Cautionary Tales Presents: World's Greatest Con

We'll be back with another story of human error next week, but today we're sharing another podcast you might like. On World's Greatest Con, Brian Brushwood talks about the most audacious con jobs, swindles, and heists in history. In this episode of World's Greatest Con, Brian tells the story of how a game show producer was tempted into upping the ante on his own program by feeding answers to the contestants. Those contestants become rich, famous, and admired...until the scheme is discovered and all they are left with is shame.

You can hear more episodes by searching for World's Greatest Con wherever you get podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Tim Harford Here this week, Cautionary Tales hands the
microphone to Brian Brushwood, host of World's Greatest Con, a
show about the most audacious con jobs, swindles, and heists
in history. The events you'll hear about our a quintessential

(00:36):
cautionary tale, a story of how a game show producer
was tempted into upping the ante on his own program
by feeding answers to the contestants. Those contestants become stars, rich, famous, admired,
and then the scheme is discovered and all they're left
with is shame. I love World's Greatest Con, both this

(01:00):
second season, which is all about frauds and cons perpetrated
on or by TV quiz shows such as Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire, The Price Is Right, Press Your
Luck and more, and the first season, which was about
an astonishing attempt to con Adolphe Hitler himself. It's packed
with the storytelling, the human psychology and the salutary lessons

(01:23):
you expect from Cautionary Tales. If you're not already a subscriber,
take a moment to subscribe now and you can thank
me later. Brian Brushwood, the host of World's Greatest Con
also hosts TV shows on Discovery and National Geographic, is
an international lecturer on scams and is an absolute pleasure
to listen to. And I'll be back at the Helm

(01:44):
of Cautionary Tales this time next week with a new
story of human error. But until then, over to Brian
Brushwood and World's Greatest Con. This is World's Greatest Car.
I'm Brian Brushwood. All right, It's nineteen fifty seven and
two hundred people are getting pulled into a grand jury.

(02:09):
They're all told the same thing. Tell the truth, you'll
be on your way. But if you lie, you are
going to be indicted on federal perjury charges. And these
people aren't just anyone. We're talking about lawyers, professors, active military,
respected individuals, people with a lot to lose if their

(02:32):
reputations are tarnished. And fascinatingly, one by one, these individuals
go to the grand jury and the overwhelming majority lie.
They commit federal perjury. I mean, maybe it's some money,
right Monday, it's got to be involved somewhere. Would they

(02:54):
lie for the money. Maybe it's a grand conspiracy. They're
all in. If one person cracks, everything comes down occult.
I mean hell, that'd make more sense than the truth,
because the truth is the real reason is something elemental
in every single one of us, something hardwired into our brains.

(03:16):
All of us have a relationship with this, and it's
a con man's job to exploit it. I'm going to
tell you an epic story about fame and shame, about
how our desire for one and the fear of the
other can eradicate your morals, reduce you to a pawn

(03:40):
on somebody else's chessboard. But before we get to the
heavy stuff, let's understand this phenomenon in a safer sandbox,
a realm without any victims. Okay, this will be a
weird segue, but have you ever been due a stage
hypnotist show. Sometimes these shows are like a Christmas event

(04:05):
for our corporation. Sometimes you'll buy a ticket on the
strip in Las Vega. Guess I always see them at
these college freshman orientations, you know, those big events they
do in the first one or two days when you
come to campus, when they want you to bond together
as a cohort and have shared experience. It's the perfect

(04:25):
activity to get people to reveal stuff about themselves. In fact,
put yourself back there. You don't know anybody, You don't
know how any of this is going to go, but
you do know that you want to fit in. There's
a thousand other people in this pact charged auditorium. You're excited,

(04:47):
they're excited. You want to know them, they want to
know you. How walks a guy, an authoritative suit who
explains to you that only one type of person can
be hypnotized. Smart person, somebody smart enough to exactly follow
directions on Q and no, you won't lose free will,

(05:11):
but yes, you will experience something that you will remember
for the rest of your life. And then comes the
first part of how stage hypnosis works. He asks who
here in this room would like to be hypnotized. This
feels like a very small moment. It's not. It's the

(05:33):
most important moment. The reason it's the most important moment
is because you are self selecting or compliance. You are
entering a contract. You are saying I am ready to play?
Are you? And forty five other freshmen go running up
to the stage. Y'all get in a line. And what
happens first is a very small ask. The stage hypnotist says,

(05:58):
I want you to imagine you're getting very very hot.
Oh what must that be like to be very very hot?
And of course you are hot. You're under a bunch
of lamps, you're on stage, you're next to all these
other sweaty bodies. You just ran a hundred meters to
get up here. After a few minutes of this, a

(06:18):
language changes just a little bit. Now he just says,
now you're getting cooler. But you know what he's talking about, right,
or it was hot, Now I'm getting cooler. Of course.
Of course, also by the way, you are actually getting cooler.
You worked up a sweat while you were up there
on stage. Now all that sweat is starting to evaporate.
You're getting cooler. So you begin to shake and shiver,

(06:41):
cover yourself, and all the while he's quietly eliminating people.
He doesn't say elimination. What he says is if I
tap you on the shoulder, it just didn't work out.
It's not really a punishment. But you know what you want,
You know, you want to stay up there on stage.

(07:01):
You want to keep going. We hear directives and sleep,
and we know while we're out there on stage what
he means is act as though you just went into
a slumber. Let your thoughts and you begin to watch
as stranger and stranger things happen around you, always happening

(07:24):
to other people. Nothing amazing is about to happen person
I'm touching right now, Only the person I'm touching right now.
In a moment, I'm going to ask you a question,
and when I do, you will be unable to remember
the number seven. And when he asks you to add
together or in four you say eight, It's like great,
so you must have eight fingers pointed up. Go ahead

(07:47):
and count them one, two, three, four, five, six? What
else are you going to do? In Meanwhile, the audience
is loving it a laughter the applause. I mean you
think of yourself as an introvert. You've never experienced anything
like this. Right now, the attention is on you, and

(08:08):
you are in full on flow state melts. All of
these decisions about whether you're playing along or just following instructions,
they all get blended together. Choices become instinctual. The age
of eighteen, a freshman at college, you've probably never experienced
anything like this before. All you know is that it

