# Cautionary Tales Presents: World's Greatest Con

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 29 Apr 2022, 1 h 13 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/f5e303c3-fd99-4b3d-9dc9-ae7f001a21d7/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

We'll be back with another story of human error next week, but today we're sharing another podcast you might like. On World's Greatest Con, Brian Brushwood talks about the most audacious con jobs, swindles, and heists in history. In this episode of World's Greatest Con, Brian tells the story of how a game show producer was tempted into upping the ante on his own program by feeding answers to the contestants. Those contestants become rich, famous, and admired...until the scheme is discovered and all they are left with is shame. You can hear more episodes by searching for World's Greatest Con wherever you get podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin. Tim Harford Here this week, Cautionary Tales hands the
[0:23] Speaker 1: microphone to Brian Brushwood, host of World's Greatest Con, a
[0:28] Speaker 1: show about the most audacious con jobs, swindles, and heists
[0:32] Speaker 1: in history. The events you'll hear about our a quintessential
[0:36] Speaker 1: cautionary tale, a story of how a game show producer
[0:39] Speaker 1: was tempted into upping the ante on his own program
[0:43] Speaker 1: by feeding answers to the contestants. Those contestants become stars, rich, famous, admired,
[0:51] Speaker 1: and then the scheme is discovered and all they're left
[0:55] Speaker 1: with is shame. I love World's Greatest Con, both this
[1:00] Speaker 1: second season, which is all about frauds and cons perpetrated
[1:04] Speaker 1: on or by TV quiz shows such as Who Wants
[1:07] Speaker 1: to Be a Millionaire, The Price Is Right, Press Your
[1:10] Speaker 1: Luck and more, and the first season, which was about
[1:13] Speaker 1: an astonishing attempt to con Adolphe Hitler himself. It's packed
[1:19] Speaker 1: with the storytelling, the human psychology and the salutary lessons
[1:23] Speaker 1: you expect from Cautionary Tales. If you're not already a subscriber,
[1:27] Speaker 1: take a moment to subscribe now and you can thank
[1:30] Speaker 1: me later. Brian Brushwood, the host of World's Greatest Con
[1:34] Speaker 1: also hosts TV shows on Discovery and National Geographic, is
[1:38] Speaker 1: an international lecturer on scams and is an absolute pleasure
[1:42] Speaker 1: to listen to. And I'll be back at the Helm
[1:44] Speaker 1: of Cautionary Tales this time next week with a new
[1:47] Speaker 1: story of human error. But until then, over to Brian
[1:51] Speaker 1: Brushwood and World's Greatest Con. This is World's Greatest Car.
[1:57] Speaker 1: I'm Brian Brushwood. All right, It's nineteen fifty seven and
[2:04] Speaker 1: two hundred people are getting pulled into a grand jury.
[2:09] Speaker 1: They're all told the same thing. Tell the truth, you'll
[2:11] Speaker 1: be on your way. But if you lie, you are
[2:14] Speaker 1: going to be indicted on federal perjury charges. And these
[2:19] Speaker 1: people aren't just anyone. We're talking about lawyers, professors, active military,
[2:25] Speaker 1: respected individuals, people with a lot to lose if their
[2:32] Speaker 1: reputations are tarnished. And fascinatingly, one by one, these individuals
[2:39] Speaker 1: go to the grand jury and the overwhelming majority lie.
[2:47] Speaker 1: They commit federal perjury. I mean, maybe it's some money,
[2:52] Speaker 1: right Monday, it's got to be involved somewhere. Would they
[2:54] Speaker 1: lie for the money. Maybe it's a grand conspiracy. They're
[2:59] Speaker 1: all in. If one person cracks, everything comes down occult.
[3:04] Speaker 1: I mean hell, that'd make more sense than the truth,
[3:08] Speaker 1: because the truth is the real reason is something elemental
[3:12] Speaker 1: in every single one of us, something hardwired into our brains.
[3:16] Speaker 1: All of us have a relationship with this, and it's
[3:20] Speaker 1: a con man's job to exploit it. I'm going to
[3:25] Speaker 1: tell you an epic story about fame and shame, about
[3:31] Speaker 1: how our desire for one and the fear of the
[3:34] Speaker 1: other can eradicate your morals, reduce you to a pawn
[3:40] Speaker 1: on somebody else's chessboard. But before we get to the
[3:45] Speaker 1: heavy stuff, let's understand this phenomenon in a safer sandbox,
[3:50] Speaker 1: a realm without any victims. Okay, this will be a
[3:55] Speaker 1: weird segue, but have you ever been due a stage
[3:59] Speaker 1: hypnotist show. Sometimes these shows are like a Christmas event
[4:05] Speaker 1: for our corporation. Sometimes you'll buy a ticket on the
[4:08] Speaker 1: strip in Las Vega. Guess I always see them at
[4:10] Speaker 1: these college freshman orientations, you know, those big events they
[4:14] Speaker 1: do in the first one or two days when you
[4:16] Speaker 1: come to campus, when they want you to bond together
[4:19] Speaker 1: as a cohort and have shared experience. It's the perfect
[4:25] Speaker 1: activity to get people to reveal stuff about themselves. In fact,
[4:31] Speaker 1: put yourself back there. You don't know anybody, You don't
[4:35] Speaker 1: know how any of this is going to go, but
[4:38] Speaker 1: you do know that you want to fit in. There's
[4:41] Speaker 1: a thousand other people in this pact charged auditorium. You're excited,
[4:47] Speaker 1: they're excited. You want to know them, they want to
[4:49] Speaker 1: know you. How walks a guy, an authoritative suit who
[4:55] Speaker 1: explains to you that only one type of person can
[5:00] Speaker 1: be hypnotized. Smart person, somebody smart enough to exactly follow
[5:06] Speaker 1: directions on Q and no, you won't lose free will,
[5:11] Speaker 1: but yes, you will experience something that you will remember
[5:15] Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. And then comes the
[5:18] Speaker 1: first part of how stage hypnosis works. He asks who
[5:24] Speaker 1: here in this room would like to be hypnotized. This
[5:31] Speaker 1: feels like a very small moment. It's not. It's the
[5:33] Speaker 1: most important moment. The reason it's the most important moment
[5:36] Speaker 1: is because you are self selecting or compliance. You are
[5:42] Speaker 1: entering a contract. You are saying I am ready to play?
[5:47] Speaker 1: Are you? And forty five other freshmen go running up
[5:50] Speaker 1: to the stage. Y'all get in a line. And what
[5:53] Speaker 1: happens first is a very small ask. The stage hypnotist says,
[5:58] Speaker 1: I want you to imagine you're getting very very hot.
[6:03] Speaker 1: Oh what must that be like to be very very hot?
[6:06] Speaker 1: And of course you are hot. You're under a bunch
[6:08] Speaker 1: of lamps, you're on stage, you're next to all these
[6:12] Speaker 1: other sweaty bodies. You just ran a hundred meters to
[6:15] Speaker 1: get up here. After a few minutes of this, a
[6:18] Speaker 1: language changes just a little bit. Now he just says,
[6:23] Speaker 1: now you're getting cooler. But you know what he's talking about, right,
[6:27] Speaker 1: or it was hot, Now I'm getting cooler. Of course.
[6:29] Speaker 1: Of course, also by the way, you are actually getting cooler.
[6:32] Speaker 1: You worked up a sweat while you were up there
[6:34] Speaker 1: on stage. Now all that sweat is starting to evaporate.
[6:37] Speaker 1: You're getting cooler. So you begin to shake and shiver,
[6:41] Speaker 1: cover yourself, and all the while he's quietly eliminating people.
[6:47] Speaker 1: He doesn't say elimination. What he says is if I
[6:52] Speaker 1: tap you on the shoulder, it just didn't work out.
[6:55] Speaker 1: It's not really a punishment. But you know what you want,
[6:59] Speaker 1: You know, you want to stay up there on stage.
[7:01] Speaker 1: You want to keep going. We hear directives and sleep,
[7:08] Speaker 1: and we know while we're out there on stage what
[7:11] Speaker 1: he means is act as though you just went into
[7:15] Speaker 1: a slumber. Let your thoughts and you begin to watch
[7:19] Speaker 1: as stranger and stranger things happen around you, always happening
[7:24] Speaker 1: to other people. Nothing amazing is about to happen person
[7:28] Speaker 1: I'm touching right now, Only the person I'm touching right now.
[7:30] Speaker 1: In a moment, I'm going to ask you a question,
[7:33] Speaker 1: and when I do, you will be unable to remember
[7:36] Speaker 1: the number seven. And when he asks you to add
[7:40] Speaker 1: together or in four you say eight, It's like great,
[7:44] Speaker 1: so you must have eight fingers pointed up. Go ahead
[7:47] Speaker 1: and count them one, two, three, four, five, six? What
[7:53] Speaker 1: else are you going to do? In Meanwhile, the audience
[7:56] Speaker 1: is loving it a laughter the applause. I mean you
[8:00] Speaker 1: think of yourself as an introvert. You've never experienced anything
[8:04] Speaker 1: like this. Right now, the attention is on you, and
[8:08] Speaker 1: you are in full on flow state melts. All of
[8:11] Speaker 1: these decisions about whether you're playing along or just following instructions,
[8:15] Speaker 1: they all get blended together. Choices become instinctual. The age
[8:22] Speaker 1: of eighteen, a freshman at college, you've probably never experienced
[8:27] Speaker 1: anything like this before. All you know is that it
[8:30] Speaker 1: feels awesome. And when this dude tells you something to do,
[8:35] Speaker 1: you do it. Everybody claps and you feel great, and
[8:39] Speaker 1: then forty minutes into the performance, he says to you
[8:46] Speaker 1: out loud, you are Britney Spears, and you have a
[8:56] Speaker 1: choice because the hypnotist didn't lie. You do have free will.
