Twenty One (game show) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Twenty One is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

which aired in the late 1950s. While it included the most popular contestant of the quiz show era, it became notorious for being a rigged quiz show

Quiz show scandals

The American quiz show scandals of the 1950s were a series of revelations that contestants of several popular television quiz shows were secretly given assistance by the show's producers to arrange the outcome of a supposedly fair competition....

which nearly caused the demise of the entire genre in the wake of United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

investigations. The 1994 movie Quiz Show

Quiz Show

Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...

is based on these events.

A new version aired in 2000 with Maury Povich

Maury Povich

Maurice Richard "Maury" Povich is an American TV talk show host who currently hosts his self-titled talk show Maury.-Personal background:...

hosting, lasting about five months on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

Gameplay

Two contestants, a champion and an opponent, were both placed in separate isolation booths wearing headphones, arranged so they could not see or hear each other or the audience, due to the way the studio lighting hit the booths' glass. With the champion's booth and headphones still on, the challenger's booth was opened and their headphones turned off. The host revealed the category for that round of questions and asked the challenger to pick a point value to play for, from one to eleven points, with more difficult questions for higher-value points. A correct answer added those points to the contestant's score, while an incorrect one deducted them (though scores could not go lower than zero). After the question, the challenger's headphones were turned back on and his booth closed. The champion's booth and headphones were then turned off and the champion was given the same category and choice of questions. The champion always played second. If the challenger had reached 21 before their opponent, the champion was given one last chance to try to tie the game. In this case, the challenger's booth would be left on so they could follow what the champion decided. However, the champion was not told their opponent's score until after selecting a point value for the question.

The object of the game was to score a total of 21 points, or to come closer to that number than their opponent within a maximum of five questions. After two categories were played, both booths were opened and both contestants were given the option to stop the game, without knowing their opponent's score. If one of the contestants stopped the game, whoever was ahead was declared the winner.

The difference in scores determined a champion's winnings. The winner received $500 for each point separating the contestants' scores (e.g., a champion who won 21-17 would win $2,000); the $500 figure increased by $500 each time the contestants went to a 21-21 tie. After each win, the champion was told a little bit about his or her next opponent and given the option to walk away. The decision whether or not to play on was crucial; if the champion elected to continue playing and lost, the new champion's total winnings would be taken out of their final total.

2000

All questions were presented with multiple-choice responses which contained a varying number possible choices based on the point value of the question. Questions worth 1–6 points offered three choices; questions worth 7–10 points offered four choices, with a "none of the above" answer on the 10-point questions, and 11-point questions offered five. In addition, the 11-point questions always required the contestant to select two correct answers from the five possibilities.

Point values of incorrect answers were no longer deducted from a contestant's score. Instead, contestants earned a strike for each incorrect response; accumulating three strikes resulted in an automatic loss. This rule change meant that games could end without a winner, as the rounds again were played to completion. If one contestant had struck out on their turn and the second contestant had two strikes, they could also lose the game on an incorrect answer. However, a contestant did not know how his/her opponent had done unless explicitly told by the host.

Additionally, once per game a contestant could call for a "Second Chance", which would allow the contestant to receive help from a friend or family member prior to providing an answer to the question. The "Second Chance" involved more risk, as an incorrect answer accumulated two strikes.

If time ran out after at least two categories were played, the contestant with the most points won and advanced to the bonus round on the next episode. Also, in the first episode only, there was no option for either contestant to stop the game after the second category was played.

Unlike the 1950s version, if the game ended in a tie, no new game was played. Instead, the contestants would be asked one question, and the first contestant to ring-in got to answer. If right, he or she won the game and went on to play the bonus game (for more info, see below). If wrong, the opponent got a chance to answer, and if correct, he or she moved on, but if incorrect, a new tie-breaker question was played.

Payoff

Losing challengers received $1,000 as a consolation prize. Rather than receiving a dollar value multiplied by the point difference after winning each game, champions received progressively larger amounts for each opponent defeated. Originally, the payoff structure was as follows:

Game number	Prize
1	$100,000
2	$200,000
3	$300,000
4	$400,000

These amounts accumulated, so winning four games would be worth at least $1,000,000. After winning a fourth game, the contestant started the chain again at $100,000 for defeating a fifth opponent, $200,000 for defeating a sixth, and so on.

