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Bill Cullen for the defense

Mentioned the oldies boards in my previous post, so I took a peek at the granddaddy of them all, Game Show Forum.

Not much of interest to report, I'm afraid. But I did run across this ancient copy of Modern Television and Radio from December, 1948. A GSF poster linked to it because none other than Bill Cullen penned an article in the issue. He mounted a spirited defense of, you guessed it, game shows. Radio game shows. As Bill amiably confessed, he had a personal interest in the subject. He was currently hosting Hit the Jackpot and Winner Take All on Marconi's box.

Even by Game Show Forum's standards, the magazine is vintage stuff. The issue is actually older than me, and that's not an easy achievement nowadays.

A non-game show note: the first story in the magazine debated "Is Sinatra Finished?" Well, no, he wasn't finished, at least not in 1948. Anyway, Bill Cullen's defense of our little genre came in response to a screed from a fellow named H.I. Phillips (never heard of him and I'm too lazy to Google). H.I. ranted that radio game shows were destroying America. Seriously.

The idea that radio anything could destroy the country seems delightfully quaint today. Mr. Phillips wanted the government to step in to save us from the evil threat of game show giveaways. He could hardly have known that a decade later the government would hold hearings on television game shows.

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