Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 48

April 4, 2024: Satire Studying: TV Satires

[If ever ayear both needed and yet resisted a heavy dose of satire, it would be 2024. Sofor this year’s April Fool’s series I’ll share a humorous handful ofSatireStudying posts—please add your thoughts on these and any other satirical textsyou’d highlight for a knee-slapping yet pointed crowd-sourced weekend post!]

[NOTE:This post originally aired in 2017; I’m sure there’s lots of great TV satiresince we could add to this list, and please do so for the weekend post!]

On four comicshows from which we can learn a great deal about our society and culture.

1)     Key & Peele(2012-2015): During its five seasons and fifty-three episodes, Keegan-MichaelKey and Jordan Peele’s Comedy Central sketch comedy series was more than justconsistently hilarious; it offered some of the most biting and insightfulreflections on race inAmerica that I’ve ever seen (in any genre or medium). (By all reports, Peele’snew horror film Get Out managesthe same impressive balance of entertainment and social commentary within thatgenre.) If I were to suggest any one cultural work to represent race in Americain the age of Trayvon and Obama, it would haveto be Key & Peele; a viewercould dive into almost any episode and come away with a better understanding ofthe lightest and darkest of both this crucial issue and our national community.

2)     Inside Amy Schumer(2013- ). I would say many of the same things about Amy Schumer’s ComedyCentral sketch comedy show, which has aired four seasons and has a fifth comingat some point in the future; only her show focuses its social satirical lensmost consistently on issues of gender and sex. Schumer is particularly adept atutilizing parody in the best ways about which I wrote in yesterday’s post: seethis Friday Night Lights sketch on football and rape culture; or this clip from hertranscendent, episode-long parody of TwelveAngry Men. But her entirely original sketches are just as biting, asillustrated by this oneon female celebrities experiencing their “last fuckable day.” Between the twoof them, Key & Peele and Inside Amy Schumer could comprise theentire syllabus for a course on 21st century America and youwouldn’t run out of things to talk about.

3)     Last Week Tonight(2014- ): The Daily Show veteran JohnOliver’s weekly news satire show on HBO is an entirely different animal, notonly from sketch comedy shows like those but even from The Daily Show and its ilk. What Oliver does best—and, perhaps,what only Oliver does—is produce in-depth segments, usually running in theballpark of twenty minutes, that examine a complex issue at great length,featuring a mixture of humor, investigative reporting, and impassionedarguments and activism. If you haven’t seen any, I don’t think you can gowrong, but I would recommend in particular this one on the deathpenalty, thisone on prisons, thisone on refugees, and this one ononline harassment of women. Like many folks, I used to say that The Daily Show offered more accuratenews than most of the news media; that might well still be true, but I don’tthink any current show offers better reporting on vital American issues than Last Week Tonight.

4)     FullFrontal (2016- ): Another DailyShow vet, Samantha Bee’s weekly news satire show is the newest of thisbatch (it debuted just over a year ago), but has already impressed me (andeverybody else I’ve ever talked to about it) with its blend of reporting andhumor (a la Oliver’s show) mixed with Bee’s unique, fiery, and never less thancompelling voice and perspective. Once again, I don’t think you can go wrongwith any clip, but thisone—Bee’s response to Donald Trump’s AccessHollywood tape scandal from last October—is a particular favorite andexemplifies all those qualities that have made this show much-watch televisionso quickly. As I wrote in thispost on the media and the 2016 election (written in the halcyon days beforethat election actually transpired), to my mind the majority of the bestcoverage of that campaign came from the Olivers and Bees of the media world.That’s partly a disturbing reflection of the state of other parts of the newsmedia, to be sure; but it’s also partly an illustration of just how vital thesekinds of social satirical voices have become in our society and culture.

Lastsatire tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Other satirical works you’d share?

April 3, 2024: Satire Studying: The Interview

[If ever ayear both needed and yet resisted a heavy dose of satire, it would be 2024. Sofor this year’s April Fool’s series I’ll share a humorous handful ofSatireStudying posts—please add your thoughts on these and any other satirical textsyou’d highlight for a knee-slapping yet pointed crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On what’sproblematic, and what’s important, about a hugely controversial comedy.

