o o o What in the World?^® | news + reviews o o o o o o

If you have to look at quizzes -- and I expect that you do -- I can't think of a more edifying one than "What In the World?" which originates in Philadelphia and which was not, thank God, thought up by Messrs. Goodson and Todman. For years the proponents of quiz shows have maintained that quiz shows are educational, a proposition strenuously resisted by the rest of us.

However, "What In the World?" can lay genuine claim to that scarifying word, "educational," which is conceivably why the show hasn't attracted a sponsor. It deals in matters of such towering erudition that, to be quite frank, I have retained not a glimmering of any of it. The show, to get down to cases, employs the services of three anthropologists who are generally, though not always, Drs. Froelich Rainey, Carleton Coon and Schuyler Cammen [sic], all of the University of Pennsylvania.

There is a swirl of smoke, a really stunning visual effect, and out of it emerges some odd object plucked from the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Many of the objects are two or three thousand years old. It may be a bit of carving, a strip of ancient satin, a gourd, an antique cooking utensil. Whatever it is, the three experts, who are apparently familiar with everything ever fashioned by man, pounce upon it with small professional cries, examine it and then tell us what it is. While they're about it, they tell us what tribe made it, in what country and -- this is the part that is so incomprehensible to us laymen -- what year, give or take a millennium.

There is something enormously impressive about a man who can tell you that an urn was fashioned in Tibet 5,000 years ago. Almost never do these omniscient anthropologists get things wrong. But when they do there is a great rejoicing in my living room simply because nobody, not even an anthropologist, should always be right. I was especially entranced when one of the experts declared heatedly that a bit of satin couldn't possibly have come from Spain. That's precisely where it did come from.

The experts are very petulant, very positive about their findings, even to the point of disagreeing with the cards which theoretically contain the right answers. The moderator, Dr. Alfred Kidder, an equally knowledgeable Pennsylvanian, usually doesn't dare take issue with his anthropologists, agreeing that they probably know more than the cards do.

After a spell with the professors -- while you may have difficulty retaining specific lore -- you will find your understanding of and respect for the human race has grown immeasurably. I can think of no higher aim for a program to have.

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Three panelists on What in the World? examine a ceremonial object found by Captain Cook.
l to r:
Carleton Coon, Jacques Lipchitz, Alfred Kidder II

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In 1996, Stephen L. Dyson (President, Archaeological Institute of America) recalled:

"The presentation was primitive by today's standards, yet in its display of scholars matching wits with each other and with the material past, it was perhaps more representative of what archaeologists actually do than many of the adventure-oriented products of today. The show stressed neither treasure hunting nor sensational discoveries, but rather knowledge and careful analysis."

Channel 10's unique archeological quiz-game, "What in the World?", now in its eleventh season, has been honored throughout the country for the excellence of its presentation, its unusual concept, and its colorful and learned panel-members. It is currently seen on WCAU-TV Saturdays, 2:00 - 2:30 p.m.

A Peabody Award-winner, the series was seen on the CBS Television Network and cited by special articles in "Life" magazine and "The New Yorker." It is now being aired on Boston's educational station, WGBH, and stations and universities throughout the country have requested films.

The program has a unique feature in that the audience is able to look over the shoulders of scientists as they are doing their work. Panel-members are archeologists, anthropologists and experts on painting and sculpture. Moderator of the series is Dr. Froelich Rainey, director of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, and a distinguished archeologist, widely known for his books on the Eskimo. Regular panelists include Dr. Carleton Coon, one of the world's foremost physical anthropologists and an authority on Middle East cultures; Dr. Alfred Kidder II, Associate Director of the University Museum and a well-known authority on the cultures of Peru and Ecuador; and guest panelists, who include famed sculptor Jacques Lipschitz [sic]; Dr. Perry Rathbone, Director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Dr. Matthew Stirling of Smithsonian Institute; noted Africanist Mrs. Webster Plass; and Dr. William Fagg of the British Museum.

During the program, panelists are presented with items from the Universtiy Museum storeroom -- or in some cases, directly from the field -- which have never before been displayed. On the basis of their experience, knowledge and deductive ability, they determine where the objects were made, by whom, how old they are, and what they were used for.

