Cautionary Tales Presents: World's Greatest Con
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Tim Harford here. This week, Cautionary Tales hands the microphone to Brian Brushwood, host of World's Greatest Con, a show about the most audacious con jobs, swindles and heists in history.

The events you'll hear about are a quintessential cautionary tale, a story of how a game show producer was tempted into upping the ante on his own program by feeding answers to the contestants. Those contestants become stars, rich, famous, admired. And then the scheme is discovered and all they're left with is shame.

I love World's Greatest Con, both this second season, which is all about frauds and cons perpetrated on or by TV quiz shows such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, The Price is Right, Press Your Luck and more, and the first season, which was about an astonishing attempt to con Adolf Hitler himself. It's packed with the storytelling, the human psychology and the salutary lessons you expect from cautionary tales.

If you're not already a subscriber, take a moment to subscribe now and you can thank me later. Brian Brushwood, the host of World's Greatest Con, also hosts TV shows on Discovery and National Geographic, is an international lecturer on scams and is an absolute pleasure to listen to. And I'll be back at the helm of Cautionary Tales this time next week with a new story of human error. But until then, over to Brian Brushwood and World's Greatest Con.

This is World's Greatest Con. I'm Brian Brushwood. All right. It's 1957 and 200 people are getting pulled into a grand jury. They're all told the same thing. Tell the truth, you'll be on your way. But if you lie, you are going to be indicted on federal perjury charges. And these people aren't just anyone.

We're talking about lawyers, professors, active military, respected individuals, people with a lot to lose if their reputations are tarnished. And fascinatingly, one by one, these individuals go to the grand jury and the overwhelming majority lie. They commit federal perjury.

I mean, maybe it's some money, right? Money's got to be involved somewhere. Would they lie for the money? Maybe it's a grand conspiracy. They're all in. If one person cracks, everything comes down. A cult? I mean, hell, that'd make more sense than the truth. Because the truth is the real reason is something elemental in every single one of us. Something hardwired into our brains. All of us have a relationship with this.

And it's a con man's job to exploit it. I'm going to tell you an epic story about fame and shame, about how our desire for one and the fear of the other can eradicate your morals, reduce you to a pawn on somebody else's chessboard. But before we get to the heavy stuff, let's understand this phenomenon in a safer sandbox, a realm without any victims.

Okay, this will be a weird segue, but have you ever been to a stage hypnotist show? Sometimes these shows are like at a Christmas event for a corporation. Sometimes you'll buy a ticket on the strip in Las Vegas. I always see them at these college freshman orientations. You know, those big events they do in the first one or two days when you come to campus, when they want you to bond together as a cohort and have shared experience.

It's the perfect activity to get people to reveal stuff about themselves. In fact, put yourself back there. You don't know anybody. You don't know how any of this is going to go. But you do know that you want to fit in. There's a thousand other people in this packed, charged auditorium. You're excited. They're excited. You want to know them. They want to know you.

How walks a guy in an authoritative suit who explains to you that only one type of person can be hypnotized. Smart person. Somebody smart enough to exactly follow directions on cue. And no, you won't lose free will.

But yes, you will experience something that you will remember for the rest of your life. And then comes the first part of how stage hypnosis works. He asks who here in this room would like to be hypnotized. This feels like a very small moment. It's not. It's the most important moment. The reason it's the most important moment is because you are self-selecting.

for compliance. You are entering a contract. You are saying, I am ready to play. You and 45 other freshmen go running up to the stage. Y'all get in the line. And what happens first is a very small ask. The stage hypnotist says, I want you to imagine you're getting very, very hot. Oh, what must that be like to be very, very hot?

And of course you are hot, you're under a bunch of heat lamps, you're on stage, you're next to all these other sweaty bodies, you just ran 100 meters to get up here. After a few minutes of this, the language changes just a little bit. Now he just says, now you're getting cooler.

But you know what he's talking about, right? It was hot. Now I'm getting cooler. Of course, of course. Also, by the way, you are actually getting cooler. You worked up a sweat while you were up there on stage. Now all that sweat is starting to evaporate. You're getting cooler. So you begin to shake and shiver, cover yourself. And all the while, he's quietly eliminating people. He doesn't say elimination. What he says is, if I tap you on the shoulder, it just didn't work out.

It was not really a punishment, but you know what you want. You know you want to stay up there on stage. You want to keep going. We hear directives and sleep. And we know while we're up there on stage, what he means is act as though you just went into a slumber. Collect your thoughts. And you begin to watch as stranger and stranger things happen around you. Always happening to other people.

