|
Formats and time periods
for this first Goodson-Todman game changed greatly over the years it was
on radio and television. The version hosted by Bill was a pretty
straightforward quiz game. Two players competed to be the first to answer
three questions correctly. The winner received a prize and faced a new
challenger.
Winner Take All was a significant series in Bill's career for many reasons. Bill's big break was as host of the radio version of this series, and this television version was the first network TV series he hosted (albeit briefly). The series is also credited with introducing such now standard game show concepts as the returning champion and the lock-out buzzer device. A Winner Take All Home Quiz Book was published in 1949. It contained 2000 questions and answers, and was credited to Bill Todman and Mark Goodson. (That's right, in an unusual early twist, Todman got top billing!) The producers probably wrote very little of the actual material, and in their brief introduction they thank the unnamed research staff. After its cancellation, the Winner Take All quiz continued in the summer of 1952 as one segment of the variety series Matinee in New York. Goodson and Todman tried reworking the format in a 1955 pilot called Play For Keeps! with Sonny Fox as host. That version would have been G-T's entry into the world of high-stakes quizzes. In the pilot, the "defending champion" had "already won" $15,000 and the rules made it clear that there was no limit to what she could earn as long as she kept on winning. Given that the Goodson-Todman company managed to avoid being tainted by the quiz show scandals, in part because their shows weren't played for high stakes, it's interesting to wonder what might have happened if this version had made it to the airwaves. VIDEO
|