The viewing audience is informed by an offstage voice prior to the experts' identification, thus it is able to see, step by step, how panelists arrive at an answer. After identification, there is a general discussion of the object and what it represents, using films of primitive peoples, pictures and maps which are rear-projected for panel-members and the audience to see.

Among the unusual objects recently displayed on "What in the World?" have been bronzes from Hasanlu in Iran, destroyed by the Assyrians in 1000 B.C.; 17th Century Cuban instruments of torture; ceremonial objects found by Captain Cook on Tahiti; an iron sickle from ancient Egypt and a mysterious Banner Stone from primitive peoples inhabiting the Mississippi Valley 1,000 years before the arrival of the Indians; as well as a supposed Ife Ivory Masquette which the panel correctly identified as a clever forgery.

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Eight television and radio programs and two boradcasting stations were cited yesterday at the twelfth annual presentation of the George Foster Peabody Awards for 'outstanding and meritorius accomplishments' in 1951.

The award for 'What in the World?' presented by the University of Pennsylvania and the University Museum over CBS-TV, noted 'the stimulating manner in which it brings noted scholars in such fields as anthropology and art to the television screen.' The Peabody committee called it a 'superb blending of the academic and the entertaining.'

The television winners included 'Amahl and the Night Visitors,' Gian-Carlo Menotti's original opera; 'See It Now' and the 'Celanese Theatre.'

The awards, perpetuating the memory of the late Mr. Peabody, a native of Columbus, Ga., who became a New York banker and philanthropist, were made at a luncheon of the Radio Executives Club in the Hotel Roosevelt...

In accepting the award [for 'Amahl and the Night Visitors'], ... Mr. Menotti complimented the opera's TV sponsor, Hallmark greeting cards, for not interrupting the work with a 'middle' commercial.

'I'm convinced that television will never achieve a high artistic level until this barbaric custom of a middle commercial is abandoned,' he said. 'I've decided to boycott all products which interrupt good programs. The audience should fight for better programs, and write to sponsors to protest.'

The composer said later he had no complaints against commercials at the beginning and end of programs."

'See It Now,' co-produced by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly and narrated by Mr. Murrow, was cited for 'its simple, lucid, intelligent analysis of top news stories of the week...

Mr. Murrow in his acceptance remarks urged broadcasters to lend their efforts and financial support in developing television news presentations. He said it was not a valid operation for networks to put into news boradcasts only what sponsors were willing to pay for.

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The crude implements buried beside primitive man in the bone-cluttered cave he called home... a vase that might have graced a niche in a Renaissance palace... a stone scarab from the pyramids of Egypt, where all life was spent in homage to the cult of the dead. Such are the "properties" of an archaeological program called "What in the World?" on view Sunday afternoons at 5:30 over CBS-TV.

This astonishingly popular show is an academic parlor game in which only PhDs can play. There are no celebrity guests on the panel, no professional humorists, no axes to grind, save an occasional flint specimen from the Old Stone Age.

Regular panel members are Dr. Carleton Coon, professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Schuler Cammann of the same university. Moderator is Dr. Froelich Rainey, director of the university's museum. While Dr. Rainey was away on an excavating trip recently, his role was filled by Dr. Alfred Kidder, assistant director of the museum.

Each of these learned gentlemen seemed to me-- to twist a line from Gilbert and Sullivan-- a very model of a model panel-moderator.

A good bit of showmanship goes into "What in the World?" The objects of antiquity put before the panel aren't simply shown in closeup. They come into focus as if emerging from the mists of time. A few bars of what strikes my ear as ancient, trembling music, accompany the entrance of the artifacts. At this moment I'm unable to recall the music clearly but I'd express no surprise if told it was played on a lute or a shepherd's pipe.

Once the objects are set down and the foaming clouds evaporate, the panel gets down to the business that makes the show. They look at the object and from such infinitesimal details as the grain of a wood, the carving of a nostril, or the shape of a pottery fragment, these scholar-detectives can conjure up an age, a culture pattern, a climate, a habitat. They can almost fix the hour in the backward eternity of Time.