[9:02] Speaker 1: You could do anything you want at any moment. But
[9:05] Speaker 1: you also know that of any two options, you want
[9:10] Speaker 1: the one that's less painful, and in that moment, it
[9:14] Speaker 1: would be more painful to stop the show, to say,
[9:19] Speaker 1: this has been a wild ride, but I'm afraid I'm
[9:23] Speaker 1: outside of my comfort zone. I'm just going to head
[9:26] Speaker 1: on down back to my seat. What's less painful is
[9:30] Speaker 1: that you are Britney Spears. Every sexy bumping, you grind,
[9:44] Speaker 1: touching your body in a ways that you wouldn't even
[9:46] Speaker 1: do a load in the bathroom, Everybody cheering, screaming, It's
[9:51] Speaker 1: an ecstasy of improvisation that you've never experienced her entire lives.
[9:56] Speaker 1: Good God, the whole world stopped and shown a spotlight
[10:01] Speaker 1: on you. It's calorie free fame. There's no way you
[10:07] Speaker 1: can lose. You'll be reward or if you're dancing is good,
[10:10] Speaker 1: you'll be blameless if it's bad. The reliability of these
[10:15] Speaker 1: reactions to fame and shame. That's what allows stage hypnotists
[10:19] Speaker 1: to make a living doing this. Yes, hypnosis is a
[10:23] Speaker 1: real phenomenon, but stage hypnosis is a different animal. And
[10:28] Speaker 1: everybody on that stage we're acting the way that they
[10:31] Speaker 1: did for fame. The folks that stayed up there the
[10:37] Speaker 1: longest did so out of fear that they would be
[10:41] Speaker 1: eliminated and the shame that would come from that. Last
[10:46] Speaker 1: season we explained how common conmand tactics were used to
[10:51] Speaker 1: defeat Hitler, of all people, by the twenty Committee. So
[10:55] Speaker 1: this season will do one better. The biggest scandal in
[10:59] Speaker 1: television history the downfall of the TV quiz Show twenty one.
[11:07] Speaker 1: Twenty one is so popular that a winning contestant is
[11:11] Speaker 1: an instant celebrity. Overnight, they're a household name, and along
[11:15] Speaker 1: with that comes money, money that you can use for
[11:18] Speaker 1: yourself and your loved ones. But as it broadcasts, what
[11:24] Speaker 1: tens of millions of viewers at home don't know is
[11:27] Speaker 1: that most of the winners are in the process of
[11:30] Speaker 1: making a deal with the devil. Each of them are
[11:34] Speaker 1: crossing an ethical line that will eventually eradicate their reputation
[11:38] Speaker 1: long after the fame and the money are gone all
[11:42] Speaker 1: in the service of producers who are playing a much
[11:46] Speaker 1: more high stakes game. If you were told you were
[11:49] Speaker 1: about to make more money in one night, then you'd
[11:52] Speaker 1: make it an entire year. That everyone am your block
[11:55] Speaker 1: would hail you as a hero, that you could have
[11:57] Speaker 1: a future in television. All you had to do was
[12:00] Speaker 1: step in line and play along. All you had to
[12:04] Speaker 1: do was cheat. What would you do? Don't say it
[12:09] Speaker 1: out loud just yet. First put yourself in a soundproof
[12:14] Speaker 1: booth on live national television with fifty million people watching,
[12:22] Speaker 1: and answer this, how many points would you like to
[12:26] Speaker 1: play for? Cons don't fool us because we're stupid. They
[12:32] Speaker 1: fool us because we're human. And this might be the
[12:39] Speaker 1: world's greatest con. You're listening to world's greatest cone on
[12:49] Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales. Before we get to twenty one, you gotta talk.
[13:09] Speaker 1: Come out the show that it's desperately trying to take down. Yes,
[13:13] Speaker 1: the sixty four thousand dollars question, and now the star
[13:17] Speaker 1: of our show where knowledge is king and the reward
[13:21] Speaker 1: king size how march? All right, let's start here. Television
[13:28] Speaker 1: is a killer be killed business. Everybody's got an idea,
[13:32] Speaker 1: and most people could pull it off if they're surrounded
[13:34] Speaker 1: with right talent. But even at its earliest moments, television
[13:39] Speaker 1: is about getting those eyeballs a connection to the viewer.
[13:44] Speaker 1: There's no denying that nineteen fifty six, the viewer is
[13:47] Speaker 1: connecting with the sixty four thousand dollar question. It is
[13:52] Speaker 1: the first major hit game show on TV. And yes,
[13:58] Speaker 1: the game show format has been around since radio, but
[14:01] Speaker 1: now you could actually see the contestants. You could see
[14:03] Speaker 1: what they looked like, how they fidgeted under the pressure
[14:06] Speaker 1: or rocked it confidently straight through the answers. Also, remember
[14:13] Speaker 1: where we are. This is the nineteen fifties. Boys have
[14:16] Speaker 1: come home from World War Two. More of them came
[14:19] Speaker 1: home from Korea. Prosperity is the name of the game.
[14:23] Speaker 1: Everybody's home and they want to make an empire for themselves.
[14:28] Speaker 1: Cement is being poured on the suburbs that would go
[14:30] Speaker 1: on to define American culture for the next seventy years
[14:34] Speaker 1: in counting, and the game show embodies all of that.
[14:40] Speaker 1: Average people who want to make good, testing their own knowledge,
[14:44] Speaker 1: winning big money, big prizes. Remember Grandma's couch one that
[14:50] Speaker 1: had the plastic cover all over it. There was a
[14:53] Speaker 1: day that couch was brand new. Let's go back to
[14:56] Speaker 1: that day and let's sit on that couch and let's
[15:00] Speaker 1: turn on the TV and watch the sixty four thousand
[15:04] Speaker 1: dollars question. Honored client for the sixty dollar question psychologist
[15:09] Speaker 1: from New York City whose category is boxing, Doctor Joyce Trouters.
[15:17] Speaker 1: Finally what man later famous in the boxing world? Referee
[15:21] Speaker 1: the comeback attempt of the next Champ against Jack Johnson
[15:24] Speaker 1: at Reno Nevada. Text, Rickard, you're a right man? How
[15:33] Speaker 1: fifties is this? First? Off? Yes, that is the doctor
[15:36] Speaker 1: Joyce Brothers that you know and love. This is how
[15:38] Speaker 1: she got famous. But one of the first big winners
[15:42] Speaker 1: on sixty four thousand dollars question is Katherine Kreiser, in
[15:45] Speaker 1: which she answers a series of questions about Bible verses.
[15:50] Speaker 1: Here's what's important about Katherine see sixty four thousand dollars
[15:54] Speaker 1: question was kind of like who wants to be a millionaire.
[15:56] Speaker 1: You have to answer a series of questions leading up
[15:59] Speaker 1: to the big prize, and every win you get you
[16:02] Speaker 1: have a chance to walk away. Katherine hits that moment.
[16:05] Speaker 1: She has a chance to be the first sixty four
[16:08] Speaker 1: thousand dollar winner by answering one question, but she doesn't.
[16:14] Speaker 1: Given the opportunity to walk with thirty four thousand or
[16:19] Speaker 1: risk everything, she takes the money. This is a really
[16:23] Speaker 1: crucial part of the story and really of every con
[16:27] Speaker 1: Always value the money you have. It's your money. That's
[16:32] Speaker 1: why you've got to be careful to not covet the
[16:35] Speaker 1: money you don't yet have. Sixty four thousand dollars question
[16:39] Speaker 1: is on CBS. A few clicks down the dial, NBC
[16:43] Speaker 1: is getting covetous of those ratings. They try to buy
[16:48] Speaker 1: the sixty four thousand dollars question. They fail. They look
[16:51] Speaker 1: to make their own. Enter Dan and Write. Dan and
[17:01] Speaker 1: Wright was born in nineteen seventeen, grew up in British
[17:05] Speaker 1: Palestine in New York City, and Right was a revolutionary mind.
[17:10] Speaker 1: And we're not just talking game shows. It's all kinds
[17:12] Speaker 1: of audience participation shows. Shows where somebody from the audience
[17:16] Speaker 1: tells an interesting story and boom, they're reunited with their
[17:19] Speaker 1: long lost sister. Other ones where somebody is down on
[17:22] Speaker 1: their luck and they get a new car. It's part produced,
[17:26] Speaker 1: it's part improv In nineteen forty seven, n Right meets
[17:30] Speaker 1: the man that would become his creative partner for the
[17:32] Speaker 1: rest of his life, stand up comic Jack Barry. Together
[17:37] Speaker 1: they pitch and produce TV game shows, often ones that
[17:41] Speaker 1: use Barry as the MC. In nineteen fifty six, they
[17:44] Speaker 1: come up with twenty one. The one questions are super easy.
