Stempel was scripted to take a dive.
“On the Waterfront,” he said, knowing the answer was “Marty,” one of his favorites.
While Mr. Van Doren went on to become the most celebrated (and, later, vilified) contestant of the quiz-show era, on the cover of Time magazine and inundated with fan mail and contract offers, Mr. Stempel might have become a forgotten man. Instead, he helped blow the cover off one of the major scandals of the age, telling the news media, prosecutors and congressional investigators that it was all a hoax.
Mr. Stempel, who became a high school social studies teacher in New York and later worked for the city’s Department of Transportation, died on April 7. He was 93. His death, which was not publicly announced, was confirmed by a former stepdaughter, Bobra Fyne.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Fake news (and entertainment) has a long history.
wonder what he got paid to be the contestant-
Trump got rid of another one?
Though a hoax, it seems the carefully scripted program served to set the stage for what are now known as “reality shows.” And viewers are equally gullible now as then.
RIP.
The fake CNN townhall debate where Hillary received the questions (but not Bernie) will never get this level of exposure.
a rigged debate is a rigged election
I am a bit suspicious of Jeopardy.
Not that I think they are giving them the answers but there are ways to favor certain people.
Stempel blew the whistle on the rigged “Twenty-One” game show only because they didn’t give him everything they had promised him. The poor sap did not realize that he was a patsy from day one.
Who knows? Had NBC not been so careless, Twenty-One” might still be on today. Still rigged, but now hosted by Hillary Clinton.
The witch also got the questions to the first Trump/Clinton debate. She even had with enough time to focus group the answers.
During the recent Teachers Tournament, there was a whole category about choirs.
One of the contestants was a CHOIR TEACHER.
And he won by running the category.
I am a voice and choir teacher too, and I was not happy about what looked like a set-up.
Ok but just to play devils advocate Donald Trump hosted his own reality show so where does that put us and him. I never watched his show so can anyone defend it as being not the usual?
"Everybody knows the magician doesn't cut the lady in half."
Quiz Show. Very entertaining movie.
If the producers simply had him miss a very difficult question (e.g., a physics question), Stempel wouldn’t have felt humiliated and sought revenge. Instead, the producers wanted to shock the audience by having Stempel miss what was an easy question for him and the rest is history.
It was probably not a set-up. I’ve read that the Jeopardy categories are randomly assigned. And for them to do otherwise would be insane.
So I’m guessing that the choir teacher just got lucky. But such luck should not be factor in the game. I recall one game where one category was “The New Testament”. So if you were a Jewish contestant, you were just outta luck.
I knew they’d catch up to him sooner or later.
I’ve never seen the expression “former stepdaughter” before. I assume it means that her mother is Mr. Stempel’s ex-wife. I guess it sounds better than “ex-stepdaughter.”
I’ve never seen the expression “former stepdaughter” before. I assume it means that her mother is Mr. Stempel’s ex-wife. I guess it sounds better than “ex-stepdaughter.”
And I love it that the program was sponsored by Geritol - from their Wikipedia entry:
“In 1965, the FTC ordered the makers of Geritol to disclose that Geritol would relieve symptoms of tiredness only in persons who suffer from iron deficiency anemia, and that the vast majority of people who experience such symptoms do not have such a deficiency. Geritol’s claims were discredited in court findings as “conduct amounted to gross negligence and bordered on recklessness,” ruled as a false and misleading claim, and heavily penalized with fines totaling $812,000 ($4,335,739 in 2015 dollars),[7] the largest FTC fine up to that date (1973)”
I have read that they do all kinds of things to assure no cheating, including what you said.
I still think they may be dishonest. The main reason is in the last few years they have several times had answers which are not cut and dried but they treat them as fact.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.