Quiz Show

How different were the quiz shows of "Quiz Show" days from today's televised games?About as different as naming the opera Puccini never completed vs. naming something you buy at the hardware store (based on 100 people surveyed).But the generational gap goes far beyond "Turandot" vs. turpentine. Compared to today's game shows, the 1950s genre featured in the Robert Redford-directed movie differed in question content, show style and even time period -- literally, a matter of night and day.Some game-show changes had to do with the shocking scandal that erupted around "Twenty-One," the program featured in "Quiz Show," and other games in the late 1950s.

Sarah Bart's run at the college championship on 'Jeopardy!' ended Tuesday with the senior  history major finishing second. But as runner-up, Bart left with $50,000 for her effort. Here's the release from the show: Sarah Bart, a 22-year-old history major at Goucher College, placed second in the “Jeopardy!” College Championship, taking home $50,000 in cash winnings.  Bart competed against 14 undergraduates from across the country during the competition.  This is the first time that the 1,446-student liberal arts and sciences college, located in Baltimore, Md., has been represented in the College Championship.

It is a signal mark of "Quiz Show's" brilliant peculiarity that it contains a line that has never been in an American movie and never will be again."Oh, I meant to watch your show, Charles," a plummy, smug Mark Van Doren says to his son, "but Bunny Wilson was over and you know how carried away Bunny gets!"A facsimile of Bunny Wilson, better known as America's most brilliant literary critic Edmund Wilson, even appears: he's a pink, round, vigorous gentleman, a knight at the rectangular picnic table of American culture that is about to be overthrown by a Modred called television, whose prime champion would be none other than that same Charles Van Doren.

After 50 years as host of "It's Academic," the longest-running quiz show on television, Mac McGarry, the longest-tenured host, says that "it's really time" to step down. "I'm 85 years old and gone way beyond Social Security," the Potomac resident said Thursday. "A lot of things are getting to me like this sinus trouble. Right now my eyes are watering, and I thought, 'My gosh, would I be able to read the cards?' Generally speaking, I'm in good health, but these minor things make you realize you might be losing a step here or there.

Kriti Gandhi, an 18-year-old graduate of Centennial High School, won her opening round of the Jeopardy! Summer Games Teen Tournament and has advanced to the semifinals. On the program that aired Wednesday, Gandhi defeated two contestants to earn $17,700. Her semifinal round will be televised today at 7 p.m. on WMAR (Channel 2) in Baltimore and at 7:30 p.m. on WJLA (Channel 7) in Washington. If Gandhi wins tonight, she advances to the finals, which will air tomorrow and Friday. "It's actually really surreal," said the McGill University-bound teenager.

THIS WASN'T just some small-time confidence operation, a couple of sleazy characters taking an old lady's savings. The 1950s quiz-show scandal was a con game that duped a nation."

WASHINGTON -- Robert Redford calls "Quiz Show" a parable about "the eternal struggle between ethics and capitalism." It's no wonder that he explores television, an arena where ethics and capitalism clash all the time.In "Quiz Show," capitalism triumphs. The networks and producers, hungry for ratings and profits, deceive their viewers by fixing the results of the quiz shows.But the reality of television is more complex.The networks weren't wholly to blame for the quiz show scandals. Fakery isn't an easy thing to define, then or now. And television, for all its flaws, often manages to rise above commerce to serve the public.

A LOCAL television tradition for more than 40 years will feature South Carroll High School this month at the taping of It's Academic. "We got our team together last spring," said Gary Foote, South Carroll physics teacher and coach. "Ever since, we've been training by going over questions. And, recently, we even bought a buzzer system to help prepare." The weekly high school quiz show began taping its 32nd season in Baltimore and 42nd season in Washington this year. Each show features three-area high school teams, made up of three players each, competing to answer questions related to science, math, history, literature and current events.

The feature film "JFK" and the continuing deluge of TV docudramas "inspired by real events" have convinced some that history should not be learned from television or film. Nothing lies quite as convincingly as the visual image.Then there's "The Quiz Show Scandal," at 9 tonight on MPT (Channels 22 and 67).The one-hour documentary on how TV quiz shows in the 1950s were rigged is TV telling a piece of its own history and telling it better than it has ever been told in newspaper, magazine or book.

SOPHIE ALTMAN'S voice carries above the conversation of sleepy parents and noisy students on a recent Saturday morning: "Do we have any cheerleaders? Cheerleaders? Cheerleaders!"A group of teen-age girls wearing their green and yellow cheerleading outfits and carrying gold pompons parade past Altman, holding open the glass door to a WJZ-Channel 13 studio where "It's Academic," the long-running high school quiz show, will soon be taped."The band," she yells. "Where's the band?"Finally, Altman goes to the "green room" and fetches host Mac McGarry and the taping begins.