[17:48] Speaker 1: The eleven questions are often multiple parts and really really hard.
[17:51] Speaker 1: It's essentially like Blackjack. Whoever hits twenty one first wins.
[17:56] Speaker 1: NBC likes it enough to shoot a practice round perfect.
[18:00] Speaker 1: They're in the game. Oh yeah, twenty one. It has
[18:05] Speaker 1: one major advantage over the sixty four thousand dollar question.
[18:09] Speaker 1: See sixty four is massive, and the contestants that make
[18:12] Speaker 1: it far they become huge stars old Bible quote and
[18:16] Speaker 1: Catherine became a downright celebrity. But if you did the
[18:21] Speaker 1: best you could on sixty four, it only lasted four weeks.
[18:26] Speaker 1: All that hype for a month of ratings. Two twenty one.
[18:33] Speaker 1: Twenty one is set up so a winner could go
[18:35] Speaker 1: on forever, just keep winning and winning. Could you imagine
[18:40] Speaker 1: the publicity, imagine the attention. This is brilliant. En Right
[18:45] Speaker 1: sets up the first test game and it sucks. It
[18:53] Speaker 1: is super boring. And here's why. According to Enright, either
[18:57] Speaker 1: contestant could answer enough of the questions to make twenty one.
[19:01] Speaker 1: One of the advantages of sixty four thousand is that
[19:04] Speaker 1: the contestants got to pick one topic that they're an
[19:07] Speaker 1: expert in to answer increasingly difficult questions. Twenty one changes
[19:12] Speaker 1: the topic every question, so you have to find real savants,
[19:16] Speaker 1: people who are super well rounded about everything. What Right
[19:22] Speaker 1: may or may not know is that sixty four thousand
[19:24] Speaker 1: also tries to make sure their contestants succeed. For example,
[19:29] Speaker 1: to the home audience, the category is just opera, but
[19:32] Speaker 1: the producers know that this guy is really an expert
[19:35] Speaker 1: only in Italian opera, so all of his questions are
[19:38] Speaker 1: only about Italian opera, No Russian opera, no French opera.
[19:44] Speaker 1: So how are you going to get random people to
[19:46] Speaker 1: push past a single round, let alone so many rounds
[19:50] Speaker 1: they become huge stars? I mean could gee? Let's pause
[20:00] Speaker 1: here to consider the ethics of what's about to happen. Yes,
[20:05] Speaker 1: twenty one is a TV show. Most TV shows are faked. Yes,
[20:09] Speaker 1: sixty four thousand dollar question is shaped to help contestants,
[20:14] Speaker 1: but they don't get the questions beforehand. What end Right
[20:18] Speaker 1: is considering is to give the questions categories and the
[20:23] Speaker 1: answers to a contestant beforehand. I mean, what's the harm?
[20:28] Speaker 1: Contestants get money, he gets ratings. En Wright finds out
[20:33] Speaker 1: real quick with his first big winner. He feels a
[20:36] Speaker 1: little bit awkward coming out and asking a man to cheat,
[20:39] Speaker 1: So Enright does something clever. He gives a pre show
[20:41] Speaker 1: quiz to the guy, just to loosen his nerves a bit.
[20:44] Speaker 1: It's only after he's in the booth on live television
[20:48] Speaker 1: that the contestant realizes the practice questions that he already
[20:53] Speaker 1: got are in reality, the same questions being asked for
[20:57] Speaker 1: keeps live on TV. But what do you do? It's
[21:03] Speaker 1: money right? Wrong? This contestant felt betrayed and made a
[21:09] Speaker 1: fool of. He's worried about his reputation being branded as
[21:13] Speaker 1: a cheater. He goes to Enright and demands to give
[21:17] Speaker 1: the money back. Finally, Enright convinces him to keep it.
[21:21] Speaker 1: Just gracefully bow out what do we say? Can't con
[21:26] Speaker 1: and honest John? In another world this would have been
[21:30] Speaker 1: a wake up call. In an alternate reality, Enwright would
[21:34] Speaker 1: realize from the reaction of the first winner that a
[21:36] Speaker 1: man's reputation means a lot more than thousands of dollars.
[21:42] Speaker 1: Maybe the contestants shouldn't be treated just like props. Maybe
[21:46] Speaker 1: we could make the questions easier or find another way. Yeah,
[21:51] Speaker 1: now we're rolling, despite the contestants moral panic. Look, the
[21:55] Speaker 1: plan worked. The only mistake is that he surprised the
[21:58] Speaker 1: guy after the fact. He's got to be up front.
[22:02] Speaker 1: En Right needs somebody willing to take the money for nothing.
[22:06] Speaker 1: En Right has to find a mark. Meet Herb Stemple.
[22:16] Speaker 1: Herb's a studious guy who grew up in depression era
[22:19] Speaker 1: in New York. His father died at a young age.
[22:21] Speaker 1: His mother moved the family to a poor area of
[22:24] Speaker 1: the Bronx, and, like most able bodied young men, he
[22:28] Speaker 1: enlisted shipped off to Europe in the Army. After getting
[22:31] Speaker 1: back home from the war, he filtered through office posts
[22:34] Speaker 1: in the army, eventually ended up taking a job as
[22:37] Speaker 1: a postal clerk in the Big Apple. That's where he
[22:39] Speaker 1: got married, settled down and baby, and legitimately. Herb has
[22:44] Speaker 1: an insane memory. As a kid, he did this radio
[22:46] Speaker 1: quiz show. He remained undefeated for weeks. Picture Herb watching
[22:52] Speaker 1: twenty one saying to himself, these questions are easy. He
[22:58] Speaker 1: writes to the producer Dan Enwright takes a sample quiz where,
[23:01] Speaker 1: according to Stemple, he gets two hundred and fifty one
[23:05] Speaker 1: of the three hundred and sixty three questions exactly right.
[23:10] Speaker 1: When Enwright sees Stemple, he sees a story a new
[23:15] Speaker 1: father working his way through community college, a gi This
[23:19] Speaker 1: is America. Enwright invites Stemple to come to his office
[23:24] Speaker 1: for a meeting. Stemple can't do it because he has
[23:26] Speaker 1: to babysit his kid. So en Wright comes to him.
[23:31] Speaker 1: There could be no surprises anymore. So en Wright comes
[23:34] Speaker 1: right out and says, would you like to make twenty
[23:38] Speaker 1: five thousand dollars? Stemple is taken aback, but he knows
[23:43] Speaker 1: the score. In my mind, he's thinking like, oooh, twenty
[23:46] Speaker 1: five is a lot of money. Looks over at his
[23:48] Speaker 1: kid playing with his toy trucks on the floor. You
[23:51] Speaker 1: mean twenty five? And I don't even have to steal anything.
[23:54] Speaker 1: Like if the owner of the bank was trying to
[23:56] Speaker 1: give me money just to prove that rich people do
[23:58] Speaker 1: business there, I mean, everybody wins. Right. That's where Enwright
[24:06] Speaker 1: has him. We're going to find out there's a lot
[24:09] Speaker 1: more than money involved in a deal like this, and
[24:11] Speaker 1: Stemple specifically is going to fight tooth and nail for
[24:15] Speaker 1: it from the Bronx to the halls of Congress. But
[24:20] Speaker 1: for now, the done deal. What if five K I'll
[24:24] Speaker 1: do what you say? That's my motto this time and
[24:33] Speaker 1: Right has a partner, so he's stage manages Stemple way
[24:37] Speaker 1: more than the first guy. He gives him every point
[24:40] Speaker 1: value he's going to ask for every question he's going
[24:42] Speaker 1: to get, every answer he's going to say, right or wrong.
[24:46] Speaker 1: He picks out a suit for Stemple to make him
[24:48] Speaker 1: look frumpy, and to where the loudest watch he owns
[24:52] Speaker 1: to heighten the tension. What do we say? All the
[24:57] Speaker 1: effort into that first impression the tableau In the first
[25:03] Speaker 1: four minutes of the program, Stemple wins nine thousand dollars
[25:08] Speaker 1: more money in a lump some that he has ever
[25:10] Speaker 1: seen in his entire life. Stempele's take it a big
[25:14] Speaker 1: old bat bite, that forbidden fruit. He's all in on
[25:19] Speaker 1: the belief that this is easy money, and he is
[25:21] Speaker 1: willing to bend the rules and conceal the truth from
[25:24] Speaker 1: his friends, his family, the rest of the world. That
[25:29] Speaker 1: nine thousand dollars, that's just the beginning. Stemple would eventually
[25:33] Speaker 1: rack up nearly seventy thousand dollars in winnings nineteen fifties dollars,
[25:40] Speaker 1: and he's got the chance to turn it into one
[25:43] Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars, I mean sort of. See Enright loves
[25:51] Speaker 1: having a return winner, and the press loves having a
[25:54] Speaker 1: return winner. So Stemple becomes a minor New York celebrity.
[25:59] Speaker 1: But there's one part of a returning champion. The Enright
[26:02] Speaker 1: needs to, let's say, make some adjustments for the money.