Compared to what we see on television most of the time, "What in the World?" is like a sudden, blinding view of Mt. Everest. The imagery and associates it evokes linger on long after the program ends. I confess to an almost total ignorance of archaeology. Six months ago, if confronted with a Neanderthal hide scraper and an urn from Priam's palace, I'd have guessed that they represented divergent cultures and let it go at that. Now, thanks to the Sunday afternoon musings of this panel, I want to know where each object was found, if it was preyed to or eaten out of, what kind of people made it and how far down does one find their dust.

"What in the World?" has won a Peabody Award and all sorts of educational citations. As an example of what TV can do in the educational field, it should be a steady inspiration to the anonymous toilers now blue-printing the Tv teaching stations of tomorrow.

But if the public enjoys "What in the World?" it should be gratifying news that these learned archaeologists think television is wonderful. Dr. Rainey was pleased as could be recently when he found out that the boy next door was selling his autograph to chums at a dime a throw.

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The other day WCAU's "What In The World" TV show did an interesting program. They put on a sort of international scientific detection contest, matching experts and guests form the University Museum against a team that appears regularly on BBC's "Animal, Vegetable and Mineral," a similar British production.

The specimens selected on this occasion to stump the experts came from the Manchester Museum in England. They had been submitted to a panel of learned Britons plus Dr. Froelich Rainey of the University of Pennsylvania, then on a trip abroad. The film of this joint effort alternated with the live TV from Philadelphia, showing American sleuths identifying the same objects.

No doubt you've seen the program, a most ingenious combination of suspense and deduction, with a partial education in archaeology thrown in.

The Manchester Museum offered as puzzlers the foot-bone of an elephant, one vertebra of a pre-historic icthyosaurus, a pop-gun from the Congo, an Eskimo finger mask and a wood-and-bamboo scabbard for an axe used by the head-hunters of Assam.

Not to keep you on tenterhooks, we should report here that British and American experts came off about even in the overseas contest. It was a no decision affair, anyhow.

Among the artifacts promised by the British moderator at the beginning of the show were some "real stinkahs," as requested by a BBC viewer via postcard. We expected "stinkahs" to be something with feathers or carved ivory rings, used in harvest rites by an obscure tribe on the upper Zambesi or possibly (though this would be most unusual) in the Marquesas.

We were wrong. A "stinkah" is a stinker, that is to say, an unusually complex or abstruse problem, bafflling even the keenest scientific minds. In this program, the vertebra of the ichthyosaurus, converted into a spindle by some ancient Pict, proved to the the stinkah.

Mr. Jacques Lipschitz, the well-known sculptor, threw up his hands at once on the local show. "This bores me," he said loudly, "it is of no interest."

Well it did look rather like a petrified doughnut, or as Mr. Lipschitz further remarked, like a bagel. But Dr. Kidder and a gentleman from the Smithsonian whose name we didn't catch pored over it lovingly, looking for clues. Shows the difference, we suppose, between the scientific and the artistic mind.

The British pundits found it equally fascinating, but with no better results as far as making a positive identification went.

On the other hand, when the BBC panel got to looking over the pop-gun from the Congo, not more than 30 years old, they appeared sorely puzzled by one of Dr. Rainey's surmises.

There was a thing you pulled back, and a spring that carried a plunger forward in a barrel when you released the tension, so the diagnosis "gun" was pretty clear. But what kind of gun? Actually, it shot darts, but there was no indication of that in the sample.

"Possibly a weapon to propel some sort of pellet," said Dr. Rainey, batting for America. "A pea-shooter, perhaps."

Ums and ahs from the British team, still dubious. "Or maybe it shot spitballs," Dr. Rainey conjectured.

Silence. Then: "WHAT are spitballs?"

"You know, the kind of thing one shot in school."

"We must have gone to different kinds of schools," said a British scientist.

Well, it was fun. We'd like to see more kinescopes of TV programs from overseas or Latin America. There must be a Cuban or Mexican Groucho Marx.

photos + text: Museum Archives

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