(NBC Primetime, 1956 - 1958) [aka: "21"; This Barry & Enright production was one of the first shows investigated by Congress during the quiz-show scandals of 1957-58; disgruntled contestant Herbert Stempel testified how producers forced him to "take a dive" and lose, while "rigging the show" -- feeding answers to contestants in order to manipulate who won and lost for the most dramatic ratings; Contestant Charles Van Doren Jr. was a fair-haired young Harvard professor and son of an older celebrated Harvard professor-author; became a huge instant media celebrity after he won big on the show and bumped the long-running Stempel; Afterwards Van Doren was hired by NBC as a "Today Show" correspondent and it seemed like his future was bright; All this came crashing down when he later admitted that he received answers to questions in a pre-show "practice" -- these were the same questions he was later asked on the live telecast, which guaranteed he would win; The disclosures not only embarassed the networks and made Van Doren lose his NBC gig and Harvard teaching position, but it also made quiz shows in generally unpopular for awhile; and it prompted laws in congress to be passed to prevent the practice of "rigging" in the future; For a time, this scandal was also the ruination of Barry & Enright who became national pariahs; But since the only real sin in the film/TV is not making money, the dynamic duo returned later with a series of commercially successful daytime shows including "The Joker's Wild", "Tic Tac Dough", "Bullseye", "Play The Percentages" and "Hot Potato"; Jack Barry died of a heart attack years later in 1984, while jogging near his home in New York City; 10 years after his death, events surrounding the rise and fall of "Twenty-One" were dramatized in the 1994 motion picture "Quiz Show" directed by Robert Redford, which starred Ralph Fiennes, Rob Morrow and John Tuturro]
[aka: "21"] Composer: Paul Taubman (ASCAP) 1978 Publisher: [listed without publisher in the 1978 ASCAP Index of Performed Compositions] 1997 Publisher: [listed without publisher in the 1997 ASCAP ACE Repertoire database] Copyright Date: Renewal Date: Recordings: [on soundtrack of motion picture "Quiz Show", available on video cassettes, but not on soundtrack CD]