Clifton Fadiman

We have writer Fadiman, regulars Franklin P. Adams, Oscar Levant, and John Kieran, with Boris Karloff as the guest panelist for this edition of Information Please.

This issue of RKO's Information Please series, based on the radio program featuring most of the same people, has Howard Lindsay, co-author and co-star of the then-current Broadway play, "Life With Father", as a visiting guest expert. Questions involved football plays, license plates and plays that dealt with family relationships.

Deems Taylor joins Clifton Fadiman and the Information Please regular panel members, Oscar Levant, Franklin P. Adams and John Kieran, for this entry in the series based on the radio program.

A documentary giving a short history of China and how it was being affected by the Japanese invasion during World War II, aka The Second Sino-Japanese War.

Information Please: Series 1, No. 1 is a 1939 short film of the famous show from RKO Radio. The segment stars Clifton Fadiman, Rex Stout, and John Kieran.It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-Reel, a rare instance of a game show being nominated for an Academy Award.

Alumni Fun

The Name's the Same is an American game show that was produced by Goodson-Todman for the ABC television network from December 5, 1951 to August 31, 1954, followed by a run from October 25, 1954 to October 7, 1955. It was alternately sponsored by Swanson and Johnson Wax for the majority of its run. It was also sponsored by the Bendix home appliance division of Avco early in its run, and Clorets and Chicken of the Sea tuna midway through its run. The show's final sponsor, Ralston Purina, also sponsored Ethel and Albert, the program that replaced The Name's the Same on the ABC schedule.

Author and critic John Mason Brown, who once commented that "some television programs are so much chewing gum for the eyes," offered this intellectual alternative in 1948-1949. It consisted of an informal living-room discussion on the arts with two or three guests, of the caliber of author James Michener, producer Billy Rose, publishrer Bennet Cerf, and critic Bosley Crowther. The subjects ranged from modern art to new novels, films, the theater and fashions.

Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night. For its first ten years, Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City with occasional trips to Burbank, California; in May 1972, the show moved permanently to Burbank, California. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked #12 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.