[26:08] Speaker 1: See the sponsor of twenty one Pharmaceuticals, Inc. And their
[26:11] Speaker 1: product Jaritoal. They furnished the show with a limited prize budget.
[26:16] Speaker 1: If the total prize money for those twenty six weeks
[26:18] Speaker 1: is less than the money allotted, then it gets refunded
[26:22] Speaker 1: to the sponsor. But if it's over that number, well
[26:27] Speaker 1: that comes out of Barry and Enright productions. That means
[26:30] Speaker 1: the show has to live within its means. And since
[26:33] Speaker 1: Stemple was on his way to getting a big old
[26:35] Speaker 1: bat paycheck, that payout simply wasn't feasible. And here is
[26:40] Speaker 1: where the deal with the Devil comes due. First, en
[26:45] Speaker 1: Right places in front of Stemple an agreement. It's retroactive
[26:50] Speaker 1: to the very first appearance the Stemple made Out twenty
[26:53] Speaker 1: one that ninth that he won nine thousand dollars. In
[26:58] Speaker 1: plain language, it says Stemple will agree to take less
[27:03] Speaker 1: than his actual winnings on the show at the end
[27:07] Speaker 1: of his journey if he signs, he agrees to take
[27:11] Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars if he lands on anything between sixty
[27:14] Speaker 1: and eighty K, fifty thousand on any earnings between eighty
[27:19] Speaker 1: and one hundred K, and sixty thousand on anything over
[27:23] Speaker 1: one hundred K. And Wright makes it very clear that
[27:28] Speaker 1: he can either sign now or lose very badly and
[27:32] Speaker 1: walk with less than the lowest amount offered. Flashback to
[27:36] Speaker 1: that moment, just a few weeks ago, Stemple's apartment, his
[27:40] Speaker 1: son running around. Stemple let money trample his morals. Now
[27:46] Speaker 1: even the money is being taken away. Stepple's obviously a
[27:51] Speaker 1: bit blindsided, and Wright tells him not to worry. Hey, Stemple,
[27:55] Speaker 1: you're not just a postal clerk anymore. You're a TV star.
[27:58] Speaker 1: And and Wright just happens to be a TV producer.
[28:01] Speaker 1: After Stemple's done on twenty one, he'll be a perfect
[28:04] Speaker 1: fit for some other game show, maybe even a panel
[28:06] Speaker 1: show where he could simply just make money with his
[28:09] Speaker 1: wit and intellect. Who's your boy? Who's Enright's good partner?
[28:16] Speaker 1: To sign the contract? Stemple? You're smart? You say, Oh,
[28:20] Speaker 1: you're so smart, Stemple, You're the best. You'd be a
[28:24] Speaker 1: TV star. Stemple signs, and from this point forward, absolutely
[28:33] Speaker 1: nothing goes right for him. We're back in Enright's office.
[28:44] Speaker 1: Stemple's there again, but this time it's a few weeks later.
[28:47] Speaker 1: Stemple is the champion and his next show, he has
[28:50] Speaker 1: his chance to cross the line of one hundred thousand dollars.
[28:55] Speaker 1: But that's not going to happen because en Right has
[28:59] Speaker 1: to break some bad news to the kid. You gotta
[29:01] Speaker 1: lose next week. This is where the ride ends. Hey,
[29:05] Speaker 1: hold on, be cool. Who's your boy? Stempy? Stempy is
[29:12] Speaker 1: not cool. He wants to know exactly who's going to
[29:15] Speaker 1: replace him, and Wright explains, Ah, it's this alegant guy
[29:20] Speaker 1: by the name of Charles van Dorn. He's an you know,
[29:23] Speaker 1: an actor, writer, and is this professor at Columbia. I
[29:29] Speaker 1: mean he's from a famous intellectual family. You know enough
[29:33] Speaker 1: about Charles van Dorn. The important thing, Stempy is that
[29:35] Speaker 1: you're going to take a dive. Whoa, whoa? Stemp says,
[29:39] Speaker 1: if Van Dorn's from Columbia, Stepple is like from city college.
[29:43] Speaker 1: What if they have a straight up game. I mean,
[29:45] Speaker 1: don't just make me take a dive. We can play
[29:47] Speaker 1: it fair, right, You could build it up like that
[29:50] Speaker 1: rich kid versus poor kid. Now that's good TV. Stemple
[29:54] Speaker 1: is so desperate he makes an offer. Stemple is willing
[29:57] Speaker 1: to bet his entire earnings on a straight up, honest,
[30:02] Speaker 1: legit game. Now think about this. The whole reason he
[30:07] Speaker 1: took the deal, the whole he was the perfect partner
[30:11] Speaker 1: to end Right is because he was in it for
[30:14] Speaker 1: the money. Boom that's out or what one word? Fame
[30:25] Speaker 1: Enright says, No plan is the plan. The ratings a
[30:29] Speaker 1: plateaued and Stemple it's time for new blood. Oh, by
[30:33] Speaker 1: the way, specifically, you're gonna lose on the question which
[30:37] Speaker 1: movie won Best Picture last year? You and I both
[30:40] Speaker 1: know that the real answers Marty, But you're going to
[30:43] Speaker 1: say on the waterfront. This crushes Stemple. It's this one detail,
[30:51] Speaker 1: It's this one honest fact that is going to live
[30:55] Speaker 1: in his brain for decades. It'll eventually become a beast
[31:01] Speaker 1: that consumes him. Not only does he have to take
[31:04] Speaker 1: the dive, he has to humiliate himself in the process.
[31:09] Speaker 1: But hey, who's walking away with forty thousand dollars of
[31:13] Speaker 1: negotiated winnings. Who's gonna maybe be on another one of
[31:17] Speaker 1: our shows? Oh? Did I mention who I called? I
[31:20] Speaker 1: was on the phone with Steve Allen. I'm just saying this.
[31:24] Speaker 1: Calms down, Stemple. I mean, if nothing else in this moment,
[31:28] Speaker 1: he knows for a fact, at the very least, he
[31:32] Speaker 1: is a legitimate TV Starin points, the category is movies
[31:36] Speaker 1: and movie stars. How many points do you want to
[31:38] Speaker 1: try for from one to eleven? I'll try five, which
[31:43] Speaker 1: would give you twenty one points if you get this right,
[31:46] Speaker 1: and you will be the winner again. What motion Picture
[31:50] Speaker 1: won the Academy Award for nineteen fifty five. Later on,
[31:55] Speaker 1: when Stemple talked about this moment, he would say he
[31:58] Speaker 1: seriously thought full ongoing rogue live on TV in that
[32:04] Speaker 1: isolation booth, you could literally say whatever he wanted. Whole
[32:09] Speaker 1: world was watching. When he was asked which movie one
[32:13] Speaker 1: best Picture, he really could just say Marty and win.
[32:17] Speaker 1: He could retire with his winnings and walk off the set.
[32:21] Speaker 1: By the way, that's another thing we should point out
[32:23] Speaker 1: now that we're at the end of Stemple's run. Enright
[32:26] Speaker 1: effectively controlled him in two ways when it came to
[32:29] Speaker 1: the money. The first was the contract where Enright convinced
[32:32] Speaker 1: Stemple to take less money pennies on the dollar, But
[32:35] Speaker 1: this second was convincing him to keep playing. Much like
[32:40] Speaker 1: sweet Bible quote and Catherine on sixty four thousand dollars question,
[32:43] Speaker 1: you could just take the money and go risk. On
[32:48] Speaker 1: the other side, looks different when the producer is promising
[32:52] Speaker 1: you the answers, I mean, until he decides to stop
[32:55] Speaker 1: giving them to you. You'll always have the option to
[32:58] Speaker 1: leave no matter what he says. And yet you feel
[33:02] Speaker 1: like you don't want to leave. You feel like the
[33:05] Speaker 1: path of least resistance is to just stay. I don't remember.
[33:12] Speaker 1: I don't remember. We want to take a guess at it.
[33:16] Speaker 1: If not, I don't have to hondel it wrong Herb
[33:18] Speaker 1: on the Waterfront, No, I'm sorry. The answer is Marty.
[33:23] Speaker 1: Marty's you lose five points to put you back down
[33:26] Speaker 1: to eleven. Better luck on the next round. How did
[33:30] Speaker 1: that moment play or end right up in the control
[33:33] Speaker 1: room deep inside his head, what's going on? The Stemple
[33:38] Speaker 1: experiment was a huge leap forward. The repeat winner idea
[33:42] Speaker 1: was money in the bank ratings wise, I mean, the
[33:46] Speaker 1: problem with Stemple is he just couldn't break through to
[33:48] Speaker 1: the next level, right wolf? Was he a bit of
[33:51] Speaker 1: a handful so neurotic needy. Also that part where I
[33:56] Speaker 1: promised aim money and then a few weeks later took
[33:58] Speaker 1: it away. That was an elegant In this moment, en
[34:01] Speaker 1: Right makes two decisions. Remember one, his hands stayed clean.
[34:05] Speaker 1: From now on, all the rigging gets done by somebody
[34:08] Speaker 1: whose name is not in right. Number. Two, you pay
[34:11] Speaker 1: the contestants up front. That way they can't complain when
[34:15] Speaker 1: they don't get as much money as is on the board.
