At dinner, as the Fred Van Deventer family finished the roast chicken, their radio-producer guest told how new programs were born. Any simple idea might do. "How about Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?" asked 16-year-old Nancy Van Deventer. "Why not?" said the producer.
Fred Van Deventer, a newscaster for New York's WOR, took Nancy's idea to WOR and Mutual. The Van Deventers had played the old parlor gamealso known as "Twenty Questions"for years; it had been a favorite of Fred's since he played it as a boy in Indiana. Mutual gave it a try, with the Van Deventers (minus Nancy, who had to...