College Quiz Bowl

Posted by James on August 16, 2010 at 9:36am
College Bowl, "The Varsity Sport of the Mind", has a long and illustrious history on television, on radio and on campuses. It is the world famous game of questions and answers played by two teams of competing students.  College Bowl has provided the arena for the fastest minds in school to demonstrate their great skills under the fire of varsity competition. At the same time, it has entertained millions.

From October 10, 1953 through December, 1955, College Bowl was on the NBC radio network under the sponsorship of Good Housekeeping Magazine. The moderator was in a New York studio, the students on their own campuses and the entire event connected via three-way phone and radio hookup.

The first match was played on NBC radio on October 10, 1953, when Northwestern University defeated Columbia University, 135-60. 26 episodes ran in that first season, with winning teams receiving $500 grants for their school. Good Housekeeping  magazine became the sponsor for the 1954-55 season, and a short third season in the autumn of 1955 finished the run. The most dominant team was the University of Minnesota, which had teams appear in 23 of the 68 broadcast matches. The 1953-55 series had a powerful appeal because it used remote broadcasts; each team was located at their own college where they were cheered on by their wildly enthusiastic classmates. The effect was akin to listening to a football game, but this type of excitement evaporated in later versions, in which both teams competed in the same room.

The show would develop into the national CBS-TV game show, "College Bowl," aka "G.E. College Bowl" (after its sponsor). Although it is not clear whether Ludden alone created the show -- some sources indicate that the concept should be credited to Don Reid -- in an article in The Pittsburgh Press, dated April 5, 1971, Ludden reminisced: "Ah, that game was my baby. I made it up in my backyard at Hartford. I did it on radio, I did it as a TV pilot, and four or five years later we sold it to a sponsor." Ludden was the "College Bowl"'s first host, hosting from 1959 until 1962.

The game returned to radio from 1979 to 1982, hosted by Art Fleming (the host of the original Jeopardy!), with the 1978 and 1979 national tournament semi-finals and finals appearing on syndicated television. The two champions from those years competed against teams from the UK for the "College Bowl World Championship," which were also televised; in 1978, Stanford University played a team of UK all-stars under College Bowl rules, and in 1979, Davidson College played Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University under University Challenge rules. (The UK teams won in both years.)

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