Justin Sausville of Mount Washington is a whiz at the brainy TV game show "Jeopardy!" - and he's proving just as stellar at "I've Got a Secret. " In effect, he has reigned as "Jeopardy!" champ for a staggering two weeks. He scored back-to-back wins on the July 28 and July 29 episodes. Then "Jeopardy" broke for summer vacation - and won't come back until Sept. 19. Sausville knows exactly what will happen that night. He recorded his return match on Aug. 2, because "Jeopardy!"

HOLLYWOOD - It's not often a show about modern "dating" brings to mind the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, but watching Bravo's new reality series Date My Ex, which begins tonight, I found myself inexplicably flashing back to Ralph Fiennes as scholar turned disgraced contestant Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show. No doubt this was, in part, a subconscious attempt to remain awake, to relieve the utter tedium of Date My Ex, in which Jo De La Rosa, formerly of The Real Housewives of Orange County, engages in an upscale dating game with - oh, what will they think of next?

SOPHIE ALTMAN, 95 Creator of TV's 'It's Academic' Television producer Sophie Altman, who created the long-running quiz show It's Academic, pitting teams of high school students against each other, died of heart disease Saturday at Georgetown University Medical Center, said her daughter, Nancy Altman of Bethesda. Altman was a seasoned TV producer in 1961 when she started It's Academic in the Washington area. The quiz show is entering its 48th season in Washington, and there are local versions in Baltimore, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and several other cities; at one point more than 20 cities had their own versions.

Kriti Gandhi, an 18-year-old graduate of Centennial High School, won her opening round of the Jeopardy! Summer Games Teen Tournament and has advanced to the semifinals. On the program that aired Wednesday, Gandhi defeated two contestants to earn $17,700. Her semifinal round will be televised today at 7 p.m. on WMAR (Channel 2) in Baltimore and at 7:30 p.m. on WJLA (Channel 7) in Washington. If Gandhi wins tonight, she advances to the finals, which will air tomorrow and Friday. "It's actually really surreal," said the McGill University-bound teenager.

LANCASTER, Pa. - Brad Rutter is proof that the gods keep an eye out for slackers. The 27-year-old Johns Hopkins University dropout and former record-store worker beat quiz-show legend Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions on May 25, winning $2 million. Add that to the Jeopardy! booty he has scored since he first played the game in 2000, and his total is $3,255,102, making Rutter the biggest TV game-show winner in history, according to the show's people. Not exactly tied to the fast track - "I'm not ambitious and I don't need to work for The Man" - Rutter is an amiable guy with a "flypaper memory" that allows him to capture and keep stray facts that he then marshals for money.

The club is dark. Patrons line up at the bar. House music pulses, and strobe lights flash. It's just an ordinary night at Grand Central in Mount Vernon, until the techno beat fades into "Luck be a Lady Tonight" and a red velvet curtain lifts to reveal the night's hostess, drag queen Shawnna Alexander. Her flouncy black and white dress is decorated with a plush red crab pin that glitters in the spotlight. Welcome to "Buzzer," a new event at this Mount Vernon watering hole, where patrons can participate in quiz-show style games for cash and prizes.

You may not know actor Ralph Fiennes. But if you saw "Schindler's List," you surely know his work.In Steven Spielberg's powerful film opus about the Holocaust, it was Mr. Fiennes who delivered the gut-wrenching portrayal of Amon Goeth, the ruthless and remorseless commandant of the World War II concentration camp. One memorable image: Mr. Fiennes, as the bloated and coolly maniacal Goeth, rolls out of bed one morning, reaches for his high-powered rifle, then strolls to the balcony, where he takes aim and unblinkingly executes an unsuspecting internee.

The November "sweeps" ratings period won't officially end until tonight, but the blockbuster performance of ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is already altering the prime-time landscape and shaking up network strategy for the next important audience measurement in February and beyond.CBS yesterday announced it will launch a new quiz show, "Winning Lines," in early January, while NBC said it hopes to have its remake of "21" on the air by February."In the vein of networks being copycats, we're jumping on the quiz show bandwagon like all our other competitors," CBS chairman Leslie Moonves said yesterday during a teleconference.

A LOCAL television tradition for more than 40 years will feature South Carroll High School this month at the taping of It's Academic. "We got our team together last spring," said Gary Foote, South Carroll physics teacher and coach. "Ever since, we've been training by going over questions. And, recently, we even bought a buzzer system to help prepare." The weekly high school quiz show began taping its 32nd season in Baltimore and 42nd season in Washington this year. Each show features three-area high school teams, made up of three players each, competing to answer questions related to science, math, history, literature and current events.

Two days after receiving fourth runner-up honors at the annual Miss America pageant, you may find Miss Maryland Camille Lewis at a nearby video store. The 23-year-old Silver Spring native will more than likely be renting local filmmaker John Waters' Hairspray, after missing a question about the movie's setting during a quiz show-style round of questioning Saturday night. "I wouldn't mind seeing that," she said of the Baltimore-based '80s flick. "I'm very open to researching that movie."