(08:30):
feels awesome. And when this dude tells you something to do,
you do it. Everybody claps and you feel great, and
then forty minutes into the performance, he says to you
out loud, you are Britney Spears, and you have a

(08:56):
choice because the hypnotist didn't lie. You do have free will.
You could do anything you want at any moment. But
you also know that of any two options, you want
the one that's less painful, and in that moment, it
would be more painful to stop the show, to say,

(09:19):
this has been a wild ride, but I'm afraid I'm
outside of my comfort zone. I'm just going to head
on down back to my seat. What's less painful is
that you are Britney Spears. Every sexy bumping, you grind,

(09:44):
touching your body in a ways that you wouldn't even
do a load in the bathroom, Everybody cheering, screaming, It's
an ecstasy of improvisation that you've never experienced her entire lives.
Good God, the whole world stopped and shown a spotlight
on you. It's calorie free fame. There's no way you

(10:07):
can lose. You'll be reward or if you're dancing is good,
you'll be blameless if it's bad. The reliability of these
reactions to fame and shame. That's what allows stage hypnotists
to make a living doing this. Yes, hypnosis is a
real phenomenon, but stage hypnosis is a different animal. And

(10:28):
everybody on that stage we're acting the way that they
did for fame. The folks that stayed up there the
longest did so out of fear that they would be
eliminated and the shame that would come from that. Last
season we explained how common conmand tactics were used to

(10:51):
defeat Hitler, of all people, by the twenty Committee. So
this season will do one better. The biggest scandal in
television history the downfall of the TV quiz Show twenty one.
Twenty one is so popular that a winning contestant is
an instant celebrity. Overnight, they're a household name, and along

(11:15):
with that comes money, money that you can use for
yourself and your loved ones. But as it broadcasts, what
tens of millions of viewers at home don't know is
that most of the winners are in the process of
making a deal with the devil. Each of them are
crossing an ethical line that will eventually eradicate their reputation

(11:38):
long after the fame and the money are gone all
in the service of producers who are playing a much
more high stakes game. If you were told you were
about to make more money in one night, then you'd
make it an entire year. That everyone am your block
would hail you as a hero, that you could have
a future in television. All you had to do was

(12:00):
step in line and play along. All you had to
do was cheat. What would you do? Don't say it
out loud just yet. First put yourself in a soundproof
booth on live national television with fifty million people watching,

(12:22):
and answer this, how many points would you like to
play for? Cons don't fool us because we're stupid. They
fool us because we're human. And this might be the
world's greatest con. You're listening to world's greatest cone on

(12:49):
Cautionary Tales. Before we get to twenty one, you gotta talk.
Come out the show that it's desperately trying to take down. Yes,

(13:13):
the sixty four thousand dollars question, and now the star
of our show where knowledge is king and the reward
king size how march? All right, let's start here. Television
is a killer be killed business. Everybody's got an idea,
and most people could pull it off if they're surrounded

(13:34):
with right talent. But even at its earliest moments, television
is about getting those eyeballs a connection to the viewer.
There's no denying that nineteen fifty six, the viewer is
connecting with the sixty four thousand dollar question. It is
the first major hit game show on TV. And yes,

(13:58):
the game show format has been around since radio, but
now you could actually see the contestants. You could see
what they looked like, how they fidgeted under the pressure
or rocked it confidently straight through the answers. Also, remember
where we are. This is the nineteen fifties. Boys have
come home from World War Two. More of them came

(14:19):
home from Korea. Prosperity is the name of the game.
Everybody's home and they want to make an empire for themselves.
Cement is being poured on the suburbs that would go
on to define American culture for the next seventy years
in counting, and the game show embodies all of that.

(14:40):
Average people who want to make good, testing their own knowledge,
winning big money, big prizes. Remember Grandma's couch one that
had the plastic cover all over it. There was a
day that couch was brand new. Let's go back to
that day and let's sit on that couch and let's

(15:00):
turn on the TV and watch the sixty four thousand
dollars question. Honored client for the sixty dollar question psychologist
from New York City whose category is boxing, Doctor Joyce Trouters.
Finally what man later famous in the boxing world? Referee

(15:21):
the comeback attempt of the next Champ against Jack Johnson
at Reno Nevada. Text, Rickard, you're a right man? How
fifties is this? First? Off? Yes, that is the doctor
Joyce Brothers that you know and love. This is how
she got famous. But one of the first big winners

(15:42):
on sixty four thousand dollars question is Katherine Kreiser, in
which she answers a series of questions about Bible verses.
Here's what's important about Katherine see sixty four thousand dollars
question was kind of like who wants to be a millionaire.
You have to answer a series of questions leading up
to the big prize, and every win you get you

(16:02):
have a chance to walk away. Katherine hits that moment.
She has a chance to be the first sixty four
thousand dollar winner by answering one question, but she doesn't.
Given the opportunity to walk with thirty four thousand or
risk everything, she takes the money. This is a really

(16:23):
crucial part of the story and really of every con
Always value the money you have. It's your money. That's
why you've got to be careful to not covet the
money you don't yet have. Sixty four thousand dollars question
is on CBS. A few clicks down the dial, NBC
is getting covetous of those ratings. They try to buy

(16:48):
the sixty four thousand dollars question. They fail. They look
to make their own. Enter Dan and Write. Dan and
Wright was born in nineteen seventeen, grew up in British
Palestine in New York City, and Right was a revolutionary mind.

(17:10):
And we're not just talking game shows. It's all kinds
of audience participation shows. Shows where somebody from the audience
tells an interesting story and boom, they're reunited with their
long lost sister. Other ones where somebody is down on
their luck and they get a new car. It's part produced,
it's part improv In nineteen forty seven, n Right meets

(17:30):
the man that would become his creative partner for the
rest of his life, stand up comic Jack Barry. Together
they pitch and produce TV game shows, often ones that
use Barry as the MC. In nineteen fifty six, they
come up with twenty one. The one questions are super easy.
The eleven questions are often multiple parts and really really hard.

(17:51):
It's essentially like Blackjack. Whoever hits twenty one first wins.
NBC likes it enough to shoot a practice round perfect.
They're in the game. Oh yeah, twenty one. It has
one major advantage over the sixty four thousand dollar question.
See sixty four is massive, and the contestants that make

(18:12):
it far they become huge stars old Bible quote and
Catherine became a downright celebrity. But if you did the
best you could on sixty four, it only lasted four weeks.
All that hype for a month of ratings. Two twenty one.

