Radio: Session Sold

Some such fascination as draws Spaniards to bull fights draws a large, weekly audience to NEC’s five-month-old questionnaire program, Information Please. A number of powerful minds are let into the ring, are baited, stung, encouraged, wounded, sometimes left unscathed by a series of pointed questions. Matador of this intellectual bull session is sharp-witted Clifton Fadiman, book reviewer for The New Yorker. Permanent bulls have been Franklin Pierce (“F. P. A.”) Adams and the New York Times’?, amazingly broadly informed Sportswriter John Kieran. Paul de Kruif, Stuart Chase, Marc Connelly, John Gunther, Alice Duer Miller have been among the weekly panel of guests. Matador Fadiman’s banderillas are trick questions selected from some 60.000 sent in every week by listeners (reversing the usual procedure of experts questioning audience).

Developed by NBC as a sustaining program, Information Please long attracted no sponsor because agencies thought it appealed to an intellectual, and therefore limited, audience. But last week, at last, the program had a taker—Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Inc. for a reported $2,500 per week. Canada Dry, which once sponsored Jack Benny but has not been on a network for nearly seven years, bought Information Please because it has a fairly large and very vociferous “quality” audience. Its attractions:

> Like a bull fight, it is unrehearsed. Participants have only a 10-minute warm-up period, in which sample sticklers are asked, as preparation.

> Flesh wounds are frequently inflicted. Paul de Kruif (Microbe Hunters’) did not know that “rubeola” means measles. Economist Stuart Chase did not know that ”multiple shops” is British for chain stores. F.P.A. attributed some of his own verses to Dorothy Parker.

> The bulls usually hold their own. Sportswriter John Kieran was able to distinguish between dodo, zobo, koto, Yo-Yo, popo, bolo, and locofoco. Scientist Bernard Jaffe, when asked what sextet had recently sung its way to fame, answered correctly: “The Seven Dwarfs.” (Dopey was silent.)

> Often there are completely irrelevant skirmishes. John Gunther knew at once that Riza Pahlevi was Shah of Iran. Fadiman: “Are you shah?” Gunther: “Sultanly.” Another time, Fadiman asked what four prominent women have the first names Marina, Elzire, Hepzibah, Farida. Marcus Duffield (day news editor of the New York Herald Tribune): “The name Elzire is familiar. … As a matter of fact, I used to play Indians with her.” Fadiman: “Well, you must have had a lot of fun. Elzire is Mrs. Dionne!”