Sunday, June 7, 2009 $64,000 QUESTION DAY

The $64,000 Question, a 1955 summer replacement show, with host Hal March, premiered on this day. The first show became the most watched and talked about program on TV. Contestants had to answer 10 questions correctly beginning at $64 and doubling the amount with each correct answer upward to the $4,000 category. Getting this far got you a return trip to the show the following week. The consolation prize for an incorrect answer, after reaching the $8,000 plateau, was a new Cadillac. At this level, you got a free trip to the Revlon isolation booth where you literally sweated your way from $8,000 to $16,000 to $32,000, and finally, the big one. An expert was permitted to accompany the contestant at the $64,000 mark. If neither of them could answer the question correctly, the contestant received a consolation prize of $4,000. Questions were compiled by Dr. Bergen Evans.

This, the first of the big-money TV shows, attracted guests with unusual interests. Some of the better-remembered were Gino Prato, a Bronx, New York shoemaker who used his knowledge of opera to win $32,000, Jockey Billy Pearson, an art expert and one of the first to win $64,000, and psychologist Joyce Brothers, an expert in boxing, who won big not only in cash, but in her new career as media personality.

The biggest winner was 11-year-old Robert Strom, who won $192,000 (The $64,000 Question had added three new plateaus and several spin-off quiz shows: The $64,000 Challenge and The Big Surprise).

On November 2, 1958 we witnessed the demise of The $64,000 Question as the quiz-show-rigging scandal ended this type of show. The real $64,000 question will always be: was the show rigged or not?

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