Dan Enright - The Quiz Scandal

The Quiz Scandal

Capitalizing on the success of the 1950s big-money quiz The $64,000 Question on CBS, Barry and Enright developed their flagship show, Twenty One, a quiz which had a scoring system based loosely on Blackjack. Contestants were placed in twin isolation booths and asked questions ranging in value from one to 11 points — the higher the point value, the more difficult the question. Enright himself has described the initial broadcast of Twenty One as "a dismal failure. It was just plain dull." Contestants repeatedly missed questions and, in Enright's own words, "It lacked all drama; it lacked all suspense. The next morning the sponsor (Geritol) called my partner, Jack Barry, and me and told us in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to see a repeat of what happened the previous night. And from that moment on, we decided to rig Twenty One." Even with rigging, initial ratings were unimpressive.

Enright believed they needed to find heroes and villains—contestants the audience would either root for or root against. Though not illegal at the time, Enright and his assistant producer Albert Freedman went beyond merely finding appealing players by actually manipulating them: providing certain contestants with answers in advance, and scripting games and the players' mannerisms in the isolation booth. It was a process the producers duplicated for Tic Tac Dough.

Enright's most famous contestant protégé was Twenty One's Charles Van Doren, who went on to win for 14 weeks and became a cover subject for Time, thus causing the show's popularity to soar. Van Doren replaced Herb Stempel, who himself had been given answers over his extended run on the show, but was eventually forced to lose (so that the more telegenic Van Doren might replace him). After waiting for Enright to fulfill his promise of a job in exchange for throwing the match, Stempel realized it would never come and went to the authorities. It was only when other contestants came forward about game show rigging did they take Stempel seriously.

As the press was publishing allegations by former contestants of quiz rigging, NBC purchased from Barry and Enright the shows Twenty One and Tic Tac Dough, along with two new daytime entries, Concentration and a musical quiz Dough Re Mi, all of which aired on NBC, for $1 million. Eventually the truth came out, and Enright admitted to rigging the show and giving contestants the questions and answers in advance.

As Twenty One's emcee and co-producer, Jack Barry did not directly rig the shows himself (even quiz-show scandal investigator Joseph Stone questioned his involvement, and Herb Stempel has said in interviews that he believes Enright hid the rigging from Barry until it was exposed), yet he admitted in interviews given in the 1970s and 1980s his role in covering up the rigging for Enright.