116 Praise little boys: Mark Van Doren, “Psalm 3,” That Shining Place
153 In frenetic quest: Daniel Boorstin, The Image
153 It was the picture that mattered: Don DeLillo, White Noise
153 Everything on TV: straw poll comment, Miami Herald, circa 1959
177 The great networks are sharpening their weapons: Chicago Sun Times, March 12, 1961
194 He is an engaging: Time Magazine, February 1957
195 The St. Claires represent a tradition of people: ibid, quoting family friend Clifton Fadiman
195 In our senior year: Time Magazine, February 1957
207 Like a good American: Erik Goldman
215 The controversy about the effect of TV: The Victoria Advocate, 1957
215 Well of course we want problems: Mark Van Doren, Book of Praise
225 Remember, we’re not selling the program: New York Times, October 5, 2015
225 We’re here to deliver the audience: ibid
234 A degree of deception: Dan Enright, TV producer, in Time Magazine, 1959
234 Those concerned with this matter: The Victoria Advocate, 1957
250 Kenny is almost a Greek tragic hero: Time Magazine, February 11, 1957
263 Thank you very much, thank you, thank you: Jack Bailey, as host of Queen for a Day
263 The line between performer and performance: Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life
263 This almost perfect man: Mark Van Doren, The New Invitation to Learning
263 And now, with a complete grasp of the English language: Ernie Kovacs, as host of Take a Good Look
263 We all sense that somehow: Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited
263 This may be the most important: Edgar Bergen, as host of Do You Trust Your Wife?
263 The goal is usually: Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited
263 Who is prepared to take arms: Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
265 If we go on as we are: Edward R. Murrow
265 In a time that is no time: Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life
265 Ladies and gentlemen: Jack Barry, as host of Juvenile Jury
265 Television begins by being entertaining: Clifton Fadiman, Any Number Can Play
266 This is an instance: Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
266 To ask is to break the spell: ibid
266 What are you gonna do: Jack Barry, as host of Tic Tac Dough
286 Please go look into a mirror: Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
322 Never before in history: Barrett Swanson, Los Angeles Review of Books, August 15, 2016
322 You have to make allowances: Don DeLillo, White Noise
322 I really like him: Javier Marias, Your Face Tomorrow, Vol. 1 (translator Margaret Jull Costa)
336 The whole gloss and excitement: Time Magazine, September 8, 1958
337 Ladies and gentlemen, this is a bit unusual: NBC television, September 8, 1958
351 One of my enemies ended my life: 10th-century riddle concerning the manufacture of vellum
354 I am frightened: Edward R. Murrow’s “Wires in a box” speech to the Radio & Television News Directors Association, October 15, 1958
363 We still lead the world in stimuli: Don DeLillo, White Noise
363 In this new landscape: David Shields, Realty Hunger
391 After I did the pilot: Sonny Fox, host of The $64,000 Challenge
391 The individual: Ihab Hassan, “The Way We Have Become,” Georgia Review, summer 2009
391 It was the most impactful show: Daniel Enright, TV producer
391 The sponsors probably quadrupled: Joseph Cates, TV producer
391 It was a con game: Reverend Stoney Jackson, contestant, The $64,000 Question
391 I’m telling you: Jack Narz, quiz show host
392 I remember one night: Sonny Fox, host of The $64,000 Challenge
392 We’re all secretly practicing; David Shields, Reality Hunger
392 Every two minutes: Steven Shaviro, Stranded in the Jungle
392 The camera begins to attract: Stanley Milgram, played by Peter Sarsgaard in Experimenter
392 Tell me the large technologies: David Thomson, Television: A Biography
392 It’s no longer a passive recorder: Stanley Milgram, played by Peter Sarsgaard in Experimenter
392 I’ve often been tormented: Clifton Fadiman, Conversation, NBC Radio, 1954
392 I’m going to say: David Thomson, Television: A Biography
394 She laughed in a sweet: ibid
394 Reality, to be profitable: Mark Slouka, War of the Worlds
394 The age of humanism: David Thomson, Television: A Biography
397 This is a book: ibid
397 The world was becoming a television studio: Peter Carlson, K Blows Top
397 The realization that something: Tim Wu, New York Times, November 25, 2016
397 Is it wrong to give people: Bill Schlackman, psychologist, “The Century of the Self” documentary film
397 The possibilities for exercising: George Lakoff, Resisting the Virtual Life
397 Pocket assignment: David Thomson, Television: A Biography
414 Khruschev, a natural ham: Peter Carlson, K Blows Top
456 The inquisitor arrives: Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House
456 We have been converted: David Thomson, Television: A Biography
456 The hostess and a chanting audience: National Public Radio, March 18, 2010