Something amazing is about to happen. The person I'm touching right now, only the person I'm touching right now, in a moment, I'm going to ask you a question. And when I do, you will be unable to remember the number seven. And when he asks you to add together four and four, you say eight. It's like, great. So you must have eight fingers pointed up. Go ahead, count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

What else are you going to do? And meanwhile, the audience is loving it. The laughter, the applause. I mean, you think of yourself as an introvert. You've never experienced anything like this. But right now, the attention is on you and you are in full on flow state. It melts all of these decisions about whether you're playing along or just following instructions. They all get blended together. Choices become instinctual.

At the age of 18, a freshman at college, you've probably never experienced anything like this before. All you know is that it feels awesome. And when this dude tells you something to do, you do it, everybody claps, and you feel great. And then, 40 minutes into the performance, he says to you out loud, you are Britney Spears.

And you have a choice because the hypnotist didn't lie. You do have free will. You can do anything you want at any moment. But you also know that of any two options, you want the one that's less painful. And in that moment, it would be more painful to stop the show.

To say, this has been a wild ride, but I'm afraid I'm outside of my comfort zone. I'm just going to head on down back to my seat. What's less painful is that you are Britney Spears.

Every sexy bump and grind, touching your body in ways that you wouldn't even do alone in the bathroom. Everybody cheering, screaming. It's an ecstasy of improvisation that you've never experienced in your entire lives. Good God, the whole world stopped and shone a spotlight on you. It's calorie-free fame.

There's no way you can lose. You'll be rewarded if your dancing is good. You'll be blameless if it's bad. The reliability of these reactions to fame and shame, that's what allows stage hypnotists to make a living doing this. Yes, hypnosis is a real phenomenon, but stage hypnosis is a different animal. And everybody on that stage were acting the way that they did for fame.

The folks that stayed up there the longest did so out of fear that they would be eliminated and the shame that would come from that. Last season, we explained how common con man tactics were used to defeat Hitler of all people by the 20 committee. So this season, we'll do one better. The biggest scandal in television history, the downfall of the TV quiz show, 21.

21 is so popular that a winning contestant is an instant celebrity. Overnight, they're a household name. And along with that comes money, money that you can use for yourself and your loved ones. But as it broadcasts, what tens of millions of viewers at home don't know is that most of the winners are in the process of making a deal with the devil. Each of them are crossing an ethical line that will eventually eradicate their reputation.

Long after the fame and the money are gone, all in the service of producers who are playing a much more high stakes game. If you were told you were about to make more money in one night than you'd make in an entire year, that everyone in your block would hail you as a hero, that you could have a future in television, all you had to do was step in line and play along? All you had to do was cheat? What would you do? Don't say it out loud just yet.

First, put yourself in a soundproof booth on live national television with 50 million people watching and answer this. How many points would you like to play for? Cons don't fool us because we're stupid. They fool us because we're human. And this might be the world's greatest con.

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You're listening to World's Greatest Con on Cautionary Tales. Before we get to 21, we've got to talk about the show that it's desperately trying to take down. Yes, the $64,000 question. And now, the star of our show where knowledge is king and the reward king-sized, Hal Martin!

All right, let's start here. Television is a kill or be killed business. Everybody's got an idea and most people could pull it off if they're surrounded with the right talent. But even at its earliest moments, television is about getting those eyeballs, a connection to the viewer. There's no denying that in 1956, the viewer is connecting with the $64,000 question. It is the first major hit game show on TV.

And yes, the game show format has been around since radio, but now you could actually see the contestants. You could see what they looked like, how they fidgeted under the pressure or rocked it confidently straight through the answers. Also, remember where we are. This is the 1950s. Boys have come home from World War II. More of them came home from Korea. Prosperity is the name of the game. Everybody's home and they want to make an empire for themselves.

Cement is being poured on the suburbs that would go on to define American culture for the next 70 years and counting. And the game show embodies all of that. Average people who want to make good, testing their own knowledge, winning big money, big prizes. Remember grandma's couch? One that had the plastic cover all over it? There was a day that couch was brand new. Let's go back to that day and let's sit on that couch again.

And let's turn on the TV and watch the $64,000 question. Back for the third week on her climb to the $64,000 question is our psychologist from New York City, whose category is boxing, Dr. Joyce Brothers. Finally, what man, later famous in the boxing world, refereed the comeback attempt of an ex-champ against Jack Johnson at Reno, Nevada? Tex Rickert. You're right! Okay.