[34:17] Speaker 1: The dollars are just points. And the new policy begins
[34:22] Speaker 1: with that beautiful, intellectual, sexy mind of Charles van Dorn.
[34:29] Speaker 1: He crushes Stemple and immediately becomes a super nova. Ratings
[34:34] Speaker 1: go through the roof. The network is thrilled. How thrilled?
[34:39] Speaker 1: After only eighteen weeks on the air, they counter program
[34:42] Speaker 1: twenty one directly opposite I Love Lucy, and they held
[34:47] Speaker 1: their own. Here's a quote from CBS, WHA sorry so
[34:57] Speaker 1: much of This is not because of dan Enright's genius
[35:01] Speaker 1: of feeding answers. It's because of that beautiful, sexy mind
[35:04] Speaker 1: of Van Doren. He checks all of the boxes. Smart,
[35:08] Speaker 1: good family, white, unmarried, white artist, white. Also he's white.
[35:16] Speaker 1: Did you hear he didn't even own a TV before
[35:18] Speaker 1: coming on twenty one? How adorable? But there is a downside.
[35:24] Speaker 1: Because Van Doren is a legit academic, he does have
[35:28] Speaker 1: a for real reputation that he wants to uphold. I
[35:31] Speaker 1: mean apologies to Stemple in the post office, but the
[35:34] Speaker 1: Van Doren family are tied to American institutions, the Pulitzer
[35:39] Speaker 1: Prize in Columbia University. Ever heard of them? Young Charles
[35:43] Speaker 1: is close to completing his PhD. If he were revealed
[35:46] Speaker 1: as at chieg why well, that simply cannot happen. As
[35:50] Speaker 1: the spotlight grows hotter, Van Doren begins to have second thoughts, and,
[35:56] Speaker 1: unlike Stemple, he makes direct please to be allowed to
[36:00] Speaker 1: leave the show, and Wright says nope, things are going
[36:06] Speaker 1: way too well. In Ruary of nineteen fifty seven, Van
[36:11] Speaker 1: Doren is given the cover of Time magazine. One month later,
[36:16] Speaker 1: he finally gets his wish. He loses doing air quotes
[36:20] Speaker 1: you can't see him because it's a podcast to a
[36:23] Speaker 1: young female lawyer, and walks away with one hundred and
[36:26] Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand dollars over a million bucks in today's money.
[36:30] Speaker 1: Bigger than that, He's given a contract by NBC that
[36:34] Speaker 1: will eventually see him make regular appearances on the Today Show,
[36:39] Speaker 1: New Champ. She gets ten thousand dollars upfront and the
[36:42] Speaker 1: hopes that she can keep the momentum going. Damn, if
[36:53] Speaker 1: you're in right, things are going great shows not just stable,
[36:56] Speaker 1: it's thriving. You just minted a bona fide cultural celebrity.
[37:00] Speaker 1: Now you've got to try again with a woman that
[37:04] Speaker 1: was progressive for the time I assume, I mean, hell,
[37:07] Speaker 1: maybe she could be another doctor Joyce brothers even better.
[37:11] Speaker 1: Looks like Van Doren came out ahead. Dude's getting marriage
[37:14] Speaker 1: proposals a dozen a week. Looks like he's about to
[37:17] Speaker 1: start a new TV career. This whole system is totally victimless.
[37:22] Speaker 1: I mean except for Stemple God. He keeps calling, I
[37:27] Speaker 1: mean right, keeps not answering, But Jesus, what does he want?
[37:31] Speaker 1: Everybody knows him. He got forty thousand dollars boring for
[37:34] Speaker 1: TV who said that. I mean, if he was good,
[37:39] Speaker 1: he'd still be on the show. Right. So here's the
[37:41] Speaker 1: problem for Enwright. No con is perfect. He got way
[37:47] Speaker 1: ahead by risking the reputations of a veteran, a professor,
[37:51] Speaker 1: and a lawyer so far, but the first to knowingly
[37:55] Speaker 1: take the deal is feeling deep regrets. Stemple calls again
[38:03] Speaker 1: and again, and then one day he shows straight up
[38:07] Speaker 1: at Enwright's office, tells Anwright he's broke. Even worse, he
[38:14] Speaker 1: lent eight thousand dollars to a dude that lives in
[38:16] Speaker 1: his building for a horse race fixing syndicate. And now
[38:19] Speaker 1: this scary thug wants his money. So, yeah, about that
[38:23] Speaker 1: TV opportunity you were talking about. Oh no, there's still
[38:28] Speaker 1: nothing for you. It's about now that Stemple begins to
[38:33] Speaker 1: drop the bomb. Enwright can make right on his promise,
[38:38] Speaker 1: or Stemple is going to go public, says he's going
[38:42] Speaker 1: to go to the Justice Department. Stemple promises to snitch
[38:47] Speaker 1: on everything. All right, Yeah he's stempy, baby, that can't happen.
[38:53] Speaker 1: Enwright explains to Stemple to calm down. First, you never
[38:56] Speaker 1: got the answers in advance. Second, head, look, it's all
[38:59] Speaker 1: gonna work out. Third, I think you need therapy. In fact,
[39:03] Speaker 1: I'll be happy to pay for it. Here we go
[39:05] Speaker 1: one Dan Enright pays for a therapy. Blank check. There
[39:08] Speaker 1: you go. Also, would you mind signing this piece of
[39:10] Speaker 1: paper that says you never took the answers? Stemple signs,
[39:17] Speaker 1: and that buys Enright a couple of weeks. But in
[39:21] Speaker 1: the meantime, Enright can't make good on his promises of
[39:24] Speaker 1: TV work, So eventually Stemple cracks calls a reporter about
[39:28] Speaker 1: the whole situation. The reporter calls Enright. Enright calls stempley wind,
[39:38] Speaker 1: can you want a new quick story? Happy? No, he's not.
[39:46] Speaker 1: He refuses, because now this isn't about fame, it's about pride.
[39:51] Speaker 1: Stemple is going to tell the truth and there's nothing
[39:54] Speaker 1: Enright can do about it. And it's a noble gesture.
[39:58] Speaker 1: But Stemple won't be a good messenger for long. Not
[40:01] Speaker 1: only did he sign a letter saying he never took
[40:03] Speaker 1: the answers, but Enright secretly recorded Stemple blackmailing him. So fine, Stampy,
[40:12] Speaker 1: go to the press, go to the feds. Me, I'm untouchable,
[40:18] Speaker 1: untouchable like a big wig in a Hollywood movie. And
[40:22] Speaker 1: funny enough, it's going to be a Hollywood screenwriter who
[40:26] Speaker 1: changes everything. This is Tim Holford, host of Kush Metals.
[40:39] Speaker 1: Now we return to Brian Brushwood and World's Greatest con
[40:53] Speaker 1: Unlike most of our players, James Snodgrass knows this is bullshit.
[41:01] Speaker 1: This is not how the biz should be operating. He
[41:05] Speaker 1: knows that he is part of a conspiracy, and he
[41:09] Speaker 1: aims to come out smelling clean. So he pulls a
[41:14] Speaker 1: trick something that's known to copywriters around the world that
[41:18] Speaker 1: if you want to prove that you wrote the words
[41:21] Speaker 1: before somebody else claims they did, send it to yourself
[41:26] Speaker 1: certified mail. And if you are ever challenged on when
[41:31] Speaker 1: you knew these things, you could present those sealed envelopes,
[41:36] Speaker 1: open them in front of an audience, and prove that
[41:41] Speaker 1: you are the true originator of the idea. For the
[41:46] Speaker 1: three weeks that Snodgrass has the spotlight of twenty one
[41:50] Speaker 1: shown on him, he wants insurance, so he mails himself
[41:55] Speaker 1: the answers that dan Enright had provided him in certified
[42:00] Speaker 1: mail and holds onto them, knowing that eventually they're going
[42:06] Speaker 1: to set them free. I don't know if Snodgrass is
[42:11] Speaker 1: just inherently cocky, or maybe having those envelopes tucked in
[42:16] Speaker 1: his back pocket helped herd his enthusiasm. But here's the difference.
[42:24] Speaker 1: When Stemple thought about going Rogue considered, ever so briefly,
[42:30] Speaker 1: the possibility that maybe he would just run wild Snodgrass diet.
[42:37] Speaker 1: In Snodgrass's case, he's told, yeah, he'll take a dive,
[42:41] Speaker 1: just like Stemple, and yeah, it's gonna be embarrassing, just
[42:45] Speaker 1: like Stemple. But he's told that he's gonna misremember a
[42:49] Speaker 1: line from one of his favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, think
[42:56] Speaker 1: about that moment, the exact same moment from two different perspectives.