In the last postin my 2012 April Fools series, I highlighted fivegreat, enduring works of American satire. Having had the chance to see the satirical film The Interview (2014) subsequent to drafting that post, I have to admit that Idon’t see it ever landing on such a list. Directed by Seth Rogen and EvanGoldberg, based on a story by Rogen, Goldberg, and Dan Sterling, and starringRogen and James Franco as the producer and star of a celebrity interview showwho are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un,the screwball comedy throws a ton of jokes and over-the-top sequences againstthe wall, many of them vulgar, graphically violent, or some combination ofboth. There are certainly funny moments, both of the silly and the pointedvariety; but for the most part the film feels like it’s working way too hardfor much too little payoff. And much of the problem lies in that attempt tocombine the silly and screwball with the satirical—satire, it seems to me, requiresus to use our brain; and too much of the time, The Interview is trying to hit us far lower than that.

The film becamefar better known for its controversy than its comedy, of course, and on thatlevel too I would argue that it’s problematic. I don’t have any problem with awork of fiction satirizing (and even, SPOILER and graphic violence alert, brutally killing) aworld leader like Kim, and certainly I don’t support the North Koreangovernment’s attempts to suppress the film’s release. But as I wrote in thisJanuary 2015 piece for my Talking Points Memo column, I don’t believe weAmericans have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to critiquing suchblind, uncritical worship of our beloved leaders. Since many of the responsesto my piece suggested I was equating the two nations overall, let me be clear:America is not North Korea, in any sense. But I would stand by my point thatfar too many Americans expressed, in response to Natalie Maines’ far lessincendiary depiction of George W. Bush, a level of outrage and angercommensurate to the North Korean response to a film portraying their leader infar, far worse light (as well as, y’know, brutally killing him). Which is tosay, if we want to make the case that North Korea should be able to handlesatire and criticism more calmly, we’re going to have to turn that mirror onourselves and our own histories as well.

I don’t think itentirely succeeded in doing so, but it is important to note that The Interview does, in fact, attempt totrue that satirical and critical lens on America as well as North Korea. Itdoes so partly through the easy targets of the media and our culture ofcelebrity, both embodied by James Franco’s thoroughly annoying and stupidcharacter (although he is eventually supposed to be a hero, so I’m not sure howmuch the zingers ultimately connect). But it does so more subtly through thefilm’s true heroine, Sook,the North Korean officer who hopes to overthrow Kim and establish a democraticgovernment in his place. When Sook reveals her true intentions, Franco andRogen exclaim that Kim must be assassinated; she replies, “How many times isAmerica going to make the same mistake?,” and Franco responds, “As many timesas it takes, sister!” Again, such moments of thoughtful satire of Americanforeign policy and perspectives are both few and far between and oftenovershadowed by the silliness and vulgarities and so on; but they’re there, andperhaps they even registered with the millions of viewers who sought out the filmafter the controversy. For a silly, mediocre screwball comedy, that’d be asurprising and meaningful effect.

Nextsatire tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Other satirical works you’d share?

April 2, 2024: Satire Studying: Innocents Abroad

[If ever ayear both needed and yet resisted a heavy dose of satire, it would be 2024. Sofor this year’s April Fool’s series I’ll share a humorous handful ofSatireStudying posts—please add your thoughts on these and any other satirical textsyou’d highlight for a knee-slapping yet pointed crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On thedouble-edged satire at the heart of Mark Twain’s first big hit.

I haven’tdone an exhaustive survey or anything, but it seems to me that most social orpolitical satire is bothdirected at a particular target and driven by an earnest embrace of somealternative idea. Take perhaps the most famous satirical work of all time, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (1729):seems to be suggesting that the solution to the problems of Irish poverty andhunger is to eat Irish babies; is really satirizing English bigotry toward theIrish; and so is genuinely (if of course very subtly) pro-Irish instead. Similarly,JosephHeller’s Catch-22 (1961)satirizes virtually every aspect of war (even a war as seemingly noble as WorldWar II) while sympathizing quite overtly and poignantly with its soldierprotagonists; Heller’s satire would to my mind be entirely unsuccessful if wedidn’t come to care about those soldiers. Certainly there are satirical voiceswhich take on all comers (The Onioncomesto mind), but for the most part, I’d say that social satire needs the accompanyingearnest advocacy to function.