Man, how 50s is this? First off, yes, that is the Dr. Joyce brothers that you know and love. This is how she got famous. But one of the first big winners on $64,000 question is Catherine Kreitzer, in which she answers a series of questions about Bible verses. Here's what's important about Catherine.

See, $64,000 question was kind of like who wants to be a millionaire. You have to answer a series of questions leading up to the big prize. And every win you get, you have a chance to walk away. Catherine hits that moment. She has a chance to be the first $64,000 winner by answering one question, but she doesn't. Given the opportunity to walk with $34,000 or risk everything, she takes the money.

This is a really crucial part of the story and really of every con. Always value the money you have. It's your money. That's why you've got to be careful to not covet the money you don't yet have. $64,000 question is on CBS. A few clicks down the dial, NBC is getting covetous of those ratings. They try to buy the $64,000 question. They fail. They look to make their own.

Enter Dan Enright. Dan Enright was born in 1917, grew up in British Palestine and New York City,

Enright was a revolutionary mind. And we're not just talking game shows. It's all kinds of audience participation shows. Shows where somebody from the audience tells an interesting story and boom, they're reunited with their long lost sister. Other ones where somebody is down on their luck and they get a new car.

It's part produced, it's part improv. In 1947, Enright meets the man that would become his creative partner for the rest of his life, stand-up comic Jack Barry. Together, they pitch and produce TV game shows, often ones that use Barry as the emcee. In 1956, they come up with 21.

The one questions are super easy. The 11 questions are often multiple parts and really, really hard. It's essentially like blackjack. Whoever hits 21 first wins. NBC likes it enough to shoot a practice round. Perfect. They're in the game. Oh, yeah. 21. It has one major advantage over the $64,000 question.

See, 64 is massive. And the contestants that make it far, they become huge stars. Old Bible quoting Catherine became a downright celebrity. But if you did the best you could on 64, it only lasted four weeks. All that hype for a month of ratings? Ew, not 21. 21 is set up so a winner could go on forever. Just keep winning and winning. Could you imagine the publicity? Imagine the attention? Imagine.

This is brilliant. Enright sets up the first test game and it sucks. It is super boring. And here's why. According to Enright, either contestant could answer enough of the questions to make 21. One of the advantages of 64,000 is that the contestants got to pick one topic that they're an expert in to answer increasingly difficult questions. 21 changes the topic every question.

You have to find real savants, people who are super well-rounded about everything. What Enright may or may not know is that 64,000 also tries to make sure their contestants succeed. For example, to the home audience, the category is just opera. But the producers know that this guy is really an expert only in Italian opera. So all of his questions are only about Italian opera. No Russian opera, no French opera.

So how are you going to get random people to push past a single round, let alone so many rounds they become huge stars? I mean, could, gee, let's pause here to consider the ethics of what's about to happen. Yes, 21 is a TV show. Most TV shows are faked. Yes, $64,000 question is shaped to help contestants, but they don't get the questions beforehand. What Enright is considering is

is to give the questions, categories, and the answers to a contestant beforehand. I mean, what's the harm? Contestants get money. He gets ratings. Enright finds out real quick with his first big winner. He feels a little bit awkward coming out and asking a man to cheat. So Enright does something clever. He gives a pre-show quiz to the guy just to loosen his nerves a bit.

It's only after he's in the booth on live television that the contestant realizes the practice questions that he already got are in reality the same questions being asked for keeps live on TV. But what do you do? It's money, right? Wrong. This contestant felt betrayed and made a fool of.

He's worried about his reputation being branded as a cheater. He goes to Enright and demands to give the money back. Finally, Enright convinces him to keep it. Just gracefully bow out. What do we say? You can't con an honest John. In another world, this would have been a wake-up call. In an alternate reality, Enright would realize from the reaction of the first winner that a man's reputation means a lot. More than thousands of dollars.

Maybe the contestants shouldn't be treated just like props. Maybe we can make the questions easier or find another way. Now we're rolling. Despite the contestants moral panic. Look, the plan worked. The only mistake is that he surprised the guy after the fact. He's got to be upfront. Enright needs somebody willing to take the money for nothing. Enright has to find a mark.

Meet Herb Stemple. Herb's a studious guy who grew up in Depression-era New York. His father died at a young age. His mother moved the family to a poor area of the Bronx. Herb's a studious guy who grew up in Depression-era New York.