(18:33):
Twenty one is set up so a winner could go
on forever, just keep winning and winning. Could you imagine
the publicity, imagine the attention. This is brilliant. En Right
sets up the first test game and it sucks. It
is super boring. And here's why. According to Enright, either

(18:57):
contestant could answer enough of the questions to make twenty one.
One of the advantages of sixty four thousand is that
the contestants got to pick one topic that they're an
expert in to answer increasingly difficult questions. Twenty one changes
the topic every question, so you have to find real savants,
people who are super well rounded about everything. What Right

(19:22):
may or may not know is that sixty four thousand
also tries to make sure their contestants succeed. For example,
to the home audience, the category is just opera, but
the producers know that this guy is really an expert
only in Italian opera, so all of his questions are
only about Italian opera, No Russian opera, no French opera.

(19:44):
So how are you going to get random people to
push past a single round, let alone so many rounds
they become huge stars? I mean could gee? Let's pause
here to consider the ethics of what's about to happen. Yes,

(20:05):
twenty one is a TV show. Most TV shows are faked. Yes,
sixty four thousand dollar question is shaped to help contestants,
but they don't get the questions beforehand. What end Right
is considering is to give the questions categories and the
answers to a contestant beforehand. I mean, what's the harm?

(20:28):
Contestants get money, he gets ratings. En Wright finds out
real quick with his first big winner. He feels a
little bit awkward coming out and asking a man to cheat,
So Enright does something clever. He gives a pre show
quiz to the guy, just to loosen his nerves a bit.
It's only after he's in the booth on live television
that the contestant realizes the practice questions that he already

(20:53):
got are in reality, the same questions being asked for
keeps live on TV. But what do you do? It's
money right? Wrong? This contestant felt betrayed and made a
fool of. He's worried about his reputation being branded as

(21:13):
a cheater. He goes to Enright and demands to give
the money back. Finally, Enright convinces him to keep it.
Just gracefully bow out what do we say? Can't con
and honest John? In another world this would have been
a wake up call. In an alternate reality, Enwright would

(21:34):
realize from the reaction of the first winner that a
man's reputation means a lot more than thousands of dollars.
Maybe the contestants shouldn't be treated just like props. Maybe
we could make the questions easier or find another way. Yeah,
now we're rolling, despite the contestants moral panic. Look, the

(21:55):
plan worked. The only mistake is that he surprised the
guy after the fact. He's got to be up front.
En Right needs somebody willing to take the money for nothing.
En Right has to find a mark. Meet Herb Stemple.

(22:16):
Herb's a studious guy who grew up in depression era
in New York. His father died at a young age.
His mother moved the family to a poor area of
the Bronx, and, like most able bodied young men, he
enlisted shipped off to Europe in the Army. After getting
back home from the war, he filtered through office posts
in the army, eventually ended up taking a job as

(22:37):
a postal clerk in the Big Apple. That's where he
got married, settled down and baby, and legitimately. Herb has
an insane memory. As a kid, he did this radio
quiz show. He remained undefeated for weeks. Picture Herb watching
twenty one saying to himself, these questions are easy. He

(22:58):
writes to the producer Dan Enwright takes a sample quiz where,
according to Stemple, he gets two hundred and fifty one
of the three hundred and sixty three questions exactly right.
When Enwright sees Stemple, he sees a story a new
father working his way through community college, a gi This

(23:19):
is America. Enwright invites Stemple to come to his office
for a meeting. Stemple can't do it because he has
to babysit his kid. So en Wright comes to him.
There could be no surprises anymore. So en Wright comes
right out and says, would you like to make twenty
five thousand dollars? Stemple is taken aback, but he knows

(23:43):
the score. In my mind, he's thinking like, oooh, twenty
five is a lot of money. Looks over at his
kid playing with his toy trucks on the floor. You
mean twenty five? And I don't even have to steal anything.
Like if the owner of the bank was trying to
give me money just to prove that rich people do
business there, I mean, everybody wins. Right. That's where Enwright

(24:06):
has him. We're going to find out there's a lot
more than money involved in a deal like this, and
Stemple specifically is going to fight tooth and nail for
it from the Bronx to the halls of Congress. But
for now, the done deal. What if five K I'll
do what you say? That's my motto this time and

(24:33):
Right has a partner, so he's stage manages Stemple way
more than the first guy. He gives him every point
value he's going to ask for every question he's going
to get, every answer he's going to say, right or wrong.
He picks out a suit for Stemple to make him
look frumpy, and to where the loudest watch he owns
to heighten the tension. What do we say? All the

(24:57):
effort into that first impression the tableau In the first
four minutes of the program, Stemple wins nine thousand dollars
more money in a lump some that he has ever
seen in his entire life. Stempele's take it a big
old bat bite, that forbidden fruit. He's all in on

(25:19):
the belief that this is easy money, and he is
willing to bend the rules and conceal the truth from
his friends, his family, the rest of the world. That
nine thousand dollars, that's just the beginning. Stemple would eventually
rack up nearly seventy thousand dollars in winnings nineteen fifties dollars,

(25:40):
and he's got the chance to turn it into one
hundred thousand dollars, I mean sort of. See Enright loves
having a return winner, and the press loves having a
return winner. So Stemple becomes a minor New York celebrity.
But there's one part of a returning champion. The Enright

(26:02):
needs to, let's say, make some adjustments for the money.
See the sponsor of twenty one Pharmaceuticals, Inc. And their
product Jaritoal. They furnished the show with a limited prize budget.
If the total prize money for those twenty six weeks
is less than the money allotted, then it gets refunded
to the sponsor. But if it's over that number, well

(26:27):
that comes out of Barry and Enright productions. That means
the show has to live within its means. And since
Stemple was on his way to getting a big old
bat paycheck, that payout simply wasn't feasible. And here is
where the deal with the Devil comes due. First, en
Right places in front of Stemple an agreement. It's retroactive

(26:50):
to the very first appearance the Stemple made Out twenty
one that ninth that he won nine thousand dollars. In
plain language, it says Stemple will agree to take less
than his actual winnings on the show at the end
of his journey if he signs, he agrees to take

(27:11):
forty thousand dollars if he lands on anything between sixty
and eighty K, fifty thousand on any earnings between eighty
and one hundred K, and sixty thousand on anything over
one hundred K. And Wright makes it very clear that
he can either sign now or lose very badly and

(27:32):
walk with less than the lowest amount offered. Flashback to
that moment, just a few weeks ago, Stemple's apartment, his
son running around. Stemple let money trample his morals. Now
even the money is being taken away. Stepple's obviously a
bit blindsided, and Wright tells him not to worry. Hey, Stemple,

(27:55):
you're not just a postal clerk anymore. You're a TV star.
And and Wright just happens to be a TV producer.
After Stemple's done on twenty one, he'll be a perfect
fit for some other game show, maybe even a panel
show where he could simply just make money with his
wit and intellect. Who's your boy? Who's Enright's good partner?

