Our History

Wake up, America! It's time to stump the experts!

On May 17, 1938, the NBC Blue Network presented the "Information, Please!" radio quiz show for the first time. The show aired from 1938 to 1952 and was the most literate, long-running radio show of its day. The show turned traditional quiz programs on their heads by allowing the public to ask questions of a panel of experts, who would then provide the answers, or at least a reply that was entertaining if not plausible.

Listeners from across the country wrote in their questions on topics ranging from performing arts to natural history. Though the contributors were supposed to provide correct answers along with their questions, many did not, and the quiz show quickly evolved into a forum for curious people to find answers to difficult and often obscure questions.

Information, Please! was one of the most popular shows in the Golden Age of radio. The show elevated intelligence and wit as cultural values and allowed everyday Americans to show their smarts. In its heyday the show was a cultural icon — it attracted famous guests, was the subject of editorial cartoons, and led to several books and quiz book card games designed for listeners to play the show at home. A set of Information Please film shorts was shown in the early 1940s, and Information Please even had a brief run as a television show in the summer of 1952.

The most successful spinoff from the radio show was the "Information Please Almanac". The show's creator saw a need for a reference book with the answers and information presented on the show, and so he published the first volume in 1947. It became an annual publication, outliving the original program.

The Host & Panelists

Clifton Fadiman was the perfect host. Book review editor of The New Yorker, he was widely read and widely respected. He was warm and witty, able to draw out the best in his guests, and able to sustain the show’s tone of civilized intelligence.

Information, Please! had three regular panelists, who among them were able to answer a great many questions across the spectrum from sports to literature to politics and history.

Franklin P. Adams, known as FPA, wrote for the New York Post and was the most popular columnist of his time. Among his famous quotes is one well-suited to Information Please: "I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way."

John Kieran was a noted sports columnist for the New York Times, inducted into the Sportswriters Hall of Fame in the 1970s. His breadth of knowledge extended well beyond the field of play, however. He was also an avid birdwatcher, with encyclopedic knowledge about ornithology (and many other natural history subjects).

Oscar Levant was a Renaissance man of the arts — a composer, a gifted pianist, and an actor. He performed with leading American composers like George Gershwin and Aaron Copland. On the show he contributed a particular wit and humor; "What the world needs is more geniuses with humility — there are so few of us left."

The Guests

In addition to the regular panelists, Information, Please! had as "guest experts" many of the leading writers, comedians, actors, directors, athletes, historians, and politicians of the day. These included:

The Sponsors

The original sponsor of Information, Please! was Canada Dry. Over the years the show was also sponsored by Lucky Strike, Heinz, Mobil, and Parker Pens. The relationship with Canada Dry was a happy one. The ginger ale maker even funded an "Information, Please! Party Quiz Book" as a premium. However, the battles between the show’s creator and guardian, Dan Golenpaul, and sponsor Lucky Strike, were the stuff of broadcasting legend, as described in the PBS documentary "The American Experience: The Rise of TV Quiz Shows":

"Information Please was ...noteworthy not only for its success but for its integrity. At the time, radio programs made their way on air in two ways. They were underwritten by big-name sponsors, who were expected to be involved with the show, or they were funded by individual producers, making them self-sufficient. Dan Golenpaul, the producer for "Information, Please," earned kudos when he fired the Reynolds Tobacco Company, which had run a series of untruthful commercials and also demanded that panelists on the show smoke its cigarettes."