MarkTwain’s most famous character, Huck Finn, proves that point quite precisely:Huck is painfully earnest, almost always unable to recognize humor at all (forexample), and it is through that earnest perspective that Twain creates his satires ofnumerous aspects of antebellum (and postbellum) Southern and American society. ButTwain’s first book, the travelogue InnocentsAbroad; or, The New Pilgrim’s Progress (1869, revised from 1867 newspaperpieces), is much more confusingly and crucially all-encompassing in itssatirizing. At first glance Twain seems to be satirizing the reverent tone andattitude of typical travelogues, and thus too the Old World cultures whichdemand such reverence; but at the same time, his American travelers, includingthe author himself, come in for just as much ridicule, most especially fortheir ignorance of these other cultures and their tendency toward pro-Americanprovincialism. If both communities are ultimately, equally foolish and silly,though, it’s fair to ask whether the satire has a point.

Innocents is unquestionably a messy andsprawling book (reflecting at least in part its origins in those many differentnewspaper pieces), but I’d argue that its satire is in fact pointed preciselyin its multi-directionality. After all, one of the central goals of anysatirist must be to create discomfort, to force an audience out of any and allcomfort zones and into the space where established narratives or norms arechallenged and made literally laughable. While Heller’s book (for example)certainly does so when it comes to any and all pro-war narratives, it might atthe same time make already anti-war readers morecomfortable, reinforce their existing views and ideas. That’s not necessarily abad thing (again, having an earnest point can make the satire of other pointsmore successful), but there’s something to be said for a satire that doesn’tlet any of us get too comfortable in where we are or what we believe. Andthat’s doubly true for a travel satire—whether we think home is always the bestor are just constantly searching for somewhere better, we’re likely to beover-simplifying both places, and Twain’s book forces us to push beyond thosesimplifications and continue our journey in a more complex perspective.

Nextsatire tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Other satirical works you’d share?

April 1, 2024: Satire Studying: African American Satire

[If ever ayear both needed and yet resisted a heavy dose of satire, it would be 2024. Sofor this year’s April Fool’s series I’ll share a humorous handful ofSatireStudying posts—please add your thoughts on these and any other satirical textsyou’d highlight for a knee-slapping yet pointed crowd-sourced weekend post!]

I don’tusually link to my SaturdayEvening Post Considering History columnsin this space (and I do hope you’re checking out my work over there too, dearreaders), but for a Black History Month column earlier this year I used theacclaimed current film American Fiction toshare a syllabus of African American satire. Didn’t seem to make sure to writean April Fool’s series on satire and now feature those thoughts, so in lieu ofa full post today, please check out thatFebruary column if you would!

Nextsatire tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Other satirical works you’d share?

March 30-31, 2024: March 2024 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

March4: National Park Studying: Yosemite: For the Department of the Interior’s175th birthday, a National Park series kicks off with six figureswho helped shape Yosemite.

March5: National Park Studying: Blackstone River Valley: The series continueswith two interesting comps for one of our newest Parks.

March6: National Park Studying: Everglades: The very American story of the womanwho helped save the ‘Glades, as the story tours on.

March7: National Park Studying: Mesa Verde: Two distinct but complementary sidesto a foundational AmericanStudier moment.

March8: National Park Studying: Acadia: The series concludes with a few tellingmoments in the Maine Park’s Franco-American history.

March9-10: National Park Studying: National Historic Parks: A special weekendpost on a few of the many great National Historic Parks—with many more in a Saturday Evening Post column linked atthe end!

March11: NeMLA Reflections: Opening Address: A series on the latest great NeMLAconference kicks off with the opening speaker’s multilayered public scholarlywork.