After a few early episodes, the prize ladder changed to the following:

Game number	Prize
1	$25,000
2	$50,000
3	$100,000
4	$250,000
5	$500,000
6	$750,000
7	$1,000,000

These amounts accumulated, so winning seven games would be worth at least $2,675,000. As before, any contestant who defeated a seventh opponent started from the beginning of the chain.

When the rules changed, the returning champion had won one game and $100,000 in his appearance on the final show under the old prize structure. Instead of being "grandfathered" under the old prize structure, he played and won his second game for $250,000 (the next amount after $100,000), and played but lost his third game for $500,000.

Contestant selection

During the first six episodes, the audience chose the winner's next opponent. The audience would be presented with two potential challengers to face the current champion, and the audience would vote for an opponent using keypads. The person who received the higher vote played against the champion; the other person would be one of the two potential challengers to be voted on for the next game. In the first episode, there were three potential opponents to face the champion. After the sixth episode, the process was changed to a random selection. At the beginning of the show, six potential challengers would be introduced, and would be selected randomly from that group for each new game. People who had not been selected by the end of the show were not guaranteed to return on the following show, although some people did appear on the show multiple times before being selected to play.

Perfect 21

This version also featured a new bonus round, "Perfect 21." The champion was given a category, and asked up to six true/false questions in that category, worth 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 points consecutively. Each point was worth $10,000, for a total of $210,000. The contestant could stop and take any money won after each correct answer, as an incorrect answer ended the game and cost the contestant all money accumulated in the bonus round (main game winnings as well as winnings from previous bonus rounds were never at stake).

Big winners

Under the first payoff structure, Rahim Oberholtzer was the biggest winner, collecting $1,120,000 (at the time, the all-time game show winnings record) over four victories, three of which were due to his opponents striking out.

David Legler won $1,765,000 over six wins with the new payout structure. Legler was the top winner of American game shows until 2001 and is now the seventh-highest winner from an American television game show

American game show winnings records

This article lists American game show winnings records and goes into the history and people who have held them. Through the years there have been number of big winners as American game shows competed for viewers with ballooning prizes....

Broadcast history

Twenty One was originally conceived by host Jack Barry and producing partner Dan Enright

Dan Enright

Daniel "Dan" Enright was one of the most successful game show producers in American television. Enright worked with Jack Barry from the 1940s until Barry's death in 1984. They were partners in creating programs for radio and television...

as a weekly half-hour program for CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

' 1956–1957 schedule. The show was ultimately picked up by NBC

NBC

, and ran from September 10, 1956 to October 17, 1958, under the sponsorship of Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the makers of Geritol

Geritol

Geritol is a US trademarked name for various dietary supplements, past and present. Geritol is currently a brand name for several vitamin complexes plus iron or multimineral products in both liquid form and tablets, containing from 9.5 to 18 mg of iron per daily dose...

.

NBC revived the show in 2000 with Maury Povich

Maury Povich

Maurice Richard "Maury" Povich is an American TV talk show host who currently hosts his self-titled talk show Maury.-Personal background:...

as host, after ABC's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering 14 consecutive multiple-choice questions of random difficulty. Until 2010, the format required contestants to correctly answer 15 consecutive questions of increasing...

and FOX's Greed

Greed (game show)

Greed is an American television game show that aired on Fox from November 4, 1999 until July 14, 2000. The game consisted of a team of contestants who answered a series of multiple-choice questions for a potential prize of up to $2 million...

proved big-money game shows had once again become viable prime-time network fare. NBC aired first-run episodes for several months until the show was abruptly canceled. Several unaired episodes aired on PAX TV in the summer of 2000.

Overview

The initial broadcast of Twenty One was played honestly, with no manipulation of the game by the producers. Unfortunately, that broadcast was, in the words of producer Dan Enright

Dan Enright

, "a dismal failure"; the first two contestants succeeded only in making a mockery of the format by how little they really knew. Show sponsor Geritol

Geritol

, upon seeing this opening-night performance, reportedly became furious with the results, and threatened to pull their sponsorship of the show if it happened again.

