Sonny Fox on
the anatomy of the "fix"
When we started "[The] $64,000 Challenge," I understood that the contestants were extremely well questioned about what their expertise was so that when the questions were structured, they were directed toward the strength of those people, no matter how complex the question seemed to be. And if they wanted them to continue -- if they didn't want it to continue, then they would structure the questions away from them. That was my understanding, and later it was confirmed by the people but, for instance, if somebody took -- and this was a true case -- if somebody took as his expertise eighteenth century English poets and indeed was encyclopedic about eighteenth century English poets, the producers would say your category is English Literature, which was legitimate, I suppose. Now while they were going with him up this ladder of plateaus they would ask him questions that were very complex but about eighteenth century English poets. If they decided looking at the ratings that he wasn't building, that he wasn't that interesting, that people didn't care that much about him, they should really dump him. The way they, I thought, they controlled it was that suddenly they would ask him a question about Beowulf at which point his eyes would glaze, jaw would hang slack and defeat would creep over his visage. And that was probably the way they controlled events in the beginning. Imperfect as it was they still measured some degree of control.
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