4.8 /10 1 Votes4.8
Country of origin United States Camera setup Multi-camera Picture format Black-and-white Final episode date 8 September 1956 Language English | 4.7/10 TV Original language(s) English Running time 24-26 minutes First episode date 30 May 1951 Genre Game show | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nominations Primetime Emmy Award for Best Audience Participation Series Similar Arthur Godfrey and His F, Game show, Pantomime Quiz, Pulitzer Prize Playhouse, Tales of the 77th Bengal L | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Down You Go was an American television game show originally broadcast on the DuMont Television Network. The Emmy Award-nominated series ran from 1951 to 1956 as a prime time series primarily hosted by Dr. Bergen Evans. The program aired in eleven different timeslots during its five-year run.
Contents
Down You Go is one of only six series — along with The Arthur Murray Party, Pantomime Quiz, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, The Ernie Kovacs Show, and The Original Amateur Hour — shown on all four major television networks of the Golden Age of Television (ABC, NBC, CBS, and DuMont).
Gameplay
Down You Go was similar to "Hangman", with a group of four celebrity panelists who were asked to guess a word or phrase submitted by a home viewer. The phrase "down you go" came about when a panelist would be eliminated from play for guessing an incorrect letter, which would be signified by the eliminated panelist pulling a handle to switch their name to "DOWN YOU GO".
Among the regular panelists were comedian Fran Allison, journalist Phyllis Cerf, editor Francis Coughlin, actress Patricia Cutts, actress Carmelita Pope, actor Boris Karloff, author Jean Kerr, and athlete Phil Rizzuto.
Broadcast history
On DuMont:
Down You Go has been described as "one of the wittiest, most intelligent panel shows on television". The popular series was nominated for a "Best Audience Participation, Quiz, or Panel Program" Emmy in 1953.
When the struggling DuMont network cancelled Down You Go along with most of its other series during the summer of 1955, rival network CBS briefly picked up the series for the summer. Host Bergen Evans and some of the panelists stayed for the new version, which aired from June 11 to September 3. After twelve days, Down You Go returned to network television, this time on ABC, where it aired until June 4, 1956.
NBC picked up the program on June 16 and made Down You Go more comedy-oriented, with new host Bill Cullen and a regular celebrity panel of Jayne Mansfield, Jimmy Nelson, Hildy Parks, and Arthur Treacher. The series ended on September 8, 1956.
British version
The BBC aired their own version from January 1, 1953, to 1954. Originally hosted by Marcus Dick, Roy Rich took over the position beginning in April 1953, coinciding with a "refreshing" of the programme. Notably, Evans-era regular Patricia Cutts was a regular on this version as well.
Episode status
One episode is known to exist from the 1955 CBS run (featuring a panel of Francis Coughlin, Patricia Cutts, Jerome Weidman, and Laraine Day), although nothing is said during the show to directly support this; only a brief promo for The Loretta Young Show, airing the following night "on another network", hints at the network of origin. This episode is held by the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, circulates among collectors, and is available for viewing at the Internet Archive (albeit mistakenly dated September 26, 1951).
No episodes are known to have survived of the British version.