Radio: Midget Euclid

Adult minds that try to compete with radio’s Quiz Kids almost always get the worst of it.* Four news commentators on the Blue Network found that out in Manhattan last week when the Kids tucked them away, no to 60.

Although the Kids (Richard Williams, 13; Harve Fischman, 12; Ruthie Duskin, 8; Joel Kupperman, 6) won in a walk, the victory was no great credit to them or to their sponsors. Most of the questions were pedantically dull, and neither side made a respectable showing. No one knew what an “isometric equatorial projection of a loxodromic curve” was, or seemed to care.

Commentator John W. Vandercook was in good voice, but neglected to recall that “if you open both the top and bottom [of a window] as far as they will go” the window is still shut. H. R. Baukhage sweated, and Earl Godwin’s face went red and stayed that way. Leland Stowe seemed rusty after his long Russian sojourn.

Chicago Tax Shark. Star of the performance was Quiz Kid Kupperman of Chicago, a pale, sturdy, brown-eyed six-year-old who spoke somewhat juicily, thanks to a natural lisp and the recent shedding of three teeth. He had no trouble figuring the normal tax on $2,650 without pencil or paper. He also volunteered the belief that the United Nations were sure to win the war because he had so many friends and relatives in it.

Alone Among the Roots. Away from the mike, the youngest Quiz Kid has a normal childish disdain for the silly questions grownups ask him. Last week he bore the marks of a recent poke in the teeth given him by one of his Chicago playmates.

This bruise was augmented by his encounter with the Fred Allen program later that night after the Kids vanquished the commentators. Comic Joe Besser hurtled off the stage and bowled the waiting Kupperman into the wings. The Kid came up weeping, but went on anyway. The incident did not halt his plea for a pet to take home with him. Deciding that rabbits “whelped too fast,” he settled for a parrot (“It wouldn’t eat too much or have to go out for walks!”).

Joel’s I.Q. is so high that the Chicago Board of Education keeps it secret. His mother first noticed something wrong when she heard him lulling himself to sleep reciting the multiplication tables. He was four. When he was four and a half, he caught the grocer short-changing his mother. That amazed her so that she wrote a child psychologist for guidance. The advice was to leave the boy alone. His parents say they did. They do not explain how he found out how to solve cube roots. For every question Joel answers correctly on the program he gets a penny and a marble. He also gets another penny and a marble for good behavior. He saves his pennies to buy maple-nut, chocolate-covered ice cream sticks.

*The only grownups who ever beat them were a board of University of Chicago professors. They won one contest out of three.