Benny & Masterminds

With two months to go before their first year on the air is completed, NBC's Quiz Kids this week were hard on the heels of NBC's Information Please. The juniors' Crossley rating was 11.6 against 11.9 for the senior masterminds. Last week the Quiz Kids did their stuff for the largest audience in radio when they appeared as guests on Jack Benny's Jell-O show. And Jack Benny once again proved himself the most astute gentleman in radio by tying up with the infant marvels for four combined broadcasts.

Unlike regular Quiz Kid shows, their first question-and-answer act with Benny was carefully rehearsed and gags for the program were supplied by Benny's writers. Rated the drollest Jell-O show this year, the program involved a question bee between the Kids and the Benny cast. Typical question addressed to the Kids: Name the five orders of fishes in order of their development, and give examples of each. Typical question addressed to the cast: If you had 20 apples and your mother took away ten and gave back five, how many would you have?

Neatly rigged to permit Benny & friends to triumph, the Jell-O quiz was repeated this week. Posing as a nine-year-old wizard on a quiz board composed of William Shakespeare, aged 6, Isaac Newton, 7, Lady Godiva, 6, and Fred Allen, 8, Benny made a great to-do about coaxing the Quiz Kids into telling him what sort of questions he will be asked when he shows up on their show later. As guest of the Quiz Kids, Benny will be primed on gags but not on questions.

Taking Hollywood by storm, the Quiz Kids were entertained with a party at Walt Disney's studios, kowtowed to by many a star. Special favorite of Benny is eight-year-old Gerard Darrow, who will make another appearance with his chums on the Jell-O show next week. Like all the Quiz Kids, Gerard was slightly miffed to find his autograph in such demand that he had a hard time expanding his own collection.

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