Since I’ve been doing all this writing about old time radio shows like Harry Lime and The Shadow, and the late, great Orson Welles, I am reminded of another interesting old time…well, event I should talk about. While working on my undergraduate thesis I got very involved in the study of literary hoaxes. That’s a whole other topic, but this line of research eventually led my to the Geritol quiz show scandal in the late 50s. It was discovered at that time that Producers on the show were giving answers to preferred contestants. There were investigations, some lives were ruined, and none of the rich bad guys suffered.

In the mid-90s, Robert Redford made a movie about it all. And, actually, its a very good movie. I know this because I researched the events and watched a number of documentaries about the scandal while I was in college. Several years later, I caught the film on a movie channel and thoroughly enjoyed it (Rob Morrow’s atrocious Boston accent aside).

At the time, Geritol was the sponsor, and had a reigning national tonic to help you age better, lose weight, stay regular, cleanse your body, heal everything, cure zombie-ism, lube your chassis and anything else you wanted it to do. They wanted drama. They wanted characters you could either love or hate, characters you would tune it to either cheer for or against. They sanctioned the producers to manipulate the contestant pool to heighten drama and weed out the less desirables.

They had a long run with Herb Stempel, a brash, working-class Jew from Brooklyn who could virtually sweat on command. John Turturro is fantastic in the role – trust me, I saw a lot of interviews with this guy. The real kicker, however, is when they lassoed Charles Van Doren, product of one of America’s great literary families, and a popular Columbia University professor, and made him an American folk hero.

If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a thinky movie, sure, but it’s also true. It’s all true. It reveals a dark but persistent and very, very real aspect of our popular culture. And if you think anything has improved since the 50s…think again.