Columbia University lecturer Charles Van Doren won $129,000 over several months on NBC's Twenty-One in 1956–57, in a rigged game — the most notorious prior game show scandal.
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At 6:30 · chapter starts 5:25
With Larson's streak underway on the studio floor, the CBS control room is filling with dread. Practices executive Darlene Lieblick-Tipton later recalls the atmosphere shifting in real time: early spins sparked curiosity ('How is he doing that?'), which gradually curdled into something closer to horror ('Oh my God, he's doing that!') [1] — Host "After about the third spin, the question that is sort of mentally being asked of everybody is, 'How is he doing that?' And then it was just…" 05:38 . The producers' first instinct is that some kind of scam is being run — no one, they reason, could be this lucky. The host uses this moment of institutional panic to place Larson in the long and inglorious tradition of American game show scandals. The most notorious precedent is the rigged NBC quiz show Twenty-One, where telegenic Columbia University lecturer Charles Van Doren was fed answers by producers and went on to win $129,000 over several months in 1956 and 1957 — a feel-good story that collapsed into scandal and later inspired Robert Redford's 1994 film Quiz Show. But the host flags the key difference: unlike Van Doren, Larson has no accomplices and no inside help. He is a lone wolf. Just, as the host drily notes, a slightly unglamorous lone wolf who drives an ice cream truck.
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