(28:16):
To sign the contract? Stemple? You're smart? You say, Oh,
you're so smart, Stemple, You're the best. You'd be a
TV star. Stemple signs, and from this point forward, absolutely
nothing goes right for him. We're back in Enright's office.

(28:44):
Stemple's there again, but this time it's a few weeks later.
Stemple is the champion and his next show, he has
his chance to cross the line of one hundred thousand dollars.
But that's not going to happen because en Right has
to break some bad news to the kid. You gotta
lose next week. This is where the ride ends. Hey,

(29:05):
hold on, be cool. Who's your boy? Stempy? Stempy is
not cool. He wants to know exactly who's going to
replace him, and Wright explains, Ah, it's this alegant guy
by the name of Charles van Dorn. He's an you know,
an actor, writer, and is this professor at Columbia. I

(29:29):
mean he's from a famous intellectual family. You know enough
about Charles van Dorn. The important thing, Stempy is that
you're going to take a dive. Whoa, whoa? Stemp says,
if Van Dorn's from Columbia, Stepple is like from city college.
What if they have a straight up game. I mean,
don't just make me take a dive. We can play
it fair, right, You could build it up like that

(29:50):
rich kid versus poor kid. Now that's good TV. Stemple
is so desperate he makes an offer. Stemple is willing
to bet his entire earnings on a straight up, honest,
legit game. Now think about this. The whole reason he
took the deal, the whole he was the perfect partner

(30:11):
to end Right is because he was in it for
the money. Boom that's out or what one word? Fame
Enright says, No plan is the plan. The ratings a
plateaued and Stemple it's time for new blood. Oh, by

(30:33):
the way, specifically, you're gonna lose on the question which
movie won Best Picture last year? You and I both
know that the real answers Marty, But you're going to
say on the waterfront. This crushes Stemple. It's this one detail,
It's this one honest fact that is going to live

(30:55):
in his brain for decades. It'll eventually become a beast
that consumes him. Not only does he have to take
the dive, he has to humiliate himself in the process.
But hey, who's walking away with forty thousand dollars of
negotiated winnings. Who's gonna maybe be on another one of

(31:17):
our shows? Oh? Did I mention who I called? I
was on the phone with Steve Allen. I'm just saying this.
Calms down, Stemple. I mean, if nothing else in this moment,
he knows for a fact, at the very least, he
is a legitimate TV Starin points, the category is movies
and movie stars. How many points do you want to

(31:38):
try for from one to eleven? I'll try five, which
would give you twenty one points if you get this right,
and you will be the winner again. What motion Picture
won the Academy Award for nineteen fifty five. Later on,
when Stemple talked about this moment, he would say he

(31:58):
seriously thought full ongoing rogue live on TV in that
isolation booth, you could literally say whatever he wanted. Whole
world was watching. When he was asked which movie one
best Picture, he really could just say Marty and win.
He could retire with his winnings and walk off the set.

(32:21):
By the way, that's another thing we should point out
now that we're at the end of Stemple's run. Enright
effectively controlled him in two ways when it came to
the money. The first was the contract where Enright convinced
Stemple to take less money pennies on the dollar, But
this second was convincing him to keep playing. Much like
sweet Bible quote and Catherine on sixty four thousand dollars question,

(32:43):
you could just take the money and go risk. On
the other side, looks different when the producer is promising
you the answers, I mean, until he decides to stop
giving them to you. You'll always have the option to
leave no matter what he says. And yet you feel
like you don't want to leave. You feel like the

(33:05):
path of least resistance is to just stay. I don't remember.
I don't remember. We want to take a guess at it.
If not, I don't have to hondel it wrong Herb
on the Waterfront, No, I'm sorry. The answer is Marty.
Marty's you lose five points to put you back down

(33:26):
to eleven. Better luck on the next round. How did
that moment play or end right up in the control
room deep inside his head, what's going on? The Stemple
experiment was a huge leap forward. The repeat winner idea
was money in the bank ratings wise, I mean, the
problem with Stemple is he just couldn't break through to

(33:48):
the next level, right wolf? Was he a bit of
a handful so neurotic needy. Also that part where I
promised aim money and then a few weeks later took
it away. That was an elegant In this moment, en
Right makes two decisions. Remember one, his hands stayed clean.
From now on, all the rigging gets done by somebody
whose name is not in right. Number. Two, you pay

(34:11):
the contestants up front. That way they can't complain when
they don't get as much money as is on the board.
The dollars are just points. And the new policy begins
with that beautiful, intellectual, sexy mind of Charles van Dorn.
He crushes Stemple and immediately becomes a super nova. Ratings

(34:34):
go through the roof. The network is thrilled. How thrilled?
After only eighteen weeks on the air, they counter program
twenty one directly opposite I Love Lucy, and they held
their own. Here's a quote from CBS, WHA sorry so

(34:57):
much of This is not because of dan Enright's genius
of feeding answers. It's because of that beautiful, sexy mind
of Van Doren. He checks all of the boxes. Smart,
good family, white, unmarried, white artist, white. Also he's white.
Did you hear he didn't even own a TV before

(35:18):
coming on twenty one? How adorable? But there is a downside.
Because Van Doren is a legit academic, he does have
a for real reputation that he wants to uphold. I
mean apologies to Stemple in the post office, but the
Van Doren family are tied to American institutions, the Pulitzer