[43:01] Speaker 1: To Stemple's eyes, he gets told, you're gonna take a dive,
[43:06] Speaker 1: and it's gonna be about this question, and this is
[43:10] Speaker 1: the wrong answer you're gonna give. Snodgrass has the letters
[43:16] Speaker 1: and no illusions about what this is, and Snodgrass interprets
[43:23] Speaker 1: things very differently, because he too is told when he's
[43:27] Speaker 1: going to take a dive and what answer he's going
[43:29] Speaker 1: to give. However, Snodgrass realizes that he now knows the
[43:35] Speaker 1: definite right answer that he must not give. In the
[43:41] Speaker 1: moments after his unexpected right answer, the producers run onto
[43:46] Speaker 1: the set and they ask if Snodgrass is hey, man,
[43:48] Speaker 1: are you feeling okay enough to compete? He says yep,
[43:52] Speaker 1: and they continue. But Snodgrass is in deep water. Now
[43:56] Speaker 1: he has no idea what the next questions are going
[43:58] Speaker 1: to be, and he has to answer them fair and square,
[44:02] Speaker 1: and this leads to a truly amazing moment. Here's host
[44:06] Speaker 1: Jack Barry setting everything up in the rematch one week later,
[44:09] Speaker 1: As you may recall, you each chose an eleven point
[44:12] Speaker 1: question which asked for the five groups of bones in
[44:15] Speaker 1: our spine. Now, Jim, your first answer was sacrum. All
[44:19] Speaker 1: I have here in front of me are these question cards,
[44:22] Speaker 1: and there are answers on there which are approved in
[44:25] Speaker 1: advance of the program. Well, sacrum was not on the
[44:27] Speaker 1: answer card, so I had to rule your roan. Then, Hank,
[44:32] Speaker 1: you proceeded to name the five groups, and you named
[44:35] Speaker 1: as one of them coxic. Well, my answer card did
[44:38] Speaker 1: call for coxic or coccidule, so I had to rule
[44:41] Speaker 1: you right, and you run an awful lot of money. Well,
[44:45] Speaker 1: immediately after the program, there were thousands of phone calls,
[44:48] Speaker 1: hundreds from doctors, and we found out that there was
[44:50] Speaker 1: an inconsistency in the answers. We went through a great
[44:54] Speaker 1: deal trying to find out how we should square this
[44:56] Speaker 1: out with both of you in an effort to be
[44:57] Speaker 1: fair in our decision. And here's what we decided to do.
[44:59] Speaker 1: We decided that you're both going to play the game
[45:01] Speaker 1: over again at thirty five hundred dollars, a point right
[45:04] Speaker 1: back where we were. But Hank NBC in our sponsors,
[45:07] Speaker 1: despite being furious Snodgrass in the moment and write he
[45:11] Speaker 1: eventually comes around. I mean there's a big draw, lots
[45:15] Speaker 1: of numbers. Snodgrass loses the rematch in the short term,
[45:20] Speaker 1: this whole going rogue stunt. Yes, that turned out to
[45:23] Speaker 1: be a win for the producer letters though, that's our
[45:27] Speaker 1: hidden snake in the grass, just waiting for the perfect
[45:31] Speaker 1: time to strike. Meanwhile, at this exact same moment, Stemple
[45:37] Speaker 1: finally makes good on his threat and takes his story
[45:41] Speaker 1: for the Southern District of New York's Justice Department. So far,
[45:54] Speaker 1: this has been a story of people offering fame and
[45:58] Speaker 1: people take in the devil's bargain. For the rest of
[46:01] Speaker 1: the story, you've got to understand the power of shame
[46:06] Speaker 1: from an evolutionary perspective shaming exile in a small band
[46:12] Speaker 1: of one hundred villagers, that equals death. You know that
[46:17] Speaker 1: image of the hands in the face being locked in
[46:20] Speaker 1: while everybody throws fruit out of them. The punishment is
[46:24] Speaker 1: not the fruit. The punishment is the fact that the
[46:27] Speaker 1: stocks are built to force the person inside to look
[46:33] Speaker 1: at all the disapproval from their fellow villagers. Nathaniel Hawthorne
[46:38] Speaker 1: wrote about it in The Scarlet Letter. There are stories
[46:40] Speaker 1: of people who committed crimes and their one request is,
[46:44] Speaker 1: please pull out my fingernails right now while nobody's looking,
[46:48] Speaker 1: before the mob gets stirred. We are built in our
[46:53] Speaker 1: core beings are weird lizard brains to associate shaming with death.
[47:02] Speaker 1: All right, do me a favor. Think of the moment
[47:04] Speaker 1: of your own personal biggest shame, a moment where you
[47:08] Speaker 1: did some thing so embarrassing that you can't let go
[47:11] Speaker 1: of it, When you did something that you knew that
[47:13] Speaker 1: was going to stick with you for the rest of
[47:15] Speaker 1: your life. The funny part is I didn't even have
[47:20] Speaker 1: to ask you to do that, because the moment I
[47:22] Speaker 1: mentioned personal shame, you already went to work. You were
[47:26] Speaker 1: already thinking of your personal lowest moment. Now, imagine that
[47:33] Speaker 1: the whole world knows about it. Everybody you know and love,
[47:38] Speaker 1: and everybody they know and love. Every single person on
[47:41] Speaker 1: the planet knows it. I'm not doing this to be cruel.
[47:45] Speaker 1: I'm about to reveal my deepest shame. Keep in mind,
[47:49] Speaker 1: I'm a guy who'll stick a nail in his I
[47:51] Speaker 1: just to get you a clap. I built a career
[47:55] Speaker 1: as a touring magician because I sought out every media
[47:59] Speaker 1: opportunity I could get my hands on. If you had
[48:01] Speaker 1: a TV show, local, national, or radio show, a morning
[48:05] Speaker 1: program and internet program, I wanted to be a part
[48:07] Speaker 1: of it. And as a result, I did a lot
[48:10] Speaker 1: of stuff, nine percent of which I'm very proud of.
[48:14] Speaker 1: Every appearance was just another clip, another scratch off lottery
[48:19] Speaker 1: ticket that might be the one that made me famous.
[48:23] Speaker 1: Normally I always do super polished material, but there was
[48:27] Speaker 1: one time I had a goofy one off lark an
[48:30] Speaker 1: idea that I thought would be perfect just as a
[48:33] Speaker 1: standalone bit on TV. It's a viral video actually, and
[48:37] Speaker 1: if you're like the rest of the world, you probably
[48:40] Speaker 1: thought it was totally real. About called stigmata? What it is?
[48:44] Speaker 1: It uses a knife four styrofoam cups and a turntable.
[48:48] Speaker 1: The knife goes in a turntable where it could spin around,
[48:51] Speaker 1: and then I cover up the knife. It's a grainy
[48:54] Speaker 1: video where a magician me is about to slam his
[48:57] Speaker 1: hand down onto a styrofoam cup with a knife and
[49:02] Speaker 1: if all goes well, and for a split second it
[49:06] Speaker 1: really looks like the knife just goes right through my
[49:09] Speaker 1: and the camera cuts. The next thing you see is
[49:13] Speaker 1: my hand all bandaged, ME with a sheepish grin saying
[49:20] Speaker 1: I said it as a joke to my friends over
[49:22] Speaker 1: at the Tonight Show, and to my delight, they had
[49:24] Speaker 1: me out to do it live on the show. And
[49:27] Speaker 1: if all goes well, and as there said, he was impressed.
[49:35] Speaker 1: It's a flash forward a few years and America's Got
[49:37] Speaker 1: Talent is looking for magicians because I have this very
[49:41] Speaker 1: very simple, one note joke that I think is hilarious. Hell,
[49:46] Speaker 1: if it's good enough for the Tonight Show, surely is
[49:48] Speaker 1: good enough for America's Got Talent. I send them the tape.
[49:52] Speaker 1: They dig it. Drive up to Dallas with running wife
[49:56] Speaker 1: and two kids. We'd get up there, spent an entire
[50:00] Speaker 1: day in production. But when that moment comes and I
[50:05] Speaker 1: walk out there. My seven year old daughter tears off
[50:10] Speaker 1: a piece of her blankie and says, for luck, daddy.
[50:15] Speaker 1: I tuck it into my pocket. I mean, how easy
[50:19] Speaker 1: is this going to be? The same trick that became
[50:22] Speaker 1: a viral sensation, The same trick I did on the
[50:25] Speaker 1: tonight show that Ed Asner called me, you fool with
[50:29] Speaker 1: a smile. I was gonna do a one more time.
[50:37] Speaker 1: It didn't go well. Two of the four judges instantly
[50:41] Speaker 1: thought I had actually injured myself live on stage. After buzzing,
[50:47] Speaker 1: after cackling, I came back and realized that not only
[50:53] Speaker 1: had the judges decided they didn't like being made the sucker,
[50:59] Speaker 1: they were turning the audience against me. And even in
[51:03] Speaker 1: that moment onstage, being booed by two thousand people, I
[51:07] Speaker 1: knew one thing. I wanted to bury this segment, and
[51:15] Speaker 1: then the three and a half hour drive home, and
[51:19] Speaker 1: then the sitting there for three months being convinced that
[51:24] Speaker 1: I had career cancer that was about to drop like
[51:27] Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb, that I was going to be the sucker.
[51:31] Speaker 1: If I had the chance to personally break into that
[51:35] Speaker 1: place and destroy the tapes, I would have done it,
[51:39] Speaker 1: and that's the beginning of what I would have done
[51:42] Speaker 1: for fear of the shame that was coming. And then
[51:47] Speaker 1: finally the faithful night arrived. America's Got Talent in Dallas.
[51:54] Speaker 1: Standing alone in my living room, I'm watching the show begin,
[51:58] Speaker 1: and in the first four seconds, I am the first
[52:03] Speaker 1: pop that they put in the coming up on this episode.
