Dotto (1957-1958) was an American television quiz show whose nine-month jump to the top of the daytime quiz show heap ended when it became the unexpected first casualty of what became the quiz show scandal. The American quiz show scandals of the 1950s were the result of the revelation that contestants of several popular television quiz shows were secretly given assistance by the producers to arrange the outcome of a supposed competition. ...

Dotto was based on the children's connect-the-dots game: contestants answered general-interest questions to connect dots that made a portrait of a famous or historical personage. In a very brief period it became the highest-rated quiz program of 1958, with a weekly nighttime version launched in the summer of that year. Its host, Jack Narz, achieved a Q-rating (recognizability) equal if not slightly superior to that enjoyed by Hal March, the popular host of The $64,000 Question. But barely nine months after the show was born, executives at CBS and the show's sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive, confirmed what was first only suspected: Dotto, the highest-rated quiz show of 1958, had been fixed. Jack Narz (born November 13, 1922, in Louisville, Kentucky), the elder brother of game show legend Tom Kennedy and the brother-in-law of another game show legend, the late Bill Cullen, is an American television announcer and game show host in his own right, who eluded the infamous quiz... Hal March (born Harold Mendelson, April 22, 1920 - January 19, 1970) was an American comedian. ... The $64,000 Question was a popular United States television game show. ... CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) is a major television network and radio broadcaster in the United States. ... Colgate redirects here. ...

In May 1958, a notebook belonging to contestant Marie Winn was found by another contestant, Ed Hilgemeier, who discovered the notebook included questions and answers to be used during Winn's appearances. A CBS executive vice president, Thomas Fisher, tested kinescopes of the show against Winn's notebook and concluded the show looked fixed. The executives also learned the show's producers had paid Winn, Hilgemeier, and Winn's opponent Yaffe Kimball-Slatin to keep quiet about the notebook. But they also learned that Hilgemeier may have demanded more money to keep quiet and filed a deceptive practices complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. Marie Winn is a journalist, author, and birdwatcher. ... The term kinescope originally referred to a type of early television picture tube. ... The FCCs official seal. ...

When the executives (including CBS president Frank Stanton) met in mid-August 1958, at the time a nighttime version of Dotto began to look like an NBC hit, executive producer Frank Cooper admitted Dotto had been rigged---and that only a select few among his production staffers knew it as well. (Narz didn't know of the rigging; he later passed a polygraph test while testifying to a grand jury investigating quiz show fixing.) The Colgate and CBS executives agreed: Dotto had to be and was cancelled. NBC followed suit regarding the nighttime version. And ten days later, newspaper stories exploded with newly-corroborated details provided by deposed Twenty-One champion Herb Stempel that that show, too, had been fixed. The quiz show scandal was born in full form. Frank Stanton (born 1908) was a U.S. businessman. ... The National Broadcasting Company or NBC is an American television broadcasting company based in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... 21 (twenty-one) is the natural number following 20 and preceding 22. ... Herb Stempel is a television game show contestant who became famous for his participation in the 1950s show Twenty One, where he had a suspiciously long run of wins, and for his eventual exposure of what became known as the Quiz Show Scandals. ...

Some articles about the quiz show scandals have suggested an updated version of Dotto was planned for a 2000 premiere, but the new show never materialized. One contestant on the original Dotto, Connie Hines, who was coached for her appearance but not given questions or answers, later became familiar to television viewers as Wilbur Post's frustrated but loving wife, on the situation comedy Mister Ed. Mister Ed was a popular US television comedy show that aired on CBS from 1961-1966. ...

References

Joseph Stone with Tim Yohn, Prime Time and Misdemeanors (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press)

Robert Metz, CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1975)

External links

• UKGameshows.com: Dotto
• Aug. 15, 1958: The Day The House Began to Fall
• The American Experience: The Quiz Show Scandal
• The Museum of Broadcast Communications: Quiz Show Scandals