(35:39):
Prize in Columbia University. Ever heard of them? Young Charles
is close to completing his PhD. If he were revealed
as at chieg why well, that simply cannot happen. As
the spotlight grows hotter, Van Doren begins to have second thoughts, and,
unlike Stemple, he makes direct please to be allowed to

(36:00):
leave the show, and Wright says nope, things are going
way too well. In Ruary of nineteen fifty seven, Van
Doren is given the cover of Time magazine. One month later,
he finally gets his wish. He loses doing air quotes

(36:20):
you can't see him because it's a podcast to a
young female lawyer, and walks away with one hundred and
twenty nine thousand dollars over a million bucks in today's money.
Bigger than that, He's given a contract by NBC that
will eventually see him make regular appearances on the Today Show,
New Champ. She gets ten thousand dollars upfront and the

(36:42):
hopes that she can keep the momentum going. Damn, if
you're in right, things are going great shows not just stable,
it's thriving. You just minted a bona fide cultural celebrity.
Now you've got to try again with a woman that

(37:04):
was progressive for the time I assume, I mean, hell,
maybe she could be another doctor Joyce brothers even better.
Looks like Van Doren came out ahead. Dude's getting marriage
proposals a dozen a week. Looks like he's about to
start a new TV career. This whole system is totally victimless.
I mean except for Stemple God. He keeps calling, I

(37:27):
mean right, keeps not answering, But Jesus, what does he want?
Everybody knows him. He got forty thousand dollars boring for
TV who said that. I mean, if he was good,
he'd still be on the show. Right. So here's the
problem for Enwright. No con is perfect. He got way

(37:47):
ahead by risking the reputations of a veteran, a professor,
and a lawyer so far, but the first to knowingly
take the deal is feeling deep regrets. Stemple calls again
and again, and then one day he shows straight up
at Enwright's office, tells Anwright he's broke. Even worse, he

(38:14):
lent eight thousand dollars to a dude that lives in
his building for a horse race fixing syndicate. And now
this scary thug wants his money. So, yeah, about that
TV opportunity you were talking about. Oh no, there's still
nothing for you. It's about now that Stemple begins to
drop the bomb. Enwright can make right on his promise,

(38:38):
or Stemple is going to go public, says he's going
to go to the Justice Department. Stemple promises to snitch
on everything. All right, Yeah he's stempy, baby, that can't happen.
Enwright explains to Stemple to calm down. First, you never
got the answers in advance. Second, head, look, it's all

(38:59):
gonna work out. Third, I think you need therapy. In fact,
I'll be happy to pay for it. Here we go
one Dan Enright pays for a therapy. Blank check. There
you go. Also, would you mind signing this piece of
paper that says you never took the answers? Stemple signs,
and that buys Enright a couple of weeks. But in

(39:21):
the meantime, Enright can't make good on his promises of
TV work, So eventually Stemple cracks calls a reporter about
the whole situation. The reporter calls Enright. Enright calls stempley wind,
can you want a new quick story? Happy? No, he's not.

(39:46):
He refuses, because now this isn't about fame, it's about pride.
Stemple is going to tell the truth and there's nothing
Enright can do about it. And it's a noble gesture.
But Stemple won't be a good messenger for long. Not
only did he sign a letter saying he never took
the answers, but Enright secretly recorded Stemple blackmailing him. So fine, Stampy,

(40:12):
go to the press, go to the feds. Me, I'm untouchable,
untouchable like a big wig in a Hollywood movie. And
funny enough, it's going to be a Hollywood screenwriter who
changes everything. This is Tim Holford, host of Kush Metals.

(40:39):
Now we return to Brian Brushwood and World's Greatest con
Unlike most of our players, James Snodgrass knows this is bullshit.

(41:01):
This is not how the biz should be operating. He
knows that he is part of a conspiracy, and he
aims to come out smelling clean. So he pulls a
trick something that's known to copywriters around the world that
if you want to prove that you wrote the words

(41:21):
before somebody else claims they did, send it to yourself
certified mail. And if you are ever challenged on when
you knew these things, you could present those sealed envelopes,
open them in front of an audience, and prove that
you are the true originator of the idea. For the

(41:46):
three weeks that Snodgrass has the spotlight of twenty one
shown on him, he wants insurance, so he mails himself
the answers that dan Enright had provided him in certified
mail and holds onto them, knowing that eventually they're going

(42:06):
to set them free. I don't know if Snodgrass is
just inherently cocky, or maybe having those envelopes tucked in
his back pocket helped herd his enthusiasm. But here's the difference.
When Stemple thought about going Rogue considered, ever so briefly,

(42:30):
the possibility that maybe he would just run wild Snodgrass diet.
In Snodgrass's case, he's told, yeah, he'll take a dive,
just like Stemple, and yeah, it's gonna be embarrassing, just
like Stemple. But he's told that he's gonna misremember a
line from one of his favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, think

(42:56):
about that moment, the exact same moment from two different perspectives.
To Stemple's eyes, he gets told, you're gonna take a dive,
and it's gonna be about this question, and this is
the wrong answer you're gonna give. Snodgrass has the letters
and no illusions about what this is, and Snodgrass interprets

(43:23):
things very differently, because he too is told when he's
going to take a dive and what answer he's going
to give. However, Snodgrass realizes that he now knows the
definite right answer that he must not give. In the
moments after his unexpected right answer, the producers run onto

(43:46):
the set and they ask if Snodgrass is hey, man,
are you feeling okay enough to compete? He says yep,
and they continue. But Snodgrass is in deep water. Now
he has no idea what the next questions are going
to be, and he has to answer them fair and square,
and this leads to a truly amazing moment. Here's host

(44:06):
Jack Barry setting everything up in the rematch one week later,
As you may recall, you each chose an eleven point
question which asked for the five groups of bones in
our spine. Now, Jim, your first answer was sacrum. All
I have here in front of me are these question cards,
and there are answers on there which are approved in
advance of the program. Well, sacrum was not on the

(44:27):
answer card, so I had to rule your roan. Then, Hank,
you proceeded to name the five groups, and you named
as one of them coxic. Well, my answer card did
call for coxic or coccidule, so I had to rule
you right, and you run an awful lot of money. Well,
immediately after the program, there were thousands of phone calls,

