03 November 2017

The Professor Of Quizdom

I've made mention that my so-called Comic Archeology digs actually mine all old publications with an emphasis on any with illustrations. Beyond the Un-Comics that are found that way, there are also comics who got their start in non-comic publications. One in particular is a featured character on the Netflix Marvel shows. Patsy Walker got her start in Miss America magazine, which was eventually supplanted by a comic book with the same title 3 issues into volume 7. Oddly for comics of the time, the actually started renumbering from 1 instead of continuing from 4. My guess would be that they were changing postal categories so they couldn't take advantage of the usual regulations loophole.

Today, however, we're going to talk about someone else. He only appeared in Miss America for 12 issues 80 years ago, in 1936 and '37. He only received a single column in each month's magazine, but he was quite the celebrity in his day. He was-
Professor Quiz!

Who was Professor Quiz? Well, that was quite the mystery in the beginning. He was the man who created and popularized the radio quiz game show, and grandfather of their tv show descendants. And the public had no clue  to whom the voice on the radio belonged, beyond the name Professor Quiz.
It wasn't until he'd been on the air for a year that Radio Daily finally broke the news that he was actually Dr. Craig Earl. And the world believed that to be true for the next five years...

So why are we talking about the man who brought us the quiz show?

It must be our regular ceremonial whimp-out of Friday Night Fights with our own-


Professor Quiz had quite the clever gimmick working for him, too. Instead of having to create all the questions himself, he solicited them from the radio audience. Not only did this provide his quiz database, but also fostered a sense of participation at home. The terrific success of his show led to the above Radio Stars cover in 1938, and the following special tribute inside:


Here's an easier to read look at the text above:


The Professor will be our Master Of Puzzles today, as you might already have guessed. These quizzes were usually topical to the month of publication, so we've got both a November and December quizzes here, and another bit less topical to round it out to three:


Yep - he changed to a bigger network there. Remember that these questions were asked in the late 1930s, and adjust your answers according as needed. (Though obvious modern answers will be accepted as no prizes are issued. (No, that's not how GG spelled it.))
 
Return tomorrow for the answers, and to see how the Professor's story take a hard turn into Odd country.

Professor Quiz tribute from Radio Stars v.13 #11 (1938)

2 comments:

  1. Intriguing, though I've never heard of Professor Quiz before. See you back here tomorrow.

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  2. Honestly, i hadn't heard of Professor Quiz either before bumping into those quiz columns. But after learning what little i could about him, he seems like the potential subject of a highly enjoyable bio flic.

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