Quiz Kids
Encyclopedia
Alka-Seltzer
Alka-Seltzer is an effervescent antacid and pain reliever first marketed by the Dr. Miles Medicine Company. It was developed by Treneer in Elkhart Indiana. Alka-Seltzer is marketed for relief of minor aches, pains, inflammation, fever, headache, heartburn, sour stomach, indigestion, and hangovers,...
, the series was first broadcast on NBC from Chicago, June 28, 1940, airing as a summer replacement show for Alec Templeton Time
Alec Templeton
Alec Templeton was a Welsh composer, pianist and satirist.Templeton was born in Cardiff, Wales. Blind from birth, he studied at London's Royal Academy.-Radio:...
. It continued on radio for the next 13 years. On television, the show was seen on NBC and CBS from July 6, 1949 to July 5, 1953, with Joe Kelly as quizmaster, and again from January 12 to September 27, 1956, with Clifton Fadiman as host.
The premise of the original show involved Kelly asking questions sent in by listeners and researched by Eliza Hickok and Rachel Stevenson. Kelly often said that he was not an intellectual, and that he could not have answered any of the questions without knowing the answer from his flash card. Yet he was remarkably kind and affable, and put even novice young contestants at ease immediately. The answers were supplied by a panel of five children, chosen for their high IQs, strong academic interests, and appealing personalities, as well as such qualities as poise, quickness, and sense of humor. One of the first Quiz Kids was seven-year-old nature expert Gerard Darrow. For the initial premiere panel he was joined by Mary Ann Anderson, Joan Bishop, Van Dyke Tiers and Charles Schwartz.
Other Quiz Kids of the 1940s were Joan Alizier, Claude Brenner, Geraldine Hamburg, Mary Clare McHugh, war refugee Gunther Hollander and math experts Joel Kupperman
Joel J. Kupperman
Joel J. Kupperman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, most renowned for his Six Myths about the Good Life, a popular philosophical volume centering on those values most worth engaging in human life...
and Richard Williams
Richard Llewellyn Williams
Richard Llewellyn Williams, was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service who, over three decades as a career U.S. diplomat, opened the first American consulate in mainland China since the 1940s , served as the first U.S...
. Panelists rotated, with the three top scorers each week joined by two others the following week; they were no longer eligible to participate once they reached the age of 16.
New York and Chicago
In 1949-50 the program was expanded to New York, where a series of competitions determined the panelists. Students from the New York City area were chosen from questionnaires distributed to elementary schools, and were "interviewed" in panels where questions simulating those sent in by listeners were used. Those chosen from the interviews competed weekly for Quiz Kid of the month, with the two weekly winners from each show going on to the monthly "finals". Monthly winners later competed against each other on another panel, from which the overall winner was chosen. There were also parallel shows hosted by Durward KirbyDurward Kirby
Homer Durward Kirby , known professionally as Durward Kirby , was an American television host and announcer...
, involving some of the same panelists.
Norman Lane, age nine, was the winner of the monthly competitions and went on the air in Chicago in one show with the Chicago group. Malcolm Mitchell, age 12, won the three competitions on the parallel series of shows, with Lane second each time, and was selected by the producers to be on several shows with the Chicago Quiz Kid group at NBC Studios in New York. These notably included one where the Kids defeated a group of university professors from New York in "general knowledge" topics. Mitchell, later a medical professor at Yale, had the special talent of "perfect pitch" (able to identify musical notes and chords with certainty), which made for interesting radio moments aside from answering straight questions.
A television program, now in The Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles, was filmed in 1950 with Milton Berle as guest host and featured the Chicago Quiz Kids. The popularity of the television series never approached that of the radio programs, which first aired on Wednesday evenings and later on Sundays and had a devoted following of both adults and children. The Quiz Kids not only spawned a host of quiz shows starring both extraordinary and ordinary people, but also gave rise to the now more-popular term "Whiz Kids," first applied to the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...
"Whiz Kids
Whiz Kids (baseball)
The Whiz Kids was a nickname given to the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies in Major League Baseball. This team, averaging only 26.4 years of age, won the National League pennant during that season.After owner R. R. M. Carpenter, Jr...
", and later to several cabinet members in the Kennedy Administration. One of the notable ex-Quiz Kids is the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning biologist James D. Watson
James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick...
. Others include actor and dialect coach Robert Easton
Robert Easton (actor)
Robert Easton is an American actor whose career in film and television spans more than 60 years. His mastery of English dialect has earned him the epithet "The Man of a Thousand Voices", For decades he has been a leading Hollywood dialogue or accent coach.Easton was born Robert Easton Burke in...
, legendary Hollywood acting coach Roy London, producer Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.-Early years:...
, poet Marilyn Hacker
Marilyn Hacker
Marilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator and critic. She is Professor of English at the City College of New York....
, Mayo Clinic Chief of Staff Richard Sedlack, and actress Vanessa Brown
Vanessa Brown
Vanessa Brown was an Austrian-American actress who was successful in radio, film, theater, and television.-Early life:...
(deceased).
Later versions
Quiz Kids has been revived five times since the original television series:- Quiz Kids was telecast in weekly syndication from April to September 1978. Jim McKrell was the host. The series originated from WNAC-TV (now WHDH-TVWHDH-TVWHDH, digital channel 42 , is an NBC-affiliated television station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest NBC station not owned by the network. Owned by Sunbeam Television, WHDH is a sister station to CW affiliate WLVI...
) in Boston. - The program appeared again from October 12, 1981 to December 15, 1982 on CBS CableCBS CableCBS Cable was an early cable network operated by CBS, Inc., dedicated to the lively arts . It debuted in October 1981 and ceased operations on December 17, 1982.-As a network:...
, hosted by Norman LearNorman LearNorman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
. - The Quiz Kids ChallengeQuiz Kids ChallengeThe Quiz Kids Challenge is an American game show series that aired in syndication from September 10 to December 28, 1990. It was a slightly different version of the Quiz Kids, and was hosted by Jonathan Prince and announced by Johnny Gilbert and Charlie Tuna.-Gameplay:A team of three Quiz Kids...
, which featured a panel of three kids playing against three adults, aired in daily syndication in 1990. Jonathan PrinceJonathan PrinceJonathan Alexander Prince is an American actor, director, screenwriter and movie producer.-Career:Prince embarked on an acting career following graduation from Harvard University. His most prominent roles include "Leo" in the 1981 CBS series Mr...
hosted this version. - Quiz Kids is the name of a Bay Area teen game show, aired on KRON-TVKRON-TVKRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...
. - The New Quiz KidsThe New Quiz KidsThe New Quiz Kids was a short-lived television series, based on the 1950s game show Quiz Kids. Two separate seasons were produced in Canada in 1978-1979 by the Global Television Network in association with RKO Television and Columbia Pictures....
aired in 1978-1979 on Global Television NetworkGlobal Television NetworkGlobal Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
, hosted by Terry David MulliganTerry David MulliganTerry David Mulligan is a Canadian actor and radio and television personality based in Vancouver, British Columbia.Born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Mulligan's first career was as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in Olds, Alberta and Red Deer, Alberta from 1960 through 1964...
.