March12: NeMLA Reflections: NeMLA Reads Together: The series continues with twotakeaways from the latest example of NeMLA’s wonderful community endeavor.

March13: NeMLA Reflections: My Panel on Nostalgia & the 50s: Three of themany excellent conversations I got to be part of on Vaughn Joy’s panel on “nostalgicextremism.”

March14: NeMLA Reflections: Guilty Pleasures Panels: Two interestingthroughlines from a pair of provocative interconnected sessions.

March15: NeMLA Reflections: Community Connections: The reflections conclude withthree ways NeMLA 2024 connected to its host city.

March16-17: NeMLA Reflections: A Special Organization: A weekend tribute to afew of the reasons why NeMLA is such a special organization.

March18: American Magic: Fakir of Ava: In honor of Houdini’s 150thbirthday, a MagicStudying series kicks off with three ways the first famousAmerican magician paved the way for the profession.

March19: American Magic: Thurston and Kellar: The series continues with a pairof magicians who help us think about competition and collaboration.

March20: American Magic: Orson Welles: Two ways to AmericanStudy a fascinatinglast act in a legendary career, as the series tricks on.

March21: American Magic: Penn & Teller: Three telling influences on one ofthe most famous magic acts of the last half-century.

March22: American Magic: 21st Century Evolutions: The seriesconcludes with a handful of contemporary talents who reflect how magic hasevolved.

March23-24: American Magic: Harry Houdini: On Houdini’s 150th, threelesser-known layers to our most famous magician.

March25: What is Game Show Studying?: 30s and 40s Origins: For Jeopardy!’s 60th anniversary,a Game Show Studying series kicks off with three stages in the genre’sexperimental early decades.

March26: What is Game Show Studying?: Quiz Show Scandals: The series continueswith three ways to contextualize the fixing scandals that dominated the gameshow world in the late 50s.

March27: What is Game Show Studying?: Dating Games: A more straightforward and amore subtle context for a pair of groundbreaking dating games, as the seriesplays on.

March28: What is Game Show Studying?: Deal-Making: AmericanStudies contexts forthree generations of deal-making shows.

March29: What is Game Show Studying?: Jeopardy!: The series concludes with twoways the legendary game show echoes the genre’s histories, and one way it standsout.

AprilFool’s series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topicsyou’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

March 29, 2024: What is Game Show Studying?: Jeopardy!

[On March 30,1964, the legendary game show Jeopardydebuted. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that classic and a handful of othergame show histories! Add your thoughts, obviously in the form of a question, incomments!]

On twoways the legendary game show echoes topics from earlier in the week, and oneway it stands out.

Maybe it’san apocryphal story (TV game shows are a mixture of reality and fiction, peopleand performance, as this whole week’s series has hopefully reflected), but inany case as the story goes Jeopardy! wascreated in direct response and contrast to the 1950s quiz show scandals aboutwhich I wrote on Tuesday. As creator MervGriffin described it in a 1963 profile published while the show was stillin development, “My wife Julannjust came up with the idea one day when we were in a plane bringing us back toNew York City from Duluth. I was mulling over game show ideas, when she noted thatthere had not been a successful ‘question and answer’ game on the air since the quizshow scandals. Why not do a switch, and give theanswers to the contestant and let them come up with the question?” Soundslikely enough, and I love the thought that the longest-running and mostsuccessful quiz show in TV history was inspired to flip the traditional question-and-answerformat (the innovation that made it stand out) by a cultural need to flipnarratives of fixed quiz shows.

Across thatlong-running history, Jeopardy! has likewiseconnected to both the daytime and primetime varieties of game show about whichI wrote in yesterday’s post. The original 1964 iteration,hosted by Art Fleming and running until January 1975, was a daytime show thataired weekly; the 1984reboot, initially hosted by Alex Trebek and still on the air today despiteTrebek’s 2021 passing, was and remains a primetime show that airs daily. Asthose hyperlinked clips indicate, the two versions were in gameplay and manyways identical to each other, but I would argue that (just as I argued about Deal or No Deal in yesterday’s post) theprimetime version of Jeopardy! did nonethelessfeel distinct, both in heightened production values and in higher stakes(relatively speaking—Jeopardy! hasnever had the million-dollarpayouts of some other quiz and game shows). Most of the other long-runninggame shows have stayed on one side or the other of this duality, so it’sparticularly interesting to see how a single show has evolved from daytime to primetime.

