Fun & Games

Fun & Games Ever since it became the latest thing in the U.S. parlor, TV has exploited the parlor game. Today the old pastime and its giveaway variants are as numerous, popular and deeply entrenched as any kind of TV entertainment. Tuesday alone brings no fewer than 13 such shows in twelve hours. Sponsors like them because they are cheap (about half the price of some of the major dramatic shows), while paradoxically audiences goggle at their largesse. But for most viewers what glitters most brightly in these shows is not gold but entertainment.

The pacesetter is the best proof that, even in giveaway shows, money isn't everything. The $64,000 Question has given away more than $1,000,000 in 19 months, but its appeal to the home viewer (who can win nothing) lies in vicarious thrills as he identifies himself with the contestant: the sweat on the brow, the dry mouth, the nuances of indecision, defeat, embarrassment or glorious triumph. The trade calls it the "Open Pore School" of TV.

Question's imitators have found that they cannot win the viewer merely by raising the ante. Big Surprise offers a whopping $100,000, but instead of jackpot-sized ratings the show has earned a $103,000 lawsuit by a nightclub dancer who claims that she was mulcted of a top prize in a frame-up. Break the $250,000 Bank noisily boasts "the biggest money prize in TV history," but it breaks no rating records. In a frenzied effort to boost their ratings, some shows hire big names to win money they hardly need; e.g., Harry James and Betty Grable dropped in last week on Do You Trust Your Wife?, which up to now has been relying on more commonplace performances, such as a man who plays gorilla parts for the movies (see cut).

Cabbage to Croppers. Among the newest parlor games:

Giant Step, CBS's kiddy giveaway, is making a big stir. To parents' dismay, it appeals to the cupidity of bright moppets and teen-agers under 17 by offering such goodies as model trains, cameras, microscopes and college educations. The show awarded eleven-year-old Joe Kicklighter a four-year scholarship to Harvard and a junket abroad for knowing the answers to questions about the political affiliations of several U.S. Presidents.

Treasure Hunt (ABC), which represents ABC's token show of strength in the quiz sweepstakes, offers as much as $25,000 to winners, as little as a head of cabbage to croppers. It requires no special skills or knowledge, but is a harmless game of chance, in which the contestant chooses among 50 pirate chests for the hidden treasure-trove.

Twenty-One (NBC) is a spirited newcomer patterned after the sturdy gambling game of blackjack. M.C. Jack Barry stuffs a camera right into the separated soundproof rooms of two contestants, who are assigned a category. Each can win from one to eleven points for every correct answer (the higher the number chosen, the harder the question). The contestant who gets 21 points or nearest to it, receives $500 or more for each point by which he tops his opponent. The winner can then go on against new opponents, and title to thousands of dollars changes hands. Among the show's pleasanter contenders armed with irrelevancies is Columbia University Teacher Charles Van Doren, 30. of the literary Van Dorens, who finished his eighth appearance last week with a stake in the game of $46,500.

To Tell the Truth (CBS) is distinguished less by its prim or pretty panelists (John Cameron Swayze, Polly Bergen et al.) than by its striking ability to produce three guests each week, all purporting to be the same person. It's the panel's job to select the one "honest man" by crossexamination. The idea is not new, but Truth's producers have made it effective entertainment. Last week Truth brought on a real professional wrestler, Jackie Gleason's receptionist and two impersonators of each. The panel picked the receptionist, its first unanimous correct guess out of ten in the show's five weeks.

To all too few parlor gamesters, the quiz is incidental to the fun. The daddy of this vanishing minority is Groucho Marx, whose You Bet Your Life is celebrating its tenth year on the air (seventh on TV) and still ranks up near the top. Groucho says the big handout shows "will last as long as the Treasury prints money," dismisses them with a sneer. "If I wanna see people give away money, I go to the bank." The most any contestant has got out of him was $5,000, he recalls, and the woman who won it "married a marine who stole the money, blackened her eyes and left her after ten days."

The freshest addition to TV's fun and games was contributed last week by Manhattan's independent WOR. With the cooperation of the American Contract Bridge League and the Association of American Playing Card Manufacturers, WOR turned its cameras on a crowded midtown hotel room and presented a one-hour excerpt of the finals of the world contract-bridge championships (see SPORT). The show had flaws, most of them easily correctable, and it was strictly for bridge fans. But there are at least 35 million of them in the U.S.--more than enough to guarantee TV a fat and loyal audience should it decide to add bridge to its regularly scheduled repertory.

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