[52:08] Speaker 1: My heart is pulsing and racing. I feel that tight
[52:13] Speaker 1: band of ultimate anxiety, and I just think, this is it.
[52:18] Speaker 1: It's all over. And I watch through the first segment,
[52:23] Speaker 1: the second segment, the third segment, and finally we get
[52:26] Speaker 1: to the fourth segment. This is the one where they
[52:28] Speaker 1: round up all the joke acts, all the idiots who
[52:32] Speaker 1: do everything wrong, and I'm not in it. I spent
[52:40] Speaker 1: three and a half months agonizing about what I thought
[52:45] Speaker 1: was going to be the end of my career for
[52:48] Speaker 1: a moment that never showed up, and I dodged a
[52:55] Speaker 1: bullet of shame. But for the people we're talking about
[53:01] Speaker 1: in this story, they live with that shame for decades.
[53:08] Speaker 1: It timidly becomes the single line of their obituaries. It's
[53:26] Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven and things are getting a bit hot
[53:28] Speaker 1: in the game show world. There's whisperers about talent grooming,
[53:32] Speaker 1: meddling from title sponsors, out and out frauds starting to
[53:36] Speaker 1: bubble up all through the press. Most of the stories
[53:38] Speaker 1: they never make it to print. The in house attorneys
[53:41] Speaker 1: that all of the press outlets they're super scared of
[53:43] Speaker 1: a libel suit from one of the networks, and that's
[53:46] Speaker 1: enough to kill the investigative reporting that initially goes into it.
[53:50] Speaker 1: But in nineteen fifty seven, two national magazines both run
[53:54] Speaker 1: articles compiling some of the allegations. Combine that with a
[53:58] Speaker 1: prosecutor from the Justice Department who's calling for a grand
[54:01] Speaker 1: jury investigation into industry wide practices and specifically twenty one NBC.
[54:09] Speaker 1: He calls in and write, hey, man, what's going on?
[54:13] Speaker 1: Enright says, oh, well, you know, he's never given any answers,
[54:16] Speaker 1: And to prove that Stemple's crank, he even plays for
[54:18] Speaker 1: him the blackmail tape that he's secretly recorded, shows them
[54:22] Speaker 1: the signed note. Yeah, it's good enough for the network
[54:26] Speaker 1: they ride with n Right, and that means there are
[54:28] Speaker 1: some pretty powerful forces defending twenty one. In his book
[54:34] Speaker 1: about the whole investigation, the prosecutor who impaneled the grand
[54:37] Speaker 1: jury describes the pressure he was under. That pressure shows
[54:42] Speaker 1: up in how many former members of the Justice Department
[54:45] Speaker 1: who are now in private practices represent the interests of
[54:49] Speaker 1: the network or n Right. Think about that. These are
[54:54] Speaker 1: people who used to be the deciders of truth and
[54:57] Speaker 1: fiction and now they're working for one side or the other.
[55:01] Speaker 1: He got overt hints that there might be a a
[55:04] Speaker 1: future in politics for him if he just let this
[55:07] Speaker 1: one go. But the more en Right and the network stonewalled,
[55:13] Speaker 1: the more this prosecutor pushes, and the whole time and
[55:18] Speaker 1: write is thinking, dude, what's the crime here? The sponsor
[55:21] Speaker 1: isn't complaining about theft or fraud, network is getting what
[55:24] Speaker 1: they paid for the contestants. The contestants well, I mean, yes,
[55:29] Speaker 1: technically they're misrepresenting themselves on national Television's sure, but they're
[55:33] Speaker 1: doing it because I'm telling them too. But you know what,
[55:36] Speaker 1: from that first moment I walked into Stemple's dumb apartment,
[55:39] Speaker 1: I was up front about what we were doing and
[55:42] Speaker 1: what they were getting themselves into. Uh. I mean, they're actors, right,
[55:51] Speaker 1: They're actors in a story I'm writing pretty much Shakespeare,
[55:59] Speaker 1: And he's right, they are actors to him. But They
[56:03] Speaker 1: are not actors by reputation. Their friends, their family, their
[56:07] Speaker 1: business associates, they don't know them as actors. The pride
[56:11] Speaker 1: that comes from the show is a lie. The act
[56:17] Speaker 1: is a deception. This show is a con But like
[56:25] Speaker 1: so many people who have been conned, the shame of
[56:27] Speaker 1: admitting it comes a prison, a very cozy prison that
[56:33] Speaker 1: people are willing to stay locked in forever. And at
[56:37] Speaker 1: this moment, the prosecutors begin to interview former contestants, members
[56:41] Speaker 1: of n Rights production staff, almost to a man, a lie.
[56:48] Speaker 1: They say. Nobody gave any answers to anybody. The prosecutors say, look, man,
[56:53] Speaker 1: you can lie to me now. But if you're called
[56:55] Speaker 1: back for a grand jury and you're put under oath,
[56:59] Speaker 1: that's perjury. That's a real crime. Grand jury is impaneled.
[57:05] Speaker 1: The same witnesses who are just interviewed are called and again,
[57:09] Speaker 1: almost to a man, they all lie again, all to
[57:15] Speaker 1: protect their own reputations. That is the power of shame. Meanwhile,
[57:24] Speaker 1: n Wright goes full offense. He releases the Stemple tape
[57:27] Speaker 1: publicly to combat press reports of what's coming out of
[57:30] Speaker 1: the grand jury. N Wright is actively punishing the defector
[57:34] Speaker 1: by ruining his reputation, and yes, this is a rough
[57:40] Speaker 1: road for Nright, But at this moment, I mean, the
[57:43] Speaker 1: most beloved champions are saying they're clean. The only guy
[57:46] Speaker 1: who says it's rigged is on tape blackmailing the boss
[57:49] Speaker 1: for another bite of TV fame. The network wants to
[57:53] Speaker 1: believe them. They're putting all the pressure that they can
[57:55] Speaker 1: to make this go away. Until the prosecutors get ahold
[58:02] Speaker 1: of the Snodgrass letters, The smoking gun word starts to
[58:07] Speaker 1: get around to all of the ex contestants. Guess what
[58:10] Speaker 1: the jig is up Enright's assistant, the one who took
[58:13] Speaker 1: over all the direct coaching after Stemple. He's indicted on
[58:16] Speaker 1: two counts of perjury. Several of the contestants come back
[58:20] Speaker 1: and tell the truth, hoping they'll get a reduced punishment,
[58:24] Speaker 1: But mostly they're worried about one thing. When the grand
[58:28] Speaker 1: jury minutes become public, are their names going to be
[58:31] Speaker 1: in it? Are they going to be shunned? Will they
[58:35] Speaker 1: be publicly shamed? Prosecutors say, your names are going to
[58:40] Speaker 1: be left out of this. All they want is the
[58:42] Speaker 1: people that pulled this off. And yet Enright never submits
[58:48] Speaker 1: to testimony, He never lies under oath. After nine months,
[58:53] Speaker 1: the grand jury concludes fifty nine sessions, two hundred plus witnesses.
[58:59] Speaker 1: Out of all of them, only fifty told the truth.
[59:05] Speaker 1: Now comes the best news for enright, against all precedent
[59:08] Speaker 1: in these matters, the judge overseeing the grand jury seals
[59:12] Speaker 1: the results. In his eyes, there's no crime committed. Therefore,
[59:16] Speaker 1: no need to drag the names of all these fine
[59:17] Speaker 1: people all through the press. That's it. That was Stemple's
[59:24] Speaker 1: best shot. You went through the press, you got nothing.
[59:28] Speaker 1: You went through the law, your results got buried in
[59:30] Speaker 1: the front yard. Come at me, bro I'm dan an right.
[59:35] Speaker 1: At this point, there's only one organization left that could
[59:38] Speaker 1: do a damn thing about it, the United States Congress.
[59:44] Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happens. In nineteen fifty nine. Television
[59:54] Speaker 1: star and famous intellectual Charles Van Dorn gets his doctorate,
[59:59] Speaker 1: and yet only months later he's on the run, avoiding
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: phone calls from his lawyer, he's avoiding phone calls from
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: his bosses, and he's avoiding the highest legislative body in
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: United States. This is the cost of shame. Congress opened
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: an investigation into the fixing of television shows and with
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: it in the unsealed minutes of the grand jury investigation.
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: Gone were the promises from the investigators that the names
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: of the contestants would be protected. One Stemple is called
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: before Congress. He relishes in telling the truth. He narrates
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: to the congressman, beat by beat, every move he made.
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: There's a projection of recording of one of his appearances.
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: He points out where Enright told him to dot his
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: brow for sweat, but never smear the makeup like a peak.
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: Las Vegas mentalist Snodgrass opens on live television one of
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: his famous sealed envelopes and reveals what's inside, and yet
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: still Van Doren remains elusive. He puts out a new statement,
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: sticking to his original statement. He never received any answers.
