When I went to work in 1985 at WRC-TV, Channel 4, the NBC
owned station in Washington, DC, it was carrying on 2 remarkable traditions of
public service. One was sponsored.
The one that the station paid for, 2 annual
Saturday-before-Christmas parties, one for the children of employees, which
included an expensive gift for every child, was in the morning. In the afternoon a very similar party
featured slightly less expensive but still very nice presents for more than 100
children from poor families. 2 years
into my reign as Santa Claus, (unforgettable!), a new general manager ended the
tradition, saying he had to cut his budget.
The other, even greater tradition, It’s Academic, the
longest-running quiz show in television history is still alive and on the air
after 52 years. For most of that time,
it had one regular sponsor, the Giant Supermarket chain, and for 50 years, one
superlative host and quizmaster, “Mac” McGarry.
Mac died this week, aged 87, as full of honors as he was
years and memories. On the basis of 4
years as a colleague I can say, he was a sweetheart who always had cheery greeting in the hall or in the
newsroom, usually followed by an intelligent comment about something in the
news.. His own claim to fame, every bit
as unlikely to be challenged, was that he was “the [Washington] area’s most inquisitive man.”
Unlike most Washington inquiries which have the tone (and
often the misplaced moral superiority) of an, if not The, inquisition, Mac’s
questions on It’s Academic were both gentler and more genuinely curious. McGarry spent every Saturday morning for 50
years, (except one, when he had a bad cold), as Lauren Wiseman put in his
obituary in the Washington Post, “pitching
local teenage contestants hundreds of thousands of fastball trivia questions
about topics as diverse as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Chubby Checker and the
chemical makeup of paint.”
The contestants
were panels of students representing the whole gamut of DC-area high
schools and their mission was two-fold, to answer more questions correctly than
the other teams and to demonstrate that smart was beautiful, and fun.
The show, created and brilliantly produced by Sophie Altman
and continued today by her daughter Susan, is smart enough to honor the
scholars, not just with prizes and congratulations, but with the enduring icons
of high school respect and stature: marching bands and cheerleaders in support.
The simple format, and the intellectual integrity of It’s
Academic was replicated in a dozen or more markets outside DC, although none of
the clones have had close to the lifespan of the original. Mac had a parallel run in Baltimore on an
It’s Academic that lasted 27 years.
Mac’s questions, devised with Sophie in the days before every show, were tough: Here are 2 examples cited by Wiseman: “What mythological figure has the whole world on his shoulders?” Answer: “Atlas.”
“If you had been a voter in the 1896 and 1900 presidential elections, your choice of candidates would have been limited to men with what same first name?” Answer: “William,” for McKinley and Bryan.
Although many, like Wiseman, would call the answers
“trivia,” a more accurate, less reductive label would be, “general
information.” And the winning teams won,
not because they achieved Mr. Memory feats of disconnected recollection, but
because they were generally well-informed.
It’s Academic honored, not just the knowledgeable but
knowledge itself; and in his back and forth of details demanded and accurately
supplied, its host found, as my favorite quotation has it, “delight.”
"Mac McGarry was probably the only game
show host in television history who would occasionally burst into song in the
middle of the show,” his last It’s Academic Executive Producer Susan Altman
told WRC-TV;s Jim Handly. And what you saw on TV was the real Mac
McGarry---funny, smart, knowledgeable, and a joy to work with. He set the
standard---not just professionally--but as a human being as well.”
I do not just refer to Mac McGarry’s
effervescent personality and agile mind, when I say sincerely the old cliché, “We
won’t see his like again.”
When Mac began
his broadcast career in the late 1940s, quiz shows were a staple of radio, and
when It’s Academic began in 1961, it’s genial style, personified by the man
asking the questions, it was an honorable contrast to the top-rated high
tension, big money, big scandal-scarred network quizzes, The $64,000 Question
and Twenty One.
Mac celebrated
along with his students the joy of correct answers, not the torture of trying
to remember them, nor the piles of cash at stake. It was a homey, hometown formula that
worked. But It’s Academic was a show of
scholarship, and even 28 years ago, McGarry told the Washington Post, it was a “reflection of the way our country was.”
It’s Academic is
part of a proud tradition, of pride in intellectual achievement, and although
many “preppies” also participated, pride in the achievements of public
education. Although the show lives on,
it is an anachronism, because in today’s Washington bullying intellectual
bankruptcy triumphs, and the public schools are among the worst in the country.
One fears It’s Academic may soon go the way of WRC-TV’s annual pair of
Christmas parties.
To close on a
more cheerful, and personal note:
Obituaries are wonderful for their “Who knew?” effect. From the Post obit I learned that Mac McGarry
got his job at WRC-TV in 1950 after his Fordham college classmate Vin Scully,
the greatest of all baseball announcers, told him to apply.
This reminds me
that Channel 4’s longtime anchor, and my treasured 4-year on-air partner on the
6 and 11 O’Clock News Jim Vance made his application to Channel 4 on the same
kind of say so from another of my former co-workers, Vance’s college buddy at
Cheney State. When Ed Bradley told you
to do something, you did it. For Jim and
for the station you’d have to say, things have worked out.
For Mac McGarry,
Sophie and Susan Altman, and anyone who worked at Channel 4 over the past 52
years; for thousands of high school students in the Washington area, and
thousands more in other cities and towns, and for tens of thousands of parents,
teachers and fellow students across the country; for anyone who values thought
and information, his advice to his classmate stands as one of Vinnie’s finest
calls.
Mac and DC and
America were made for each other. Once
upon a time, alas.
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