While Jeopardy! is thus very much inconversation with TV game show trends and topics from throughout the genre’snearly 100 years of history, I would say that it has achieved a level ofcultural presence and influence beyond any other such show (it’s not acoincidence that both RosiePerez’s character in the film WhiteMen Can’t Jump and AnnDowd’s [SPOILERS in that clip] in the TV show The Leftovers have dreams of appearing on Jeopardy!, for example; nor that Weird Al wrote a songabout it!). The question of why is of course an open-ended one, but if I wereto boil it down I would emphasize two factors related to my two prior paragraphsin this post: the flipped “answer and question” format that we apparently oweto Merv Griffin’s wife; and the host who took over for the show’s primetimereboot and became very much a celebrity in his own right (with the Saturday Night Live parody to prove it). As someone whotried out for Jeopardy! multipletimes (and who was in fact invited to be on the show but was frustratinglyunable to do so, which is a story you’d have to draw out of me with anAmericanStudies beer or two), I can say that I fully understand the show’sunique appeal, and am happy to celebrate it here on its 60thbirthday!

MarchRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other game shows you’d highlight?

March 28, 2024: What is Game Show Studying?: Deal-Making

[On March 30,1964, the legendary game show Jeopardydebuted. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that classic and a handful of othergame show histories! Add your thoughts, obviously in the form of a question, incomments!]

OnAmericanStudies contexts for three generations of defining, deal-making gameshows.

1)     The Price is Right (1956): There’sno way to talk about The Price is Right(the original version—starting in 1972 it was rebooted as The New Price is Right which remainson the air to this day) without connecting it to the late 1950s quiz showscandals about which I wrote on Tuesday. Partly because the stakes weresignificantly lower on Price than onthose contemporary game shows, and partly (and relatedly) because thecontestants seemed much more like ordinary people than the ostensiblysuper-smart quiz show contestants, Price notonly survived the surge in cancellations that plagued the game show genreduring and after those scandals, but really thrived as a contrast to thoseshows. To this day daytimegame shows tend to feature more “everyday” contestants and tones comparedto the heightened drama of prime-time shows, and that trend is closely tied tothis prominent early example.

2)     Let’s Make a Deal (1963): Theblossoming popularity of The Price isRight in the early 1960s was bound to produce competitors, and one of thefirst and most successful was Let’s Makea Deal. Deal was pretty similarto Price, and the two (in their respectiverebooted forms) have really endured as the two most successful daytime gameshows. But in my experience with them, I would say that (at least in its first1960s iteration) Deal leaned even abit more fully into a contestant pool that paralleled one of its principal intendedaudiences: traditional, stay-at-home housewives. Just look at the June Cleaverpearls on the first contestant in the 1963 debut episode hyperlinked above! DaytimeTV has always been closely tiedto images (and certainly also realities, but I would say even more images)of that community, and we can see them reflected in a daytime game show likethis one.

3)     Dealor No Deal (2005): Deal or No Dealwasn’t the first primetime deal-making game show, but I would argue it was andremains one of the most popular, especially in its early years. Interestingly,a great deal of Deal (or No Deal) closely mimicked daytimeshows like (Let’s Make a) Deal, asillustrated most succinctly by the bevy ofattractive and seductively-dressed womensupporting the male host. But while (Let’sMake a) Deal often featured one such female co-host at a time, Deal (or No Deal) featured twenty, andthat was kind of the whole deal with this primetime show: very similar to thedaytime ones, but with everything turned up to 11. Partly that’s just thedifference between daytime and primetime TV, but I would say it also reflectsthe early 21st century’s increasing sense of the need for individualentertainment options to stand out amidst an ever-more-crowded cultural landscape.But one thing I know—as long as there are TVs, somewhere one will be showing adeal-making game show.

