As I have stated elsewhere, my all-time favorite game show is The Joker's Wild, Jack Barry's triumphant return to television as an emcee and television packager after his humiliation during the 1950's quiz show scandals (packager is just another word for a producer who makes their own stuff). I used to watch the syndicated series as a kid and was sad when Barry passed away in 1984 of a heart attack. I am also fond of many of his other shows of the 80's (in fact, it was the Joker's Wild spin-off and short-lived cult classic, Bullseye, that started me watching game shows in the first place).

I have noticed that the vast majority of the shows Barry and his long-time partner Dan Enright created were quiz-based games (obvious exceptions were The Hollywood Connection and Concentration [I'll bet you didn't know they were in on that originally, did you? I didn't]). I have also noticed that Barry and Enright had a tendency to rip-off other show's format (hell, they even ripped themselves off; Bullseye being a prime example), although their rip-offs were usually at least as much fun as the format they "borrowed" (examples: the 1976 version of Break the Bank, a blatant but fun rip-off of Hollywood Squares, and the 1984 cult classic Hot Potato, a equally blatant but fun hijacking of Family Feud).

Their shows also had a lot of other things in common: many shows had some of the coolest sets in game show history (the 1980 Bullseye set by John C. Mula is still a high-water mark of television production design). The original CBS Joker's Wild introduced a series of luck-based bonus games that often pitted the contestant against an animated villain (Joker's Wild is known for the Devil; the 70's and 80's version of Tic Tac Dough introduced the Dragon, and Bullseye only had a bolt of lightning). The very first Barry and Enright show, the original 50's Tic Tac Dough, introduced two of the pair's most endearing (and important) concepts of their shows. One was the rule that returning champions return only until defeated; this is different from most recent shows with a champion who limit their champions to five games, after which they are retired. This concept is most evident with the now-legendary reign of terror of 80's Tic Tac Dough champion Navy Lt. Thom McKee who won over $300,000 in cash and merchandise over 37 EPISODES of Wink Martindale's version of the series. This fact was not wasted on the staff of NBC's revered Today Show who interviewed McKee when Martindale appeared for an interview of his own and to play the classic X vs. O quiz with guests on the street in front of the famous "storefront" Today Show studios in New York.

The other concept, the one this article is most interested in, is the unusual form of questioning used on almost every single Barry and Enright quiz game that aired from 1956 to 1987. From the original Tic Tac Dough and the infamous Twenty-One that nearly ended their careers to the original CBS Joker's Wild and Hot Potato, the Barry and Enright Model was and still is unique to their shows (except on the 1950's game that brought the quiz show scandals to the forefront, the Jack Narz classic Dotto, occasional questions on all versions of Hollywood Squares and the similarly-phrased Hi-Lo Survey Questions on the classic Goodson-Todman game Card Sharks), and has not really been seen since the last episode of the infamous 1990's hack version of Tic Tac Dough.

It is important for our analysis of the Barry and Enright Model (which we shorten to B&EM, mostly so I don't hurt my hands while typing this article) to understand what the standard, or Classic, model of questioning is before an explanation of B&EM can be presented. Why? Because if I don't, you'll start wondering what the difference between them is, and you won't really comprehend (or even enjoy) this article.

The Classic model is the one every human being uses in everyday conversation

Okay, that's not really the kind of question you'd hear on a game show (except maybe The Newlywed Game), but it gets the point across.

There, that's better. (By the way, if you don't know the answer to THIS question, I suggest you go read my bio page again.) Most quiz shows basically ask trivia questions that use this model. Why? Because it's familiar to us; we use it everyday conversation, and it's the easiest way to get information from somebody else (at least that's we are taught as children; if you want to know something, ask a question).

Jeopardy!, one of television's greatest quizzes, uses questions in sentence form (which they call "answers") to get the correct responses (phrased as questions).

Jeopardy! "answers" share two unique qualities with B&EM questions, which we'll talk about later. Which brings us to…

Now that we know what the standard model is, we can, with some degree of confidence, discuss B&EM.

Here is our Kimberly Hart question again, using B&EM.

Like Jeopardy!, B&EM asks questions in sentence form. However, it should be noted that B&EM predates Jeopardy! by eight years (the original Tic Tac Dough, Barry and Enright's first game show, premiered in 1956, while the original Jeopardy! started in 1964).

B&EM questions consist of two or more sentences. The first sentence almost always starts with "this." The last sentence almost always starts with "name." Keep in mind that "almost" is the key word; exceptions occurred very, very often.

Why did Barry and Enright do this? Simple: to build suspense. At key moments, hosts would add that a particular question was "for the game," to remind the player (and more importantly, the viewers) what was on the line. Like most emcees, Barry and Enright show hosts would often slow down their reading of crucial questions to keep the folks at home on the edge of their seat.

Another unique aspect of B&EM is illustrated here (again with a revised version of our Kimberly Hart example):

The more difficult B&EM questions often asked for several separate and specific answers (usually two; think "center-box question" on Tic Tac Dough; on the original Twenty-One, this often went up to three and even four). This technique was only used to crank up difficulty; on shows like Joker's Wild, Bullseye, and Hot Potato, where difficulty was not an issue, this technique was obviously not used (although on Joker's Wild and Bullseye, where the dollar value of questions varied, it probably should have been).

The last quality of a B&EM question (the other quality it shares with Jeopardy!) is the 'wow-I-didn't-know-that' factor. B&EM questions almost always throw in a nifty fact that folks don't often know about the eventual answers (note the "Class One gymnast" fact in our Kimberly Hart example above). This is done purely for entertainment and informative purposes (after all, there are few things that beat being able to get someone to say, "Wow, I didn't know that!"). This is also why Hollywood Squares uses this model; its questions rely on esoteric information used so that the celebrities' bluffs are more effective.

The Barry and Enright Model of questioning is probably one of few totally original ideas Jack Barry and Dan Enright ever had. It is also, quite frankly, one of the most unusual, interesting and entertaining forms of trivia question ever devised by the human mind. Perhaps the next time that The Joker's Wild is revived, the producers will be smart enough to use it.

David Schwartz, Steve Ryan and Fred Wostbrock. The Encylopedia of TV Game Shows, Second Edition. New York City, NY: Facts on File, Inc. 1995.

Alex Trebek. The Jeopardy! Book. New York City, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.

Kent Anderson. Television fraud: the history and implications of the quiz show scandals Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978.

Steve Bentley's The Joker's Wild Homepage

Dan Burger's Tic Tac Dough Supersite

Tim "Loogaroo" Connolly's Bullseye Rulesheet

Kris "Xanfan" Lane's Hot Potato Fanpage

Chip Productions' Break the Bank Tribute

Alcus Green II's page about the original Twenty-One

Dixon Hayes' Classic Squares Site, devoted to the original Hollywood Squares.

And if you really want to find some more stuff on all these shows:

Matt Ottinger's Game Show Compendium

And make sure ya tell 'em that the Game Show Man sent you.

Back to the Game Show Man's Headquarters.