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: Congress has to issue a subpoena in order to get
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: him to appear, but they can't locate him. Grand jury
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: investigators would eventually say that Van Dorn was in part
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: so terrified of coming clean because he believed it would
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: kill literally kill his father. I mean it would certainly
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: kill his career, hell careers plural. Quite simply, he could
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: not bring himself to face the repercussions that this shame
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: was going to bring to his door, and yet eventually
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: he comes clean, first to the investigators that he lied to,
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: then to his attorney, then to his bosses, and finally
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: to all of America. He appears before Congress and tells
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: the world that he's a fraud. In the Senate hearing room,
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: the dramatic climax of the probe of fix and rig
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: quiz shows Charles van Dorn's why from father poet Mark
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: van Doren are in the audience as committee chairman, Senator
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: Arre and Harris opens the erie. Charles van Doren arrives
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: to apologize, an attempt to explain to the millions whose
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: friendship and respect he had won. He admits that he
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: received dramatic coaching and the questions and many of the answers,
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: but his statement is a rueful and moving realization that
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: for his wealth and fame, he made a bitterly high price.
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: He took the easy path, and he took the money,
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: and he took everything that came with it. He's immediately
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: fired from NBC, He's immediately fired from Columbia. He's indicted
[1:02:45] Speaker 1: for lying to a grand jury. Along with all the
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: other big winners, Van Doren never appeared as a regular
[1:02:53] Speaker 1: on TV again. He worked in West Coast Academics and
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: for the Encyclopedia Britannica Company, but never again as a
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: beloved public figure. The New York Times obituary for Charles
[1:03:07] Speaker 1: Van Doren, written in twenty nineteen, features this headline, Charles
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: Van Doren, a quiz show whiz who wasn't dies at
[1:03:17] Speaker 1: ninety three. That's it, that's his whole reputation. That's all
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: you get. You get to be the guy who was
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: a faker on TV. Compare that to this obituary headline.
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: Doctor Joyce Brothers, on air psychologist who made TV housecalls,
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: dies at eighty five. Brothers also appeared at those hearings.
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: She denied getting any answers, and her producers vouched for her.
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: She got out clean and lived the dream. Van Doren
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: lived with his shame for the rest of his life
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: for that one faithful decision, the one that would cap
[1:04:00] Speaker 1: his career potential forever never indicted for anything at all?
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: Is dan enright? Yeah, he's humiliated. Well, one of his
[1:04:14] Speaker 1: own theses is proven right by this whole thing. Just
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: after he's removed from day to day production on twenty one.
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: Now that Enright's not there with his cheating team and
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: money machine. In the four weeks they went without the
[1:04:26] Speaker 1: Dan Enright engine, twenty one hemorrhaged sixty thousand dollars in
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: prize money, way over the budget from jarital I mean
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: maybe you're thinking, Oh, at least baryon n Right Productions
[1:04:39] Speaker 1: has to write a big old check filter some of
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: that money back out right wrong. While Van Doren was
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: on his epic winning streak, NBC bought Baryon n Right
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: to make sure that twenty one couldn't switch networks over
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: to CBS. That was a two million dollar deal nineteen
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: fifties money. And then n Wright gets a golden parachute
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: to make himself scarce from NBC. When everything goes bad.
[1:05:17] Speaker 1: Flashed forward a few decades, Enright is in Canada, eating
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: weird bacon and drinking mulson ice. The only gig he
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: can Land is with screen Gems Canada. This is the
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: only American TV company that dared debase themselves in the
[1:05:34] Speaker 1: minor leagues of Canadian television During nights with the producers
[1:05:38] Speaker 1: this is at the bar after a shoot day and
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: write spins tales of the story of twenty one In
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: his version, he's the fall guy. Everybody knew what was
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: going on, The network knew, the sponsors, knew everyone. They
[1:05:53] Speaker 1: could never wrap his mind around why Stempel got so mad?
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: What was so wrong about making money and being famous?
[1:06:01] Speaker 1: And yet the answer was all around him. Why was
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: a talented producer like Enright in Toronto and not Los
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: Angeles or New York. Why was a man who used
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: to make shows that would be watched by tens of
[1:06:16] Speaker 1: millions of people and give away hundreds of thousands of
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: dollars making shows to be watched by a fraction of
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: those people reputation believe en Right or not. The result
[1:06:31] Speaker 1: of his shame is his exiled to Canada, far away
[1:06:35] Speaker 1: from the movers and shakers of real TV. Sorry Canada.
[1:06:40] Speaker 1: And yet eventually the game wearing alleges Kenyan lady like this,
[1:06:46] Speaker 1: Queen's shoulders wild, here's a host of oursel Sack Barry
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: and Right gets another hit right here in America. He
[1:07:02] Speaker 1: even brought Jack Barry back with him, and he eventually
[1:07:07] Speaker 1: re establishes Barry and Right right in Los Angeles. The
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: shame storm passed. I mean yeah, talked to some friends
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: at bars and maybe they wrote some of it down
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: after his passing, but Enright never put his own words
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: in a book. He did come close to doing it
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: in dramatic fashion too. In the early nineties, Enright gets
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: word that a script about his scandal is getting traction
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: in Hollywood. It's eventually going to become nineteen ninety four
[1:07:36] Speaker 1: is Quiz Show, and Enright is definitely the villain. Seeing
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: it coming, I have to imagine that Dan Anright, it's
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: all his own career cancer bomb coming, and just like me,
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: he has that same thought of how do I blunt
[1:07:51] Speaker 1: this edge? In my case, I did nothing. But Enright
[1:07:55] Speaker 1: puts out a press release saying that he's making his
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: own movie and it's going to be the real story.
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: The movie never gets made. Dan Enright dies in nineteen
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: ninety two before you ever had to sit through watching
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: was show. And Wright did his job. He got the readings,
[1:08:19] Speaker 1: but the path he took, the permanent damage he inflicted
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: on the lives of every contestant, the shaming he himself
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: engaged in to protect it. All of this might well
[1:08:35] Speaker 1: be the World's Greatest con. This episode of World's Greatest
[1:08:55] Speaker 1: Con was written by Justin Robert Young and me Brian Brushwood,
[1:08:59] Speaker 1: your humble host. Production and research by Dog and Pony
[1:09:03] Speaker 1: Show Audio in Austin, Texas. Credit to Primetime and Misdemeanors
[1:09:08] Speaker 1: by Joseph Stone and Tim Jone, as well as television fraud,
[1:09:12] Speaker 1: The History and Implication of the quiz Shows Scandals by
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: Ken Anderson, which along with contemporary news articles, retrospectives, and
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: archive video made for the bulk of our research. Additional
[1:09:24] Speaker 1: research by Rachel Oppenheimer. Of course, you guys have questions
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: and we want to answer all of them at the
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: end of the season, So get yours in by hitting
[1:09:32] Speaker 1: us up at World's Greatest con at gmail dot com.
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: So we just heard a story about a TV game show.
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: We found out that beneath that family friendly veneer there's
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: a very cutthroat world in which some very colorful will
[1:09:48] Speaker 1: say characters are attracted. I'm here to tell you that
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: the story of twenty one isn't an outlier. In fact,
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: we're going to spend this whole season hanging around six
[1:09:59] Speaker 1: different stories. We get to see the man screwing over
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: the little guy, the little guy sticking one to the man,
[1:10:05] Speaker 1: truly awful people competing honestly, the honest ones ruining their
[1:10:10] Speaker 1: lives for the sake of greed. We're gonna see federal
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: agents burst through a door and find a hardened criminal
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: shivering on top of a bathroom stall, a room of
[1:10:21] Speaker 1: professionals wondering if a clever hoodlum just bankrupted their whole company,
[1:10:28] Speaker 1: and we'll see a mysterious extraction so brazen that people
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: still in the industry are left convinced they've been made
[1:10:36] Speaker 1: fools of in front of the entire nation by a
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: single bitter ex employee. These are shows you've heard of,
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: stories about super password who wants to be a millionaire
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: the price is right. Game shows are an irresistible lure
[1:10:53] Speaker 1: for anybody whose ears perk up when the idea of
[1:10:57] Speaker 1: free money quick is brought up, suckers and con men both.
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: You probably know that the story you just heard is
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: dramatized in the nineteen ninety four movie Quis Shore. It
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: was a bit of a sensation back then, got nominated
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: for a Best Picture Oscar and during all of that
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: buzz that led to one morning show appearance where they
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: were looking for similar stories of similar game show dramas.
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: And while it isn't the famous quiz show scandal, that's
[1:11:28] Speaker 1: playing in theaters. It is a story worthy of the
[1:11:31] Speaker 1: big screen. And I determined that there was some sort
[1:11:34] Speaker 1: of pattern. Not easily. It took six months from you
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: to actually work at all the patterns. But I wanted
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: to shoot the moon, so to speaking, I decided definitely
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: I would go for a hundred thousand. That's Michael Larsen.
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: We just heard the story of a powerful producer fleecing
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: good people. Next week, we're going to hear about the
[1:11:56] Speaker 1: exact opposite, a devious mind whose thirst for those angles
[1:12:00] Speaker 1: that would give him quick cash knew no bounds. Through ingenuity, deception,
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: and good old fashioned practice, he's going to rack up
[1:12:09] Speaker 1: so much money on a TV game show that some
[1:12:12] Speaker 1: people in the control room worry that he's about to
[1:12:15] Speaker 1: bankrupt the network. That's next time on World's Greatest Gone
[1:12:27] Speaker 1: Fireman Club. Hopes you have enjoyed this Brower Dog and
[1:12:34] Speaker 1: Pony Show audio

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.