Game shows have existed for nearly as long as broadcasting itself. In 1923, a daily newspaper, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, struck on the idea with a radio show, Brooklyn Eagle Quiz on Current Events. Since then, game shows have endured changes in the media landscape, scandals, Supreme Court hearings, and numerous premature pronouncements of death for the genre. And here we are, nearly a century later, still tuning in, and still playing.0,000 Pyramid
In the early stages, shows like Professor Quiz and Ask-It Basket simply asked audience members questions and gave the high scorer $25. Quiz Kids and Information Please asked listeners to mail questions in for panelists to answer, with a few dollars awarded for people whose questions were stumpers. It was forward-thinking producer/host Ralph Edwards who took game shows to the next level with his raucous Truth or Consequences in the late 1930s. It only made sense that when commercial television in the U.S. began on July 1, 1941, the programming line-up for the day included a special broadcast of this show.