And like most able-bodied young men, he enlisted, shipped off to Europe in the army. After getting back home from the war, he filtered through office posts in the army. Eventually ended up taking a job as a postal clerk in the Big Apple. That's where he got married, settled down, had baby. And legitimately, Herb has an insane memory. As a kid, he did this radio quiz show. He remained undefeated for weeks. Picture Herb watching 21.

saying to himself, these questions are easy. He writes to the producer, Dan Enright, takes a sample quiz where, according to Stemple, he gets 251 of the 363 questions exactly right. When Enright sees Stemple, he sees a story, a new father working his way through community college, a GI. This is America. Enright invites Stemple to come to his office for a meeting.

Stemple can't do it because he has to babysit his kid. So Enright comes to him. There could be no surprises anymore. So Enright comes right out and says, would you like to make $25,000? Stemple is taken aback, but he knows the score. In my mind, he's thinking like, oof, 25 is a lot of money. Looks over at his kid playing with his toy trucks on the floor. You mean 25 and I don't even have to steal anything?

Like if the owner of the bank was trying to give me money just to prove that rich people do business there. I mean, everybody wins, right? That's where Enright has him. We're going to find out there's a lot more than money involved in a deal like this. And Stemple specifically is going to fight tooth and nail for it from the Bronx to the halls of Congress. But for now, it's a done deal. 25K, I'll do what you say. That's my motto.

This time, Enright has a partner. So he stage manages Stemple way more than the first guy. He gives him every point value he's going to ask for, every question he's going to get, every answer he's going to say, right or wrong. He picks out a suit for Stemple to make him look frumpy and to wear the loudest watch he owns to heighten the tension. What do we say? All the effort into that first impression. The tableau.

In the first four minutes of the program, Stemple wins $9,000, more money in a lump sum than he has ever seen in his entire life. Stemple's taking a big old fat bite of that forbidden fruit. He's all in on the belief that this is easy money and he is willing to bend the rules and conceal the truth from his friends, his family, the rest of the world. That $9,000, that's just the beginning.

Stemple would eventually rack up nearly $70,000 in winnings, 1950s dollars, and he's got the chance to turn it into $100,000. I mean, sort of. See, Enright loves having a return winner, and the press loves having a return winner. So Stemple becomes a minor New York celebrity.

But there's one part of a returning champion that Enright needs to, let's say, make some adjustments for. The money. See, the sponsor of 21, Pharmaceuticals Inc., and their product, Geritol, they furnish the show with a limited prize budget. If the total prize money for those 26 weeks is less than the money allotted, then it gets refunded to the sponsor. But if it's over that number, well...

That comes out of Barry and Enright Productions. That means the show has to live within its means. And since Stemple was on his way to getting a big old fat paycheck, that payout simply wasn't feasible. And here is where the deal with the devil comes due first. Enright places in front of Stemple an agreement. It's retroactive to the very first appearance that Stemple made on 21, that night that he won $9,000.

In plain language, it says Stemple will agree to take less than his actual winnings on the show at the end of his journey. If he signs, he agrees to take $40,000 if he lands on anything between $60,000 and $80,000. $50,000 on any earnings between $80,000 and $100,000. And $60,000 on anything over $100,000.

Enright makes it very clear that he can either sign now or lose very badly and walk with less than the lowest amount offered. Flashback to that moment just a few weeks ago. Stemple's apartment, his son running around. Stemple let money trample his morals. Now even the money is being taken away.

Stemple's obviously a bit blindsided. Enright tells him not to worry. Hey, Stemple, you're not just a postal clerk anymore. You're a TV star. And Enright just happens to be a TV producer. After Stemple's done on 21, he'll be a perfect fit for some other game show. Maybe even a panel show. Where he could simply just make money with his wit and intellect. Who's your boy? Who's Enright's good partner? Just sign the contract, Stemple.

You smart. You say, oh, you're so smart, Stemple. You're the best. You'll be a TV star. Stemple signs. And from this point forward, absolutely nothing goes right for him. We're back in Enright's office. Stemple's there again, but this time it's a few weeks later. Stemple is the champion and his next show, he has his chance to cross the line of $100,000. But that's not going to happen.

Because Enright has to break some bad news to the kid. You gotta lose next week. This is where the ride ends. Hey, hold on. Be cool. Who's your boy? Stimpy? Stimpy is not cool. He wants to know exactly who's going to replace him.