Last gameshow histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other game shows you’d highlight?

March 27, 2024: What is Game Show Studying?: Dating Games

[On March 30,1964, the legendary game show Jeopardydebuted. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that classic and a handful of othergame show histories! Add your thoughts, obviously in the form of a question, incomments!]

On a morestraightforward and a more subtle context for a pair of groundbreaking gameshows.

After the late1950s quiz show scandals about which I wrote in yesterday’s post, TV game showsdidn’t go away, nor did the genre leave quiz shows entirely behind, as the 1964inspiration for this week’s series reflects (and on which I’ll have more to sayin Friday’s post). But TV game shows did evolve significantly in the 1960s, andone of those evolutions was toward shows focused on dating and romance. 1965saw the creation of one hugely popular such show, Chuck Barris’ The Dating Game (hostedby Jim Lange); a year later another was created, Nick Nicholson and E. RogerMuir’s The Newlywed Game (hostedby Bob Eubanks); and from then on these two shows were consistently connected,both in original episodes and in syndication (and even more fully in their1990s joint revival, when the pair was known as “The Dating-Newlywed Hour”).

Pairingthese two game shows offers a fascinating window into a period when socialmores around romance were likewise evolving, as illustrated by The Dating Game’s relatively casualapproach to the idea of an individual (and usually a single woman, althoughsometimes the genders of contestant and candidates were reversed) choosingpotential romantic partners from a trio of anonymous single suitors. The Newlywed Game could thus be read asa more traditional counterpart, one focused on heterosexual couples who werealready partnered up in that more conventional way (although the preponderanceof Newlywed Game questions centeredon what Eubanks called “makingwhoopee” was at least a bit controversial on 1960s TV). Since both showsremained on the air for many years, and then again were revived together in the1990s, it would likewise be fascinating to consider how their individual andcomplementary depictions of romance themselves evolved as the shows went on (givingthat one away as a Media Studies dissertation topic).

One of thecomplaints that’s been consistently directed at 21st century datinggame shows (and withcause) is that the contestants are there not to find romance or love, but tobecome famous. The rise of the internet and social media and other suchavenues to fame has no doubt changed the landscape of dating games, like allgame shows (and all cultural forms period). But it’s also worth noting thatthese 1960s dating games likewise featured a number of both soon-to-be-famousand already-famous figures: The DatingGame in particular saw, to name just a handful, Farrah Fawcett, Tom Selleck,Andy Kaufman, KareemAbdul-Jabbar, and a very young Michael Freaking Jackson;The Newlywed Game did mostly featurenon-famous couples in its earliest iterations, but would go on to include celebritycouples such as GeorgeTakei and his husband Brad Altman. Which is to say, it’s always been a fairquestion how much of these dating game shows has to do with dating and how muchwith games of very different, and very culturally telling varieties.

Next gameshow histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other game shows you’d highlight?

March 26, 2024: What is Game Show Studying?: Quiz Show Scandals

[On March30, 1964, the legendary game show Jeopardydebuted. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that classic and a handful of othergame show histories! Add your thoughts, obviously in the form of a question, incomments!]

On threeways to contextualize thefixing scandals that dominated the quiz and game show world in the late1950s.

1)     Entertainment: As with many cultural forms,there are tensions and even contradictions present in the genre of the gameshow, and illustrated by that name itself: these are indeed games, with rulesand results and winners and losers and so on; but they are also shows, designedto appeal to audiences (and needing to do so in order to stay on the air ofcourse). It seems that one of the first and most prominent fixing scandalsbegan as a direct result of that contradiction: the September 1956 debutepisode of the NBC quiz show Twenty-One(hosted by Jack Barry) went quite poorly, as the two contestants got most ofthe questions wrong; the show’s main sponsor Geritolcomplained to the network and producer Dan Enright and demanded a change.Just a few months later Twenty-Onefeatured an extended run of victories by Herb Stempel, thecontestant who would later raise the first accusations of fixing (on hisbehalf, and then infavor of his successor as champion, Charles Van Doren).

