Welcome back to our visit with Professor Quiz.
Last time, we touched briefly on the Professor's significance to radio & tv history. Though virtually unknown today, he was quite the celebrity in his time. You can see him here in this lobby card from the Three Stooges' movie Start Cheering...
...and even Superman was known to make reference to him:
The man was definitely a pop culture feature.
I told you yesterday how the questions for the show came from the listening audience. But that was only half of his genius for establishing himself as Professor Quiz. You see, he didn't ask the questions - he answered them. The players won their money if he failed to answer correctly.
Here's a full breakdown on his show for you, courtesy of On The Air: The Encyclopedia Of Old Time Radio-
Another brilliant bit of radio with that payout in silver coins clinking by the microphone.
But more than being the artful master of quizzes, he was indeed a puzzle himself. Remember yesterday it was pointed out that he was only known as Professor Quiz when he began? Take a look at this old game card:
Note the elderly professor in the drawing above, bearing no resemblance to the photographs we've seen. His true identity was a carefully guarded secret in the early days. Those photos didn't start appearing until after Radio Daily outed the professor as actually being Dr. Craig Earle. After the secret was revealed, he started becoming more of a public figure in other media.
So, it probably should not have come as a great surprise to him when it was finally discovered that, too, was a masquerade. Dr. Craig Earle was another fictitious identity, hiding Arthur Earl Baird - a young man from Medford, Massachusetts, who had disappeared in 1935. It's much easier, you see, to avoid paying alimony and child support when you don't exist.
By the time this was discovered in 1942, Baird/Earle had remarried and had a new child. One can only speculate on the public reaction at this point, but he was ordered by the court to pay some $25,000 in back alimony and his show went off the air for a few years. Whether there was any relationship between those two events, you may determine for yourselves.
When he returned to the air, he was joined by his family, with Betty appearing as Mrs. Quiz and Professor Quiz Jr. In all, Professor Quiz produced 630 episodes the course of a dozen years. After the show ceased production, he eventually had his name legally changed to Craig Earle. He died 3 weeks shy of his 90th birthday in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on 13 August, 1985.
If anyone can dig up more of this odd little tale, please do let us know!
Oh...
You probably want the answers to the quizzes, too, huh?
Here ya go:
Last time, we touched briefly on the Professor's significance to radio & tv history. Though virtually unknown today, he was quite the celebrity in his time. You can see him here in this lobby card from the Three Stooges' movie Start Cheering...
...and even Superman was known to make reference to him:
The man was definitely a pop culture feature.
I told you yesterday how the questions for the show came from the listening audience. But that was only half of his genius for establishing himself as Professor Quiz. You see, he didn't ask the questions - he answered them. The players won their money if he failed to answer correctly.
Here's a full breakdown on his show for you, courtesy of On The Air: The Encyclopedia Of Old Time Radio-
Another brilliant bit of radio with that payout in silver coins clinking by the microphone.
But more than being the artful master of quizzes, he was indeed a puzzle himself. Remember yesterday it was pointed out that he was only known as Professor Quiz when he began? Take a look at this old game card:
Note the elderly professor in the drawing above, bearing no resemblance to the photographs we've seen. His true identity was a carefully guarded secret in the early days. Those photos didn't start appearing until after Radio Daily outed the professor as actually being Dr. Craig Earle. After the secret was revealed, he started becoming more of a public figure in other media.
So, it probably should not have come as a great surprise to him when it was finally discovered that, too, was a masquerade. Dr. Craig Earle was another fictitious identity, hiding Arthur Earl Baird - a young man from Medford, Massachusetts, who had disappeared in 1935. It's much easier, you see, to avoid paying alimony and child support when you don't exist.
By the time this was discovered in 1942, Baird/Earle had remarried and had a new child. One can only speculate on the public reaction at this point, but he was ordered by the court to pay some $25,000 in back alimony and his show went off the air for a few years. Whether there was any relationship between those two events, you may determine for yourselves.
When he returned to the air, he was joined by his family, with Betty appearing as Mrs. Quiz and Professor Quiz Jr. In all, Professor Quiz produced 630 episodes the course of a dozen years. After the show ceased production, he eventually had his name legally changed to Craig Earle. He died 3 weeks shy of his 90th birthday in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on 13 August, 1985.
If anyone can dig up more of this odd little tale, please do let us know!
Oh...
You probably want the answers to the quizzes, too, huh?
Here ya go:
quizzes from Miss America Magazine, v5 #s 1-3 (1936)
That was really interesting. He even appeared in an early Superman issue - wow, that's famous. I'm compelled to speculate as to how many people have read that issue in reprints and wondered who Professor Quiz was? Probably thousands. And how many read the name and it didn't even register, thinking Supes was merely being flippant? Again, probably thousands. You have performed a much-needed public service, sir.
ReplyDeleteUpon first encounter, it was my impression that "Professor Quiz" was just a colloquial reference, like Brainiac became for later generations.
ReplyDeleteBTW - that was Action Comics #22, for those interested in such things.