Twenty-One (game show)

Twenty One was one of the most infamous American game shows on record - a popular, yet thoroughly rigged, quiz show that spawned the single most popular contestant of the quiz show era, and which nearly caused the demise of the entire genre in the wake of Senate investigations.

Broadcast History

Twenty One was produced as a weekly live broadcast on NBC from September 12, 1956 to October 16, 1958. Jack Barry was the host.

Gameplay

Two contestants, a champion and a challenger, are each placed in separate isolation booths, arranged so they cannot see or hear each other. With the champion's booth turned off, the host revealed the category for that round of questions and asked the challenger to pick a point value to play for, from one to eleven points. The more points a question was worth, the more difficult that question was. A correct answer added those points to the player's score, while an incorrect one deducted them (though it could never drop into negative numbers). After the question, the challenger's booth is turned off and the champion is given the same category and choice of questions.

Neither player is made aware of his or her opponent's score. The object was to score a total of 21 points, or come closer to that number than your opponent. After two categories were played, both booths were opened up and both players given the option to stop the game right then and there. If either player elected to end the game, no matter which one it was, the player in the lead at that point would win. If the challenger reached 21 points before the champion, the champion was given one last chance to catch up and send the game to a 21-21 tie; in this case, the challenger's booth was left open so he or she could know what was going on.

Champions recieved money based on how large the difference in the scores was. Payoffs started at $500 for each point difference (for instance, a champion who won a game by a score of 21-17 would win $2,000), but that figure increased by $500 each time the players went to a 21-21 tie. After each win, the champion was told a little bit about his or her next opponent and given the option to walk away; the risk to a champion's winnings was that if he or she was defeated, the new champion's first-game winnings were paid out of the outgoing champion's total.

The Scandal

The initial broadcast of Twenty One was played honestly, with no manipulation of the game by the producers. Unfortunately, that broadcast was, in the words of producer Dan Enright, "a disaster"; the first two contestants succeeded only in making a mockery of the format by how little they really knew. The show's sponsor, upon seeing this opening-night performance, reportedly became furious with the results, and angrily ordered the rigging of Twenty One so as to prevent a repeat of this incident.

The end result: Twenty One was not merely "fixed," it was almost totally choreographed. Contestants were cast almost as if they were actors, and in fact were active and (usually) willing partners in the deception. They were given instruction as to how to dress, what to say to the host, when to say it, what questions to answer, what questions to miss, even when to mop their brows in their isolation booths (which had air conditioning that could be cut off at will, to make them appear to sweat more).

Charles Van Doren, a college professor, was introduced as a contestant on Twenty One on November 28, 1956, as a challenger to the dominant, if somewhat unpopular with viewers, champion Herbert Stempel. Van Doren and Stempel ultimately played to a series of 21-21 tie games, with audience interest building with each passing week and each new game, until finally the clean-cut, "All American Boy" challenger was able to outlast his bookish, quasi-intellectual opponent. The turning point came on a question directed to Stempel: "What film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1956?" Stempel legitimately knew the answer to that question (''Marty''), but had been specifically ordered by the producers to miss it. As Stempel later recalled, there was a moment in the booth when his conscience and sense of fair play warred with his sense of obligation; he almost answered it correctly, something that would have thrown the scripted outcome of the game into total disarray. In the event, however, he finally gave the incorrect answer (''On the Waterfront'') he had been ordered to give, which opened the door for Van Doren to win the game and begin one of the longest and most storied runs of any champion in the history of television game shows.

Van Doren's popularity took off as a result of his success on Twenty One, earning him a place on the cover of Time magazine and even a regular feature spot on NBC's Today show. He was finally unseated as champion on March 11, 1957, by a woman named Vivian Nearing, after winning a total of $129,000.

Stempel, meanwhile, still somewhat upset over the fact he was ordered to "take a dive," attempted to blow the whistle on what exactly was going on behind the scenes at Twenty One, even going so far as to have a federal investigator look into the show. Nothing much came of these investigations until August 15, 1958, when a relatively minor CBS game show, Dotto, was abruptly cancelled after a notebook containing the answers to every question on that show turned up in the possession of its champion. Suddenly, Stempel's allegations began to make a lot more sense. Still, the public at large didn't seem to want to believe it was true until Van Doren, under oath before a Senate hearing, confessed to being given the answers to all of his questions before each show.

Twenty One was cancelled without warning after its broadcast of October 16, 1958. A nighttime version of Concentration took over its time slot the following week.

The Revival

There have been two attempts to revive this series under honest terms. The first was as an unsold 1982 pilot starring Jim Lange (this version of the show was called 21, using Arabic numerals instead of words).

A second attempt actually made it to air when NBC, in the wake of the success of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, revived the tainted quiz in 2000. The rules of this version, hosted by Maury Povich, were greatly simplified from the 1950s: Incorrect answers no longer deducted from a player's score, but instead earned a strike; three strikes, and that player automatically lost. As well, all questions were of a multiple-choice variety, making it easier for the player. Finally, once per game, a player could call for a "Second Chance," and have a friend or family member (sequestered offstage until needed) brought on for help. Payoffs on this version were originally $100,000 for the first win, $200,000 for the second, $300,000 for the third, and so on up to $500,000; later, these were reduced.

There was also an endgame, "Perfect 21." The champion was given a category and asked up to six true/false questions in that category, worth progressively from one to six points. Payoffs here were $10,000 for each point, but an incorrect answer at any time ended the game and cost the player all money won in this game; he or she could stop after every correct answer. A possible total of $210,000 could be won in this game.