Truth or Consequences

Game play

On the show, contestants received roughly two seconds to answer a trivia question correctly (usually an off-the-wall question that no one would be able to answer correctly, or a bad joke) before "Beulah the Buzzer" sounded (in the rare occasion that the contestant answered the question correctly before Beulah was heard, the question inevitably had two or even three parts). If the contestant could not complete the "Truth" portion, there would be "Consequences," usually a zany and embarrassing stunt. From the start, most contestants preferred to answer the question wrong in order to perform the stunt. Said Edwards, "Most of the American people are darned good sports."

In many broadcasts, the stunts on Truth or Consequences included a popular, but emotional, heart-rending surprise for a contestant, that being the reunion with a long-lost relative or with an enlisted son or daughter returning from military duty overseas, particularly Vietnam. Sometimes, if that military person was based in California, his or her spouse or parents were flown in for that reunion.

During Barker's run as host, a side game, "Barker's Box", was played at the end of the show. Barker's Box was a box with four drawers, and if a contestant picked all three drawers with money in it, they won a bonus prize; however, if a contestant chose a pop-up "surprise" before choosing all three cash drawers, the game ended and the contestant left with the cash won at that point.

Barker traditionally ended each episode with the phrase, "Hoping all your consequences are happy ones." In one 1994 episode of The Price Is Right, he started to deliver that closing, but caught his mistake and covered it by saying "hoping all your...prices are right!", instead of his familiar "Have your pets spayed or neutered" line he was best known for using at the time.

Broadcast history

Ralph Edwards stated he got the idea for a new radio program after playing the parlor game Forfeits. The show premiered on NBC Radio in March 23, 1940, and was an instant hit with listeners.

Truth or Consequences was the first game show to air on broadcast television, airing as a one-time experiment on the first day of New York station WNBT's commercial program schedule on July 1, 1941. Truth or Consequences did not appear on TV again until 1950, when the medium had caught on commercially.

Edwards pioneered several technologies for recording live television programs. When Truth or Consequences established a permanent presence on TV in 1950, Edwards arranged to have it be recorded on 35mm film, using multiple cameras simultaneously—the first TV program recorded before a live audience to do so. A similar process was then adapted by Desilu for I Love Lucy the following year. On January 22, 1957, the show, which was produced in Hollywood, became the first program to be broadcast in all time zones from a prerecorded videotape; this technology, which had only been introduced the previous year, had previously been used only for time-delayed broadcasts to the West Coast.

In 1966, Truth or Consequences became the first successful daily game show in first-run syndication (as opposed to reruns) to not air on a network, having ended its NBC run one year earlier. This version continued through 1974.

Three years later, in the fall of 1977, a syndicated revival titled The New Truth or Consequences premiered; because Bob Barker was unavailable due to his work on the daytime and nighttime versions of The Price Is Right, he was replaced by Bob Hilton. However, this version did not click in the ratings and was cancelled after a single season.

A decade later, Truth or Consequences returned in syndication for the 1987-88 season, this time with actor Larry Anderson as host, assisted by Murray Langston (better known as "The Unknown Comic" of The Gong Show fame). This effort also failed to attract audiences and was gone after less than half of the season.