The end result: Twenty One was not merely "fixed", it was almost totally choreographed. Contestants were cast almost as if they were actors, and in fact were active and (usually) willing partners in the deception. They were given instruction as to how to dress, what to say to the host, when to say it, what questions to answer, what questions to miss, even when to mop their brows in their isolation booths (which had air conditioning that could be cut off at will, to make them sweat more).

Charles Van Doren

Charles Lincoln Van Doren is an American intellectual, writer, and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s...

, a college professor, was introduced as a contestant on Twenty One on November 28, 1956, as a challenger to then-champion Herbert Stempel, a dominant contestant, though somewhat unpopular with viewers and eventually the sponsor. Van Doren and Stempel ultimately played to a series of four 21-21 games, with audience interest building with each passing week and each new game, until finally the clean-cut, "All American Boy" newcomer was able to outlast his bookish, quasi-intellectual opponent, who at one point after the game was referred to backstage as a "freak with a sponge memory". The turning point came on a question directed to Stempel: "What film won the Academy Award

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

for Best Picture in 1955?" Stempel legitimately knew the answer to that question was Marty

Marty (film)

Marty is a 1955 American film directed by Delbert Mann. The screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, expanding upon his 1953 teleplay of the same name. The film stars Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. The film enjoyed international success, winning the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture and...

, as it was one of his favorite films. The producers ordered him to answer the question with 1954's Best Picture winner, On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...

. Stempel later recalled that there was a moment in the booth when his conscience and sense of fair play warred with his sense of obligation and that he almost disrupted the scripted outcome by giving the correct answer. Stempel ultimately did as he was instructed, which opened the door for Van Doren to win the game and begin one of the longest and most storied runs of any champion in the history of television game shows.

Van Doren's popularity soared as a result of his success on Twenty One, earning him a place on the cover of Time magazine and even a regular feature spot on NBC's Today show; at one point, the program even surpassed CBS

CBS

' I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...

in the ratings. He was finally unseated as champion on March 11, 1957, by a woman, Vivienne Nearing, after winning a total of $143,000.

In the meantime Stempel, disgruntled over being ordered to "take a dive," attempted to blow the whistle on what exactly was going on behind the scenes at Twenty One, even going so far as to have a federal investigator look into the show. Initially, little came of these investigations and Stempel's accusations were dismissed as jealousy because there was no hard evidence to back up his claims. While a congressional investigation did have an impact on Twenty One during this period, the investigation in question was the HUAC hearings into possible Communists in entertainment; the show's director, Charles S. Dubin

Charles S. Dubin

Charles Samuel Dubin was an American film and television director.From the early 1950s to 1991, Dubin worked in television, directing episodes of Tales of Tomorrow, Omnibus, The Defenders, The Big Valley, The Virginian, Hawaii Five-O, M*A*S*H, Matlock, The Rockford Files, Murder, She Wrote and...

, was fired by NBC in June, 1958, after he refused to answer whether he ever had been part of the Communist party. But by August 1958 Dotto

Dotto

Dotto is an American television quiz show which aired on CBS from January 6 to August 15, 1958 and was hosted by Jack Narz. Although it quickly became the highest-rated daytime game show on television, its end came when it became the unexpected first casualty – and ignition – of the...

, a popular CBS

CBS

daytime game show, was abruptly canceled after a contestant found a notebook containing the answers to every question that was to be asked to Dottos current champion, future journalist Marie Winn

Marie Winn

Marie Winn, a journalist, author and birdwatcher, is known for her books and articles on the birds of Central Park, her Wall Street Journal ornithology column and her role in the quiz show scandals of the 1950s...

. Suddenly, Stempel's allegations began to make more sense. Even so, the public at large didn't seem to want to accept the dishonesty until Van Doren, under oath before a House hearing, ultimately confessed to being given answers to all of his questions before each show.

Twenty One was canceled without warning after its broadcast of October 17, 1958. A nighttime version of Concentration

Concentration (game show)

Concentration was an American TV game show based on the children's memory game of the same name. Matching cards represented prizes that contestants could win...

took over its time slot the following week. The scandal forced producers Barry and Enright into virtual exile. Barry would not host another national TV show for more than a decade, and Enright moved to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

to continue his production career.