(44:48):
hundreds from doctors, and we found out that there was
an inconsistency in the answers. We went through a great
deal trying to find out how we should square this
out with both of you in an effort to be
fair in our decision. And here's what we decided to do.
We decided that you're both going to play the game
over again at thirty five hundred dollars, a point right
back where we were. But Hank NBC in our sponsors,
despite being furious Snodgrass in the moment and write he

(45:11):
eventually comes around. I mean there's a big draw, lots
of numbers. Snodgrass loses the rematch in the short term,
this whole going rogue stunt. Yes, that turned out to
be a win for the producer letters though, that's our
hidden snake in the grass, just waiting for the perfect

(45:31):
time to strike. Meanwhile, at this exact same moment, Stemple
finally makes good on his threat and takes his story
for the Southern District of New York's Justice Department. So far,

(45:54):
this has been a story of people offering fame and
people take in the devil's bargain. For the rest of
the story, you've got to understand the power of shame
from an evolutionary perspective shaming exile in a small band
of one hundred villagers, that equals death. You know that

(46:17):
image of the hands in the face being locked in
while everybody throws fruit out of them. The punishment is
not the fruit. The punishment is the fact that the
stocks are built to force the person inside to look
at all the disapproval from their fellow villagers. Nathaniel Hawthorne

(46:38):
wrote about it in The Scarlet Letter. There are stories
of people who committed crimes and their one request is,
please pull out my fingernails right now while nobody's looking,
before the mob gets stirred. We are built in our
core beings are weird lizard brains to associate shaming with death.

(47:02):
All right, do me a favor. Think of the moment
of your own personal biggest shame, a moment where you
did some thing so embarrassing that you can't let go
of it, When you did something that you knew that
was going to stick with you for the rest of
your life. The funny part is I didn't even have
to ask you to do that, because the moment I

(47:22):
mentioned personal shame, you already went to work. You were
already thinking of your personal lowest moment. Now, imagine that
the whole world knows about it. Everybody you know and love,
and everybody they know and love. Every single person on
the planet knows it. I'm not doing this to be cruel.

(47:45):
I'm about to reveal my deepest shame. Keep in mind,
I'm a guy who'll stick a nail in his I
just to get you a clap. I built a career
as a touring magician because I sought out every media
opportunity I could get my hands on. If you had
a TV show, local, national, or radio show, a morning

(48:05):
program and internet program, I wanted to be a part
of it. And as a result, I did a lot
of stuff, nine percent of which I'm very proud of.
Every appearance was just another clip, another scratch off lottery
ticket that might be the one that made me famous.
Normally I always do super polished material, but there was

(48:27):
one time I had a goofy one off lark an
idea that I thought would be perfect just as a
standalone bit on TV. It's a viral video actually, and
if you're like the rest of the world, you probably
thought it was totally real. About called stigmata? What it is?
It uses a knife four styrofoam cups and a turntable.

(48:48):
The knife goes in a turntable where it could spin around,
and then I cover up the knife. It's a grainy
video where a magician me is about to slam his
hand down onto a styrofoam cup with a knife and
if all goes well, and for a split second it
really looks like the knife just goes right through my

(49:09):
and the camera cuts. The next thing you see is
my hand all bandaged, ME with a sheepish grin saying
I said it as a joke to my friends over
at the Tonight Show, and to my delight, they had
me out to do it live on the show. And
if all goes well, and as there said, he was impressed.

(49:35):
It's a flash forward a few years and America's Got
Talent is looking for magicians because I have this very
very simple, one note joke that I think is hilarious. Hell,
if it's good enough for the Tonight Show, surely is
good enough for America's Got Talent. I send them the tape.
They dig it. Drive up to Dallas with running wife

(49:56):
and two kids. We'd get up there, spent an entire
day in production. But when that moment comes and I
walk out there. My seven year old daughter tears off
a piece of her blankie and says, for luck, daddy.
I tuck it into my pocket. I mean, how easy

(50:19):
is this going to be? The same trick that became
a viral sensation, The same trick I did on the
tonight show that Ed Asner called me, you fool with
a smile. I was gonna do a one more time.
It didn't go well. Two of the four judges instantly

(50:41):
thought I had actually injured myself live on stage. After buzzing,
after cackling, I came back and realized that not only
had the judges decided they didn't like being made the sucker,
they were turning the audience against me. And even in

(51:03):
that moment onstage, being booed by two thousand people, I
knew one thing. I wanted to bury this segment, and
then the three and a half hour drive home, and
then the sitting there for three months being convinced that

(51:24):
I had career cancer that was about to drop like
a nuclear bomb, that I was going to be the sucker.
If I had the chance to personally break into that
place and destroy the tapes, I would have done it,
and that's the beginning of what I would have done
for fear of the shame that was coming. And then

(51:47):
finally the faithful night arrived. America's Got Talent in Dallas.
Standing alone in my living room, I'm watching the show begin,
and in the first four seconds, I am the first
pop that they put in the coming up on this episode.

(52:08):
My heart is pulsing and racing. I feel that tight
band of ultimate anxiety, and I just think, this is it.
It's all over. And I watch through the first segment,
the second segment, the third segment, and finally we get
to the fourth segment. This is the one where they

(52:28):
round up all the joke acts, all the idiots who
do everything wrong, and I'm not in it. I spent
three and a half months agonizing about what I thought
was going to be the end of my career for
a moment that never showed up, and I dodged a

(52:55):
bullet of shame. But for the people we're talking about
in this story, they live with that shame for decades.
It timidly becomes the single line of their obituaries. It's

(53:26):
nineteen fifty seven and things are getting a bit hot
in the game show world. There's whisperers about talent grooming,
meddling from title sponsors, out and out frauds starting to
bubble up all through the press. Most of the stories
they never make it to print. The in house attorneys
that all of the press outlets they're super scared of
a libel suit from one of the networks, and that's

(53:46):
enough to kill the investigative reporting that initially goes into it.
But in nineteen fifty seven, two national magazines both run
articles compiling some of the allegations. Combine that with a
prosecutor from the Justice Department who's calling for a grand
jury investigation into industry wide practices and specifically twenty one NBC.