Enright explains, ah, it's this elegant guy by the name of Charles Van Doren. He's an actor, a writer, and he's this professor at Columbia. I mean, he's from a famous intellectual family. You know what? Enough about Charles Van Doren. The important thing, Stempy, is that you're going to take a dive.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Stemp says. If Van Doren's from Columbia, Stemple is like from City College. What if they have a straight up game? I mean, don't just make me take a dive. We can play it fair, right? You can build it up like that. Rich kid versus poor kid. Now that's good TV. Stemple is so desperate, he makes an offer. Stemple is willing to bet his entire earnings on a straight up, honest, legit game. Now think about this.

The whole reason he took the deal, the whole reason he was the perfect partner to Enright is because he was in it for the money. Boom. That's out. For what? One word, fame. Enright says, no. Plan is the plan. The ratings have plateaued and Stemple, it's time for new blood. Oh, and by the way, specifically, you're going to lose on the question, which movie won best picture last year?

You and I both know that the real answer is Marty, but you're going to say on the waterfront. This crushes Stemple. It's this one detail. It's this one honest fact that is going to live in his brain for decades. It'll eventually become a beast that consumes him. Not only does he have to take the dive, he has to humiliate himself in the process.

But hey, who's walking away with $40,000 of negotiated winnings? Who's going to maybe be on another one of our shows? Oh, did I mention who I called today? I was on the phone with Steve Allen. I'm just saying. This calms down Stemple. I mean, if nothing else, in this moment, he knows for a fact, at the very least,

He is a legitimate TV star. The category is movies and movie stars. How many points do you want to try for from one to 11? I'll try five, which would give you 21 points if you get this right and you will be the winner again. What motion picture won the Academy Award for 1955? Later on, when Stimple talked about this moment,

He would say he seriously thought full on going rogue. Live on TV in that isolation booth. He could literally say whatever he wanted. The whole world was watching. When he was asked which movie won best picture, he really could just say Marty and win. He could retire with his winnings and walk off the set. By the way, that's another thing we should point out now that we're at the end of Stemple's run. Enright effectively controlled him in two ways when it came to the money.

The first was the contract where Enright convinced Stemple to take less money, pennies on the dollar. But the second was convincing him to keep playing. Much like sweet Bible quote and Catherine on $64,000 question, you could just take the money and go. The risk on the other side looks different when the producer is promising you the answers. I mean, until he decides to stop giving them to you.

You always have the option to leave no matter what he says, and yet you feel like you don't want to leave. You feel like the path of least resistance is to just stay. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. You want to take a guess at it? If not, I'll have to call it wrong, Herb. On the waterfront? No, I'm sorry. The answer is Marty. Marty. You lose five points, it puts you back down to 11. Better luck on the next round.

How did that moment play for Enright up in the control room? Deep inside his head, what's going on? The Stemple experiment was a huge leap forward. The repeat winner idea was money in the bank. Ratings wise, I mean, the problem with Stemple is he just couldn't break through to the next level, right? Oof, was he a bit of a handful. So neurotic, needy. Also, that part where I promised him money and then a few weeks later took it away. That wasn't elegant.

In this moment, Enright makes two decisions. Number one, his hands stay clean. From now on, all the rigging gets done by somebody whose name is not Enright. Number two, you pay the contestants up front. That way they can't complain when they don't get as much money as is on the board. The dollars are just points. And the new policy begins with that beautiful, intellectual, sexy mind of Charles Van Doren.

He crushes Stemple and immediately becomes a supernova. Ratings go through the roof. The network is thrilled. How thrilled? After only 18 weeks on the air, they counter-program 21 directly opposite I Love Lucy. And they held their own. Here's a quote from CBS. Sorry.

So much of this is not because of Dan Enright's genius of feeding answers. It's because of that beautiful, sexy mind of Van Doren. He checks all of the boxes. Smart, good family, white, unmarried, white, artist, white. Also, he's white. Did you hear he didn't even own a TV before coming on 21? How adorable. But there is a downside.

Because Van Doren is a legit academic, he does have a for real reputation that he wants to uphold. I mean, apologies to Stemple and the post office, but the Van Doren family are tied to American institutions. The Pulitzer Prize and Columbia University. Ever heard of them? Young Charles is close to completing his Ph.D. If he were revealed as a cheat, why? Well, that simply cannot happen.

As the spotlight grows hotter, Van Doren begins to have second thoughts. And unlike Stemple, he makes direct pleas to be allowed to leave the show. Enright says, nope, things are going way too well. In February of 1957, Van Doren is given the cover of Time magazine. One month later, he finally gets his wish.