Aftermath

The scandal also caused the Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

to mandate the sale of Barry-Enright's radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

station in Hollywood, Florida

Hollywood, Florida

-Demographics:As of 2000, there were 59,673 households out of which 24.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.2% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of...

, WGMA. The station was purchased by its general manager, C. Edward Little, who promptly affiliated the station with the Mutual Broadcasting System

Mutual Broadcasting System

The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...

. After serving for a time as the head of Mutual's affiliates association, Little became the president of Mutual from 1972–1979. During this time Little created the Mutual Black Network

Mutual Black Network

The Mutual Black Network or MBN was founded by the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1972, this was the first national full-service radio network aimed at African Americans. It broadcast an hourly 5 minute newscast at 50 minutes past the hour...

, the first U.S. broadcast network catering exclusively to African-Americans, in addition to the Mutual Spanish Network and the Mutual Southwest Network. Under Little's administration, Mutual became the first commercial broadcasting entity to use satellite

Satellite

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

technology for program delivery.

During his tenure as head of Mutual, Little hired Larry King

Larry King

Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....

to host an all-night phone-in talk show Little had created. King was a one-time announcer for Little at WGMA. King, who had previously hosted a similar morning show on Miami radio station WIOD, went on to national fame on both radio and television, winning a coveted Peabody Award

Peabody Award

The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...

along the way.

Barry finally returned to game show hosting in 1969, succeeding Dennis Wholey

Dennis Wholey

Dennis Wholey is an American television host and producer, and the author of a number of self-help books, one of which was a New York Times bestseller. He currently hosts This is America with Dennis Wholey, an interview program shown throughout the U.S...

on ABC's The Generation Gap

The Generation Gap

The Generation Gap was a primetime American game show that aired from February 7 to May 23, 1969 on ABC. It was originally hosted by Dennis Wholey for the first ten episodes, after which he was replaced by Jack Barry. Fred Foy announced during the entire run....

for which he publicly thanked the producers and ABC-TV for giving him a chance for a comeback. In 1971, he sold ABC his first new game show The Reel Game

The Reel Game

The Reel Game was a game show that aired on ABC from January 18 to May 3, 1971. The series was hosted by Jack Barry and announced by Jack Clark....

which he also hosted. It ran for 13 weeks. He became a success again as a producer-host with The Joker's Wild

The Joker's Wild

The Joker's Wild is an American television game show that aired at different times during the 1970s through the 1990s. Contestants answered questions based on categories that were determined randomly by a mechanism resembling a slot machine....

, which ran on CBS from 1972–1975 and in syndication from 1977–1986 (Barry died in June 1984 and was replaced by Bill Cullen

Bill Cullen

William Lawrence Francis "Bill" Cullen was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades...

for the final two years). Enright would work as Joker's executive producer in the final year on CBS, and the two revived their partnership full-time in 1976, reviving Tic-Tac-Dough

Tic-Tac-Dough

Tic-Tac-Dough is an American television game show based on the pen-and-paper game of tic-tac-toe. Contestants answer questions in various categories to put up their respective symbol, X or O, on the board. Three versions were produced: the initial 1956–59 run on NBC, a 1978–1986 run initially on...

which also ran until 1986. It was revived once more in 1990, but was cancelled after a few months. Enright died in 1992.

2000

A second attempt actually made it to air when NBC, in the wake of the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)

, revived the tainted quiz show on January 9, 2000. The new version was produced by Phil Gurin and Fred Silverman

Fred Silverman

Fred Silverman is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at the CBS, ABC and NBC networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo , All in the Family , The Waltons , and Charlie's Angels , as well as the...

. The rules of this version, hosted by Maury Povich

Maury Povich

Maurice Richard "Maury" Povich is an American TV talk show host who currently hosts his self-titled talk show Maury.-Personal background:...

(and announced by John Cramer), were somewhat different from those of the 1950s version. It was taped at NBC Studios, stage 1 in Burbank, the longtime studio of The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

International versions

Twenty-One is one of only three Barry-Enright game shows known to have foreign adaptations, the others being Tic-Tac-Dough

Tic-Tac-Dough

and Concentration

Concentration (game show)

Concentration was an American TV game show based on the children's memory game of the same name. Matching cards represented prizes that contestants could win...

