Quiz Kids

Quiz Kids was a popular radio and TV series of the 1940s and 1950s. Created by Chicago public relations and advertising man Louis G. Cowan, and originally sponsored by Alka-Seltzer, the series was first broadcast on NBC from Chicago, June 28, 1940, airing as a summer replacement show for Alec Templeton Time. It continued on radio for the next 13 years. On television, the show was seen on NBC and CBS from July 6, 1949 to July 5, 1953, with Joe Kelly as quizmaster, and again from January 12 to September 27, 1956, with Clifton Fadiman as host.

The premise of the original show involved Kelly asking questions sent in by listeners and researched by Eliza Hickok and Rachel Stevenson. Kelly often said that he was not an intellectual, and that he could not have answered any of the questions without knowing the answer from his flash card. Yet he was remarkably kind and affable, and put even novice young contestants at ease immediately. The answers were supplied by a panel of five children, chosen for their high IQs, strong academic interests, and appealing personalities, as well as such qualities as poise, quickness, and sense of humor. One of the first Quiz Kids was seven-year-old nature expert Gerard Darrow. For the initial premiere panel he was joined by Mary Ann Anderson, Joan Bishop, Van Dyke Tiers and Charles Schwartz.

Quiz Kids (magazine)

Quiz Kids (sometimes Puzzler Quiz Kids) is a children's puzzle magazine. Launched in 1987, it is the longest-running magazine of this genre. Based in the UK, each issue comprises crosswords, dot-to-dots, spot the differences, word searches, and various other challenges created for children aged 7–12. The puzzles are created specially for the magazine, in line with the guidelines of the UK's National Curriculum.As of 2015 Quiz Kids is published bi-monthly, but it has previously been published both quarterly and monthly. It is also published in New Zealand.

Characters

The plots in Quiz Kids centre around the adventures of five main characters: Bee (a girl), Simon (a boy), Mutt (a dog), Paws (a cat) and Streetwise (a mouse). Each issue, the Quizkids embark on a new adventure, and must use their puzzle-solving skills to achieve their goals.

Secondary characters who occasionally feature in the magazine to help the Quizkids include Tom Boffin (Bee and Simon's uncle), and Spider and Dewie (a junior reporter and junior photographer respectively, who work for the newspaper Scoop!).

Quiz Kids (Bay Area)

Bay Area Quiz Kids is an academic quiz public-access television show for San Francisco Bay Area high schools. From the start in 1999 it has been hosted by Brad Friedman, the Drama Director at San Mateo High School.

Originally developed as Peninsula Quiz Kids by Bob Marks and Liz La Porte of Peninsula TV Cable 26 (Pen-TV) in 1999, the show began airing on KRON-4 in San Francisco as Bay Area Quiz Kids. The show is now a production of TV Game Brains, headed by Executive Producer Marc Balcer.

Throughout its run, the show has been sponsored by the San Mateo Credit Union. Other sponsors have included Kaiser Permanente, SamTrans, the San Francisco Chronicle, AT&T, Oracle, Fisher Investments, and Wells Fargo Bank.

Format (until Season 11)

Quiz Kids is played by two teams of three players each. The player in the center position is the team captain and is responsible for giving the team's answer on all non-toss-up questions. In early years the format varied somewhat from year to year. A face-off round of five questions from a single field in which one player from each team would answer questions was at one point used, but later dropped. The number of schools involved each year fluctuated from the original 16 up to about 40, but as schools grew discontent with bad judging and bad questions.