456 All that is left: John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket
458 If it is our nature: David Mamet, Three Uses of the Knife
462 And what will be the future of the individual imagination: Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium
463 The montage is the message: Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited
463 The trickster is always between: John Berger, A Seventh Man
463 culture recast as data: Joan Shelley Rubin, The Making of Middlebrow Culture
465 America is a nation where: Partisan Review, May-June 1952
465 In the first place: Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
465 A movie based on a comic book: Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life
466 He spoke without notes: Donald Keene, Columbia class of 1942, quoted in David Lehman’s introduction to Mark Van Doren’s Shakespeare, New York Review Books
466 Captured the imagination of the public: Joan Shelley Rubin, The Making of Middlebrow Culture
466 The audience gets to know you: Jack Benny, quoted in David Halberstam’s The Fifties
471 Not everyone grows up: Charles Van Doren, Encyclopedia Britannica film “The Secret Sharer” (1973)
476 A nation breathed each breath: Jack Gould, New York Times, September 28, 1958
476 The quest for self-realization: Joan Shelley Rubin, The Making of Middlebrow Culture
477 The raw meat of actuality has finally succumbed: Jack Gould, New York Times, Sept 28, 1958
477 A thing we’ll all carry around with us…people project onto: Ali Smith, Artful
478 What good is knowledge…knows anything: Don DeLillo, White Noise
488 Later it was learned: Joseph Stone, Prime Time & Misdemeanors
488 As a special bonus: Richard S. Tedlow, American Quarterly, autumn 1976
Additional Sources:
-Kip Fadiman’s comments during dinner at the Saint Claire house are based on, and sometimes quotations from, Fadiman’s delightful and prophetic essay “The Decline of Attention,” found in his book Party of One (1955).
-Kenyon and Maynard’s talk during their night-walk on the farm draws upon, and includes quotations from, Charles Van Doren’s article “All the Answers” in the July 28, 2008 issue of The New Yorker.
&
nbsp; -Maynard Saint Claire’s Don Quixote speech consists of verbatim extracts from Mark Van Doren’s remarks on WNYC Radio’s Books & Authors Luncheon, March 10, 1957 http://www.wnyc.org/story/mark-van-doren-clifton-fadiman-and-sir-charles-snow
-Kenyon’s remarks at the Boston conference, as well as some of the details in the section entitled “LIFE (Attempt),” are based on, or quotations from, Charles Van Doren’s article, “Junk Wins TV Quiz Shows,” Life Magazine, Sept. 23, 1957
-Kenyon’s remarks on the Today Show about Renaissance Man consist of quotations from Charles Van Doren, A History of Knowledge.
-Kenyon’s statement before Congress is based on the statement made by Charles Van Doren before Congress on November 2, 1959.
-Many of the newspaper extracts throughout Q&A are written in close emulation of—and some contain verbatim text from—actual newspaper articles of the day.
-The following publications were extremely useful to me while writing Q&A: Television Fraud by Kent Anderson; The Image Empire by Erik Barnouw; K Blows Top by Peter Carlson; The Fifties by David Halberstam; Prime Time & Misdemeanors by Joseph Stone; and “Investigation of Television Quiz Shows: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Eighty-sixth Congress, First Session,” National Archives.
Special thanks to Jane Klain at the Paley Center for Media in New York, for pointing me to additional resources and allowing me the use of a copy machine. Thank you to Robert Antoni, Dave Roth, Keija Parssinen, Jaynie Royal, and Pam Van Dyk. And thank you to The Corporation of Yaddo, which provided me shelter, nourishment, and quietude during the writing of this book.
* * *
1 *Congressional Record, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959.
2 * Congressional Record, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
3 * Congressional Record, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
4 * Congressional Record, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
5 * Congressional Record, House Committee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
6 * Congressional Record, House Committee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
7 Congressional Record, House Committee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
8 ∗ Congressional Record, House Committee on Legislative Oversight, October 2, 1959
9 ∗ Congressional Record, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
10 ∗ Congressional Record, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, October 6, 1959
11 ∗ IBM RAMAC 305 computer, Moscow Exhibition, July 1959
12 ∗ Afterward, it was widely understood that the telegenic Kennedy was the winner of this debate.
13 ∗ Saint Claire is played brilliantly in Contestant by screen newcomer Ralph Tuttle, for whom an Oscar nomination looks likely.
Q & A Page 34