2)     Law: If these scandals were thus very muchabout entertainment, the responses to them quickly and thoroughly became about somethingvery different: the law. When a fixing scandal for a second game show, Dotto, emerged in August1958 (as the Twenty-One scandalwas also really breaking), the result was nothing short of a nine-month-long NewYork County grand jury investigation, in the course of which a number ofproducers and contestants apparently committed perjury rather than admit totheir roles in the scandals. The grand jury did not ultimately hand downindictments, but the whole thing then escalated even further, to an August 1959U.S. Congress subcommittee investigation. That did produce a significant andenduring legal change, a 1960 amending ofthe influential CommunicationsAct of 1934 which make fixing game shows illegal.

3)     Identity: Quiz Show (1994),the Robert Redford-directed film which focuses on the Twenty-One scandal in particular, certainly engages with all thesehistories and themes. But I would argue that the film focuses even more onanother context, a more ambiguous but also perhaps even more defininglyAmerican one: the role that identity and community played for individual figureslike the Jewish underdog Stempel (played by John Turturro)and WASP son of privilege Van Doren (played by Ralph Fiennes).It isn’t always easy to remember that each and every game show contestant is acomplicated human being, with all the baggage of heritage, family, community, psychology,and more that influence each of us. But Redford’s film asks us to keep that inmind, not just for these quiz show scandal figures but for everyone who takespart in the long and ongoing tradition of game shows.

Next gameshow histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other game shows you’d highlight?

March 25, 2024: What is Game Show Studying?: 30s and 40s Origins

[On March30, 1964, the legendary game show Jeopardydebuted. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that classic and a handful of othergame show histories! Add your thoughts, obviously in the form of a question, incomments!]

On threestages in the genre’s experimental early decades.

1)     1938 Starting Points: Of course quizzes andtrivia questions and the like had been part of society in various forms forcenturies, but the first official “game shows” on both radio and televisionappeared in the same month and year, May 1938: the American radio show Information Please (whichdebuted on May 17th and would run for the next 13 years); and thevery early British TV show Spelling Bee (whichdebuted on May 31st and featured four live episodes). Both radio andTV have continued to feature quiz shows and game shows in prominent roles eversince, so this dual origin point isn’t surprising (although I’ll admit to notrealizing prior to research this series that TV existed in any meaningful formin 1938). Of course one factor was the evolution of these media andtechnologies, but I would also argue that the Depression-eratiming wasn’t a coincidence; audiences needed escapes from their difficultrealities, and as the name suggests, game shows offered a fun such respite.

2)     1941 Evolutions: Spelling Bee was a bit of a one-off, and it was a few years later thatTV game shows began to emerge and evolve more fully. That started with anadaptation of a popular radio show, Truth or Consequences,which had debuted on the radio in March 1940 but aired an experimental TVversion on July 1, 1941 (making it the first game show on broadcast TV,although it would only become a regularTV program in 1950). Just one day later, on July 2, saw the debut of the firstregularly scheduled TV game show, CBSTelevision Quiz, which aired weekly for about a year. Again this timingwas at least a bit coincidental and likely reflective of TV’s evolutions andnew possibilities in the period, but I would likewise connect these to their1941 moment, and the need for an audience to be temporarily and enjoyably distractedfrom a world at war.

3)     You BetYour Life: One of the most successful game shows of the 1940s appeared in bothmedia, not just as an adaptation from one to the other but as a program thatmoved back and forth between the two. That was YouBet Your Life, the Groucho Marx-hosted comedy quiz show which debutedon theradio in 1947, on TVin 1950, and continued in both media (again in a back-and-forth kind ofway) for another decade. You Bet YourLife was genuinely a quiz show, but a great deal of its marketing andappeal centered on its funny and famous host, making this in many ways thefirst game show that was more about personality and performance than the gamesor quizzes themselves. That would become a recurring element of the genre,exemplified of course by the legendary Jeopardyhost about whom I’ll have more to say on Friday.

Next gameshow histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other game shows you’d highlight?