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.|
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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.
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VIDEO
A small number of episodes survive. GSN: The Network for Games has aired four episodes featuring Bill, and one earlier one with Barry Gray. Those episodes are also in the UCLA archives. The 1955 pilot Play For Keeps! is at UCLA as well.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Information about the radio version in our RADIO section
The Winner Take All page at Adam Nedeff's Bill Cullen's World
The Winner Take All page on Wikipedia
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