(54:09):
He calls in and write, hey, man, what's going on?
Enright says, oh, well, you know, he's never given any answers,
And to prove that Stemple's crank, he even plays for
him the blackmail tape that he's secretly recorded, shows them
the signed note. Yeah, it's good enough for the network
they ride with n Right, and that means there are
some pretty powerful forces defending twenty one. In his book

(54:34):
about the whole investigation, the prosecutor who impaneled the grand
jury describes the pressure he was under. That pressure shows
up in how many former members of the Justice Department
who are now in private practices represent the interests of
the network or n Right. Think about that. These are
people who used to be the deciders of truth and

(54:57):
fiction and now they're working for one side or the other.
He got overt hints that there might be a a
future in politics for him if he just let this
one go. But the more en Right and the network stonewalled,
the more this prosecutor pushes, and the whole time and

(55:18):
write is thinking, dude, what's the crime here? The sponsor
isn't complaining about theft or fraud, network is getting what
they paid for the contestants. The contestants well, I mean, yes,
technically they're misrepresenting themselves on national Television's sure, but they're
doing it because I'm telling them too. But you know what,
from that first moment I walked into Stemple's dumb apartment,

(55:39):
I was up front about what we were doing and
what they were getting themselves into. Uh. I mean, they're actors, right,
They're actors in a story I'm writing pretty much Shakespeare,
And he's right, they are actors to him. But They

(56:03):
are not actors by reputation. Their friends, their family, their
business associates, they don't know them as actors. The pride
that comes from the show is a lie. The act
is a deception. This show is a con But like

(56:25):
so many people who have been conned, the shame of
admitting it comes a prison, a very cozy prison that
people are willing to stay locked in forever. And at
this moment, the prosecutors begin to interview former contestants, members
of n Rights production staff, almost to a man, a lie.

(56:48):
They say. Nobody gave any answers to anybody. The prosecutors say, look, man,
you can lie to me now. But if you're called
back for a grand jury and you're put under oath,
that's perjury. That's a real crime. Grand jury is impaneled.
The same witnesses who are just interviewed are called and again,

(57:09):
almost to a man, they all lie again, all to
protect their own reputations. That is the power of shame. Meanwhile,
n Wright goes full offense. He releases the Stemple tape
publicly to combat press reports of what's coming out of

(57:30):
the grand jury. N Wright is actively punishing the defector
by ruining his reputation, and yes, this is a rough
road for Nright, But at this moment, I mean, the
most beloved champions are saying they're clean. The only guy
who says it's rigged is on tape blackmailing the boss
for another bite of TV fame. The network wants to

(57:53):
believe them. They're putting all the pressure that they can
to make this go away. Until the prosecutors get ahold
of the Snodgrass letters, The smoking gun word starts to
get around to all of the ex contestants. Guess what
the jig is up Enright's assistant, the one who took

(58:13):
over all the direct coaching after Stemple. He's indicted on
two counts of perjury. Several of the contestants come back
and tell the truth, hoping they'll get a reduced punishment,
But mostly they're worried about one thing. When the grand
jury minutes become public, are their names going to be
in it? Are they going to be shunned? Will they

(58:35):
be publicly shamed? Prosecutors say, your names are going to
be left out of this. All they want is the
people that pulled this off. And yet Enright never submits
to testimony, He never lies under oath. After nine months,
the grand jury concludes fifty nine sessions, two hundred plus witnesses.

(58:59):
Out of all of them, only fifty told the truth.
Now comes the best news for enright, against all precedent
in these matters, the judge overseeing the grand jury seals
the results. In his eyes, there's no crime committed. Therefore,
no need to drag the names of all these fine
people all through the press. That's it. That was Stemple's

(59:24):
best shot. You went through the press, you got nothing.
You went through the law, your results got buried in
the front yard. Come at me, bro I'm dan an right.
At this point, there's only one organization left that could
do a damn thing about it, the United States Congress.

(59:44):
And that's exactly what happens. In nineteen fifty nine. Television
star and famous intellectual Charles Van Dorn gets his doctorate,
and yet only months later he's on the run, avoiding
phone calls from his lawyer, he's avoiding phone calls from

(01:00:05):
his bosses, and he's avoiding the highest legislative body in
United States. This is the cost of shame. Congress opened
an investigation into the fixing of television shows and with
it in the unsealed minutes of the grand jury investigation.
Gone were the promises from the investigators that the names
of the contestants would be protected. One Stemple is called

(01:00:29):
before Congress. He relishes in telling the truth. He narrates
to the congressman, beat by beat, every move he made.
There's a projection of recording of one of his appearances.
He points out where Enright told him to dot his
brow for sweat, but never smear the makeup like a peak.

(01:00:49):
Las Vegas mentalist Snodgrass opens on live television one of
his famous sealed envelopes and reveals what's inside, and yet
still Van Doren remains elusive. He puts out a new statement,
sticking to his original statement. He never received any answers.

(01:01:09):
Congress has to issue a subpoena in order to get
him to appear, but they can't locate him. Grand jury
investigators would eventually say that Van Dorn was in part
so terrified of coming clean because he believed it would
kill literally kill his father. I mean it would certainly
kill his career, hell careers plural. Quite simply, he could

(01:01:32):
not bring himself to face the repercussions that this shame
was going to bring to his door, and yet eventually
he comes clean, first to the investigators that he lied to,
then to his attorney, then to his bosses, and finally

(01:01:53):
to all of America. He appears before Congress and tells
the world that he's a fraud. In the Senate hearing room,
the dramatic climax of the probe of fix and rig
quiz shows Charles van Dorn's why from father poet Mark
van Doren are in the audience as committee chairman, Senator

(01:02:13):
Arre and Harris opens the erie. Charles van Doren arrives
to apologize, an attempt to explain to the millions whose
friendship and respect he had won. He admits that he
received dramatic coaching and the questions and many of the answers,
but his statement is a rueful and moving realization that
for his wealth and fame, he made a bitterly high price.

(01:02:34):
He took the easy path, and he took the money,
and he took everything that came with it. He's immediately
fired from NBC, He's immediately fired from Columbia. He's indicted
for lying to a grand jury. Along with all the
other big winners, Van Doren never appeared as a regular
on TV again. He worked in West Coast Academics and

(01:02:57):
for the Encyclopedia Britannica Company, but never again as a
beloved public figure. The New York Times obituary for Charles
Van Doren, written in twenty nineteen, features this headline, Charles
Van Doren, a quiz show whiz who wasn't dies at
ninety three. That's it, that's his whole reputation. That's all

(01:03:22):
you get. You get to be the guy who was
a faker on TV. Compare that to this obituary headline.
Doctor Joyce Brothers, on air psychologist who made TV housecalls,
dies at eighty five. Brothers also appeared at those hearings.
She denied getting any answers, and her producers vouched for her.

