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Thank you. and more. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American Scandal.

Music Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal. When the Quiz Show 21 started airing on NBC in 1956, it was not rigged yet.

But the ratings were so poor that the sponsor, Geritol, put host Jack Barry and producer Dan

Enright on notice, make it more exciting or else. Two years later, 21 was a hit, but it was

also embroiled in a growing controversy over whether TV quiz shows, which purported to show

everyday people engaged in real contests of knowledge and skill were actually all scripted and

staged. 21 was not the only quiz show revealed to be at least

partially rigged, but it became the most infamous, largely because it had the best-known champion

in Charles Van Doren. Charming, articulate, and charismatic, Van Doren became a popular media figure

in his own right, and then the face of a scandal that changed

the way Americans watched television.

One of my guests today is Howard Blumenthal, a longtime TV producer and co-founder of the

National Archives of Game Show History. His father, a TV producer himself, worked on 21, and

when Dan Enright and other producers implicated in the scandal

left the show, it fell to him to produce the final episode. Also joining me is the other

co-founder of the National Archives of Game Show History, Bob Bowden. He's an executive producer

of Funny You Should Ask, and between them, they've known, worked for, or interviewed many

...