Talk:1950s quiz show scandals
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Greek scandal
editHere you go! http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100014_25/09/2004_47693 TVfanatic2K (talk) 13:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
WWTBAM
editI have removed the following from the article because it is both uncited and contradicted by the Millionaire article:
Just four years later, in November 2005, Martin Flood, a contestant on the Australian version of the show, was rumored to have been doing the same thing (he had won AU$250,000 and was going for AU$500,000), and Naomi Robson of Today Tonight was preparing herself for a story, but the "incident" turned out to be nothing more than a story made up by producers as part of a publicity stunt in an attempt to boost the ratings, which were very low. Eventually, Flood would go on to win the AU$1,000,000 prize, and unlike Ingram, Flood was allowed his prize money.
Please feel free to put it back with a citation. Fat Red 12:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Flood incident
editThe Flood incident hardly rates as a scandal (the interest by Today Tonight indicates nothing more than the desire by a rival network to run a spoiler for the show), but the matter is covered in the Martin Flood entry.
Cleanup?
editWhat needs cleaning up? I see a user without an account added the tag months ago. I'll leave this for a while and may remove the template unless somebody has a better idea than I do about what is wrong. Erechtheus 23:37, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed it, since nobody bothered explaining why it was there in the first place. PoppaInu 09:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I have one question
editSorry for being intrusive but I want to know more info about the 2004 greek TV scandal. Please give a link or something so I can read more. I know this isnt the place to ask for this but I would apreciate more info on this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mike0 (talk • contribs) 22:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC).
I am sure this is probably just another conspiracy theory
editBut has anyone heard about the suggestion that Ken Jennings of Jeporady (the guy who won like 50 shows in a row and left with a few million dollars) was coached? DerwinUMD 04:39, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
What does the timing of a registered letter prove?
editIn the movie Quiz Show and other sources, including this article, James Snodgrass is reported to have mailed himself the questions on Twenty-One episodes in which he appeared prior to the date of the show. This offered the hard evidence that cracked the case, so to speak. I understand from a transcript of the Congressional hearing, a police crime lab was engaged by Congress to verify that one of the envelopes had not been opened and then re-sealed. At the hearing, Snodgrass was handed one of his sealed envelopes, and dramatically opened it during his testimony, and read from the contents.
Here's what I don't understand. What would have prevented Snodgrass from mailing himself an UNSEALED envelope by registered mail prior to the show date, and then stuffing it with the questions after the show date and sealing it? Was it impossible to mail an unsealed envelope by registered mail? I thought greeting cards were often sent that way (albeit obviously not by registered mail). There must be an explanation that either seemed obvious at the time or was examined carefully, but is not reflected in most contemporary accounts.
Richard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolt1955 (talk • contribs) 16:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
- Although it would be original research, have you tried it? If the mail is registered and found to be open, wouldn't that raise flags? Screenwriters mail their scripts to themselves to prove date of creation all the time. MMetro (talk) 11:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
- Registered mail then as now required every postal employee handling it to sign for it and is kept separate from other mail in a special locked container through much of the processing. Given all that no postal employee in the 1950s was going to let a piece of registered mail that was unsealed go into the system because they would be held responsible for it when it was pulled out of the special locked container and found to be unsealed. The 1913 edition Postal laws and regulations of the United States of America spelling out all of the requirements for registered mail (begining on page 516) can be found at google books and even then they were pretty strict. --BruceGrubb (talk) 22:59, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
More recent scandals - moved from article
editI have removed the following from the article: the source does not give a name to the supposed game show or even identify which station is accused of running the scam. Without such basic information, the following section does not appear to have merit to be included in an encyclopedia, despite being "sourced". --The Red Pen of Doom 12:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
The "outstandingly stupid quiz"
editLate in 2004, a phone-in game show from Greece suffered another scandal. TV presenters, station officials, and producers were arrested after being charged with fraud, after it was revealed that show organizers were only taking the calls of accomplices, who all gave purposefully wrong answers on an "outstandingly stupid quiz", according to an online article. They had made €10,000,000 of toll charges, with over 115,000 people calling over a 5-month period, without any of the honest participants getting through into the show. Some were kept on their phones for over 15 minutes before disconnection, although most gave up before that time. The police tried out this system for themselves, running up a €225 bill for each attempt before the arrests were made. [1]
References
Intellectualism revered?
editThe following statement astounded me:
The spectacle of people achieving huge financial success through the exercise of brain power was riveting to a nation that revered intellectualism as well as wealth.
The American masses revered intellectualism in the 1950s???!!! If so, the cultural- and social-history books need to be rewritten! Lavengro1954 (talk) 17:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
- I don't know what cultural- and social-history books you have been reading but that was much the view in the 1950. Bell, Edison, and Ford were all poster children of brain power bringing financial success and long after their deaths that view of them would be pushed clear into the 1970s. This was why the quiz shows took off in the 1950s--people saw the contestants as modern day examples of these great minds. --BruceGrubb (talk) 23:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Article "to do" list
editThis article is titled in general terms but is basically entirely about the specific (the twenty one thing). This is pretty misleading. I think either the article ought to be renamed something like "1950s Quiz Show scandals" or "Twenty-One cheating scandal" or else it needs to cover scandals generally by clearing up most of the twenty one stuff and adding some other stuff (like the press your luck thing) and some general introduction about game shows offering an effecient way of making money and people being inclined to cheat etc but technological advances more recently making this difficult (maybe mentioning the early producers being inclined towards a narrative format if theres some source for that).
The section naming seems a bit off, 'The truth is revealed' really? this sounds like a headline or a chapter of a novel, and 'Rigging in other countries' is followed by a list of occurances which were scandals but not rigging.
Obviously theres also a lot of unreferenced claims including quotes
A lot of the wording also needs to be looked at, for example '(Congress) quickly saw the political opportunity the scandals offered' probably isnt appropriate. Nor is the use of terms like 'bombshell', 'sore loser' and 'final stroke'.
I'll try to make some impovements in a few days time if nobody objects Bob House 884 (talk) 02:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Despite some regular edits, a lot of these issues haven't been addressed yet - the "Rigging" section in particular caught my eye as neither of the Australian examples listed involve rigging, and the Mole-Weakest Link crossover wasn't even scandalous. The fact that that section features the phrase "in other countries" also highlights that the main body of the article is heavily biased toward US quiz shows, so I agree the article should be renamed to accurately reflect this.Tuskah (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
biased pov
editLines such as this one "The 86th Congress, by then in its first session, quickly saw the political opportunity the scandals offered..." are scattered throughout this article and they clearly show no neutrality to what happened. This whole article should probably be rewritten to both remove those and add a lot of facts that are missing from here but are in the individual game show articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.169.28.12 (talk) 07:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Such a poor article
editReally, can't someone just clean up the language and grammar?
This is a well annotated piece of history, it should be simple to write something vaguely encyclopedic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.174.132 (talk) 10:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Uncited material in need of citations
editI am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:CS, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, WP:BLP, WP:NOR, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 15:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Extended content
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Introduction orphan line is eternal
editI can't or don't know how to trace this eternal orphan line in the Introduction. At the end it says "After the scandals took place, networks began phasing out quiz shows as th"
Can anyone help please? Or shall I end the sentence at "...quiz shows." Thanks in advance, Manytexts (talk) 23:41, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
Sealed testimonies / court documents
editWere the sealed documents unsealed by now? Will they ever be unsealed? Nakonana (talk) 16:15, 8 June 2024 (UTC)