(01:03:45):
She got out clean and lived the dream. Van Doren
lived with his shame for the rest of his life
for that one faithful decision, the one that would cap
his career potential forever never indicted for anything at all?

(01:04:09):
Is dan enright? Yeah, he's humiliated. Well, one of his
own theses is proven right by this whole thing. Just
after he's removed from day to day production on twenty one.
Now that Enright's not there with his cheating team and
money machine. In the four weeks they went without the
Dan Enright engine, twenty one hemorrhaged sixty thousand dollars in

(01:04:32):
prize money, way over the budget from jarital I mean
maybe you're thinking, Oh, at least baryon n Right Productions
has to write a big old check filter some of
that money back out right wrong. While Van Doren was
on his epic winning streak, NBC bought Baryon n Right
to make sure that twenty one couldn't switch networks over

(01:04:53):
to CBS. That was a two million dollar deal nineteen
fifties money. And then n Wright gets a golden parachute
to make himself scarce from NBC. When everything goes bad.

(01:05:17):
Flashed forward a few decades, Enright is in Canada, eating
weird bacon and drinking mulson ice. The only gig he
can Land is with screen Gems Canada. This is the
only American TV company that dared debase themselves in the
minor leagues of Canadian television During nights with the producers

(01:05:38):
this is at the bar after a shoot day and
write spins tales of the story of twenty one In
his version, he's the fall guy. Everybody knew what was
going on, The network knew, the sponsors, knew everyone. They
could never wrap his mind around why Stempel got so mad?
What was so wrong about making money and being famous?

(01:06:01):
And yet the answer was all around him. Why was
a talented producer like Enright in Toronto and not Los
Angeles or New York. Why was a man who used
to make shows that would be watched by tens of
millions of people and give away hundreds of thousands of
dollars making shows to be watched by a fraction of

(01:06:23):
those people reputation believe en Right or not. The result
of his shame is his exiled to Canada, far away
from the movers and shakers of real TV. Sorry Canada.
And yet eventually the game wearing alleges Kenyan lady like this,

(01:06:46):
Queen's shoulders wild, here's a host of oursel Sack Barry
and Right gets another hit right here in America. He
even brought Jack Barry back with him, and he eventually

(01:07:07):
re establishes Barry and Right right in Los Angeles. The
shame storm passed. I mean yeah, talked to some friends
at bars and maybe they wrote some of it down
after his passing, but Enright never put his own words
in a book. He did come close to doing it
in dramatic fashion too. In the early nineties, Enright gets

(01:07:29):
word that a script about his scandal is getting traction
in Hollywood. It's eventually going to become nineteen ninety four
is Quiz Show, and Enright is definitely the villain. Seeing
it coming, I have to imagine that Dan Anright, it's
all his own career cancer bomb coming, and just like me,
he has that same thought of how do I blunt

(01:07:51):
this edge? In my case, I did nothing. But Enright
puts out a press release saying that he's making his
own movie and it's going to be the real story.
The movie never gets made. Dan Enright dies in nineteen
ninety two before you ever had to sit through watching
was show. And Wright did his job. He got the readings,

(01:08:19):
but the path he took, the permanent damage he inflicted
on the lives of every contestant, the shaming he himself
engaged in to protect it. All of this might well
be the World's Greatest con. This episode of World's Greatest

(01:08:55):
Con was written by Justin Robert Young and me Brian Brushwood,
your humble host. Production and research by Dog and Pony
Show Audio in Austin, Texas. Credit to Primetime and Misdemeanors
by Joseph Stone and Tim Jone, as well as television fraud,
The History and Implication of the quiz Shows Scandals by

(01:09:16):
Ken Anderson, which along with contemporary news articles, retrospectives, and
archive video made for the bulk of our research. Additional
research by Rachel Oppenheimer. Of course, you guys have questions
and we want to answer all of them at the
end of the season, So get yours in by hitting
us up at World's Greatest con at gmail dot com.

(01:09:37):
So we just heard a story about a TV game show.
We found out that beneath that family friendly veneer there's
a very cutthroat world in which some very colorful will
say characters are attracted. I'm here to tell you that
the story of twenty one isn't an outlier. In fact,
we're going to spend this whole season hanging around six

(01:09:59):
different stories. We get to see the man screwing over
the little guy, the little guy sticking one to the man,
truly awful people competing honestly, the honest ones ruining their
lives for the sake of greed. We're gonna see federal
agents burst through a door and find a hardened criminal
shivering on top of a bathroom stall, a room of

(01:10:21):
professionals wondering if a clever hoodlum just bankrupted their whole company,
and we'll see a mysterious extraction so brazen that people
still in the industry are left convinced they've been made
fools of in front of the entire nation by a
single bitter ex employee. These are shows you've heard of,

(01:10:45):
stories about super password who wants to be a millionaire
the price is right. Game shows are an irresistible lure
for anybody whose ears perk up when the idea of
free money quick is brought up, suckers and con men both.
You probably know that the story you just heard is
dramatized in the nineteen ninety four movie Quis Shore. It

(01:11:09):
was a bit of a sensation back then, got nominated
for a Best Picture Oscar and during all of that
buzz that led to one morning show appearance where they
were looking for similar stories of similar game show dramas.
And while it isn't the famous quiz show scandal, that's
playing in theaters. It is a story worthy of the

(01:11:31):
big screen. And I determined that there was some sort
of pattern. Not easily. It took six months from you
to actually work at all the patterns. But I wanted
to shoot the moon, so to speaking, I decided definitely
I would go for a hundred thousand. That's Michael Larsen.
We just heard the story of a powerful producer fleecing

(01:11:53):
good people. Next week, we're going to hear about the
exact opposite, a devious mind whose thirst for those angles
that would give him quick cash knew no bounds. Through ingenuity, deception,
and good old fashioned practice, he's going to rack up
so much money on a TV game show that some
people in the control room worry that he's about to

(01:12:15):
bankrupt the network. That's next time on World's Greatest Gone
Fireman Club. Hopes you have enjoyed this Brower Dog and
Pony Show audio