United Kingdom

A version produced by Granada Television

Granada Television

Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

for ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

aired in 1958 with Chris Howland

Chris Howland

John Christopher Howland is a British radio and TV presenterwho opened German radio programmes for English music. Hereby he has changed German radio broadcast which has been dominated by English music ever since....

as host, but like the American version was pulled off the network due to the quiz show scandals. This was especially so when contestant Stanley Armstrong stated that he had been given "definite leads" to the answers.

It was notable for giving away bigger cash prizes than would have been allowed on British TV between the imposition of a prize limit by the Independent Television Authority

Independent Television Authority

The Independent Television Authority was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" , the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom...

(itself a direct response to the alleged corruption of the game show genre) and the lifting of the prize limit by the Independent Television Commission

Independent Television Commission

The Independent Television Commission licensed and regulated commercial television services in the United Kingdom between 1 January 1991 and 28 December 2003....

in the 1990s. The biggest win on the show was £5,580 by contestant Bernard Davies, which was the highest prize awarded on British TV up to that time.

Australia

In 1968, the Nine Network

Nine Network

The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...

aired their own version, called Big Nine. The show was hosted by Athol Guy

Athol Guy

Athol Guy , is a member of the Australian pop music-folk music group The Seekers. Guy played the double bass. He was characterised by his wearing of black horn-rimmed glasses...

Germany

Hätten Sie's gewusst? was aired by public broadcaster ARD

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

from 1958–1969, hosted by Hans (Heinz) Maegerlein. This is the longest-running known version of Twenty One in the world.

Later, a version on RTL

RTL Television

Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...

aired during the Summer from 2000–2002, hosted by Hans Meiser. This version, called Einundzwanzig (literally, "Twenty One"), had a format similar to the 2000 version.

French-Canada

Vingt-et-un (literally, "Twenty-One") aired from September 2004 to May 2005 on the TVA

TVA (TV network)

TVA is a privately owned French language television network in Canada. The network is currently owned by Groupe TVA Inc. , a publicly traded subsidiary of Quebecor Media...

network (based in Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

and available across Canada

Canada

). The program was 30 minutes long, and each game consisted of three rounds of questions, as opposed to five on the recent NBC version. The questions were still worth from one to 11 points, but all point values consisted of four choices. The prize money builds: $250, $500, $1,500, $3,500, $5,500, $12,500, and $20,000 more for a seventh win, all in Canadian dollars. Perfect 21 was played for up to $2,100. The host was Guy Mongrain

Guy Mongrain

Guy Mongrain is a Canadian game show host and former reporter. He is mostly known to host several popular Quebec television games on the network TVA for the past 20 years....

, a popular Quebec television personality.

The top winner on this version was Simon Dufour-Turbis with $49,700 in seven victories, while Pierre Diotte came close with $48,700 in his seven victories. Olivier Lamoureux won $47,200 in ten victories, the most on the Canadian version.

Brazil

Vinte e Um began airing in 2007 as a local Sunday program on SBT with Silvio Santos

Silvio Santos

-External links:*...

as host. Although the music and set are virtually identical to those used on the US version in 2000, the game format is somewhat different.

Instead of the contestant choosing a point value for each question, the contestant instead spins a small roulette wheel in the booth to randomly determine the point value of the question, which contains point values from three to six (more than likely, if the contestant spun a point value that would potentially put them over 21, they would have to spin again until it hit a point value that put them at less than or equal to 21). Each question has four possible answers. The winner of the main game wins R$

Brazilian real

The real is the present-day currency of Brazil. Its sign is R$ and its ISO code is BRL. It is subdivided into 100 centavos ....

20,000. The player can win up to R$100,000 more in the bonus round, but the main game winnings are also at risk. The loser gets a R$100 consolation prize.

Episode status

Thirty-two episodes are held by the Library of Congress. The episode on which Van Doren defeated Stempel was released as part of a retail home video compilation featuring other episodes of game shows.

The 2000 version is intact and has been rerun on Game Show Network

Game Show Network

The Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...

External links

Official website for Vinte e um (Brazilian version)
Vingt-et-un (in French)

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