Not only did we enjoy watching Rogers' football and basketball games, but watching the many game shows on television was a big part of the American culture of the 50s and 60s. It wasn't until 1970 that public interest in game shows began to wane, and the networks cancelled many of their shows from prime time and daytime schedules.
The best and earliest game shows were produced by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. The most successful and memorable programs in TV history were theirs: What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, The Price is Right, To Tell the Truth, Family Feud, Beat the Clock, Two for the Money, Match Game, and Password. The hosts were big TV stars of some of them: Bill Cullen, Bob Barker, Bud Collier,Gene Rayburn, Bennett Cerf, Allen Ludden. One of the most popular shows not part of Goodson-Todman Productions was You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx. Groucho was fun to watch because of his humor and the way he treated his quests. When guests showed up, he would always greet them by saying, "Hello, hello, hello, say the secret word and divide a hundred dollars." I remembered and enjoyed that saying so much that in my teaching days, I would sometimes say, "Say the secret word and divide a hundred dollars," when I had an important word question in my class. That always got the class excited, but I had to explain the saying if they even knew the word I was asking them about. I tossed a lot of historic sayings in my class, it being a history class.
Another one of the VERY popular quiz shows was The $64,00 Dollar Question. The Robert Redford produced movie, Quiz Show (1980) was an excellent, entertaining film based on that. You would enjoy it if you enjoyed watching quiz shows. The $64,00 Dollar Question was popular enough that one of our Logan 8th grade teachers, Mrs. Cunningham, had us put on an assembly skit-show for parents and all the students at Logan. She appointed me to be Hal March,the show's host. Since mouthwash was a product produced in those years, the late 50s, I called myself Hal Itosis. Some students volunteered to play the part of guests, and one of the cutest girls was chosen to be the hostess greeter.
Was that a memorable event of 8th grade? You bet your life it was.