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Ready Answers. Dapper Dan Enright had a ready answer: Stempel's story had long since been proved false. Stempel had indeed tried to peddle his story to the New York Post and the Journal-American more than a year ago, and neither paper had been sufficiently convinced to print it. He had also signed a "confession" for Enright, stating that his charges had been false. But last week, when Stempel repeated his fraud story to the district attorney, the World-Telegram & Sun and the Journal published it—and were promptly sued for libel by Barry & Enright Productions and NBC.
Stempel, too, had some ready answers. Why had he signed a retraction? Said Stempel:
"I did it in return for the promise of a job on another Barry-Enright show—a job I never got." Was it true, as Enright ominously suggested, that Stempel" had been under psychiatric care? Said Stempel: "Sure I've been to a psychiatrist; I suffered from an acute anxiety neurosis after I appeared on Twenty One."
Petty Chiseling. At week's end some of Herb Stempel's friends and a maid who had once worked for the family told newsmen that they could testify to the truth of Herb's claims. Herb, they said, had told them well in advance of his appearances on the show just which questions he would answer, which he would miss. Eventually a jury may decide whether or not Stempel is telling the truth. But the kind of blatant crookedness charged in Stempel's story was not the only issue.
The whole gloss and excitement of the quiz shows was being badly tarnished by evidence of corner-carnival showmanship and petty chiseling. Other contestants were coming forth to complain that not only the producers but their Schlockmeisters (prize procurers) were making ninnies of the public.
The fancy prizes that looked so fine before the camera have too often grown tarnished between victory and delivery; e.g., the all-expenses-paid vacation in Europe provided no hotel room, only a flight to Paris and home the next day. There was evidence that contestants on certain shows had signed away their prizes before going on, undertaking to accept their TV winnings for far less cash than their real value. The best defense that network officials and their spring-legged pressagents could make in private was that the quiz shows were not really crooked but only hippodromed, like a wrestling match; i.e., they merely rig the questions so that any contestant whose weak spots are known can be made to win or lose.
Long before the investigations cease, TV bigwigs may be ready to accept Herb Stempel's forthright solution for their scandal: "Get rid of giveaways. All these vaults and isolation booths are just obfuscation of the public. The networks can't control the gimmicks and the gizmos."