For very different reasons, the two names that may lastingly identify the 1959-60 TV season are Charles Van Doren and David Susskind. With his now-famed, melodramatic confession ("I was deeply involved in a deception"). Van Doren exposed not only the quiz fakes but the underlying shoddiness of the TV industry, started an ostentatious if temporary move toward purity. Susskind, who emerged again as the season's most prolific producer, demonstrated that the most important problem more important than quizzes, payola and canned laughteris good programing.
Susskind has had a hand in close to 100 showsnot all...