He loses doing air quotes. You can't see him because it's a podcast to a young female lawyer and walks away with one hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars, over a million bucks in today's money. Bigger than that, he's given a contract by NBC that will eventually see him make regular appearances on the Today Show. New champ. She gets ten thousand dollars up front in the hopes that she can keep the momentum going.

Ooh, damn. If you're Enright, things are going great. Show's not just stable, it's thriving. You just minted a bonafide cultural celebrity. Now you're going to try again with a woman.

That was progressive for the time, I assume. I mean, hell, maybe she could be another Dr. Joyce Brothers. Even better, looks like Van Doren came out ahead. Dude's getting marriage proposals a dozen a week. Looks like he's about to start a new TV career. This whole system is totally victimless. I mean, except for Stemple. God, he keeps calling.

I mean, Enright keeps not answering, but Jesus, what does he want? Everybody knows him. He got $40,000. Boring for TV. What? Who said that? I mean, if he was good, he'd still be on the show, right? So here's the problem for Enright. No con is perfect. He got way ahead by risking the reputations of a veteran, a professor, and a lawyer so far. But the first to knowingly take the deal is feeling deep regrets.

Stemple calls again and again. And then one day he shows straight up at Enright's office. Tells Enright he's broke. Even worse, he lent $8,000 to a dude that lives in his building for a horse race fixing syndicate. And now this scary thug wants his money. So yeah, about that TV opportunity you were talking about. Oh no, there's still nothing for you. It's about now that Stemple begins to drop the bomb.

Enright can make right on his promise or Stemple is going to go public. Says he's going to go to the Justice Department. Stemple promises to snitch on everything. All right. Yeah, Stempy baby, that can't happen. Enright explains to Stemple to calm down. First, you never got the answers in advance. Second, look, it's all going to work out. Third, I think you need therapy.

In fact, I'll be happy to pay for it. Here we go. One Dan Enright pays for therapy. Blank check. There you go. Also, would you mind signing this piece of paper that says you never took the answers? Stemple signs. And that buys Enright a couple weeks. But in the meantime, Enright can't make good on his promises of TV work. So eventually, Stemple cracks, calls a reporter about the whole situation. The reporter calls Enright. Enright calls Stemple. No.

He's not. He refuses. Because now this isn't about fame. It's about pride. Stemple is going to tell the truth and there's nothing Enright can do about it. And it's a noble gesture. But Stemple won't be a good messenger for long. Not only did he sign a letter saying he never took the answers, but Enright secretly recorded Stemple blackmailing him. So fine, Stemple. Go to the press. Go to the feds.

Me, I'm untouchable. Untouchable like a big wig in a Hollywood movie. And funny enough, it's going to be a Hollywood screenwriter who changes everything.

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This is Tim Harford, host of Cautionary Tales. Now we return to Brian Brushwood and World's Greatest Con. Unlike most of our players, James Snodgrass knows this is bullshit. This is not how the biz should be operating. He knows that he is part of a conspiracy and he aims to come out smelling clean. He pulls a trick.

Something that's known to copywriters around the world. That if you want to prove that you wrote the words before somebody else claims they did, send it to yourself. Certified mail. And if you are ever challenged on when you knew these things, you can present those sealed envelopes, open them in front of an audience and prove that you were the true originator of the idea.

For the three weeks that Snodgrass has the spotlight of 21 shown on him, he wants insurance. So he mails himself the answers that Dan Enright had provided him in certified mail and holds onto them, knowing that eventually they're going to set him free.

I don't know if Snodgrass is just inherently cocky, or maybe having those envelopes tucked in his back pocket helped gird his enthusiasm. But here's the difference. When Stemple thought about going rogue, considered ever so briefly the possibility that maybe he would just run wild, Snodgrass did it.

In Snodgrass's case, he's told, yeah, he'll take a dive, just like Stemple. And yeah, it's going to be embarrassing, just like Stemple. But he's told that he's going to misremember a line from one of his favorite poets, Emily Dickinson. Think about that moment. The exact same moment from two different perspectives. To Stemple's eyes...

He gets told, you're going to take a dive and it's going to be about this question. And this is the wrong answer you're going to give. Snodgrass has the letters and no illusions about what this is. And Snodgrass interprets things very differently because he too is told when he's going to take a dive and what answer he's going to give. However, Snodgrass realizes that

that he now knows the definite right answer that he must not give. In the moments after his unexpected right answer, the producers run onto the set and they ask if Snodgrass says, hey man, are you feeling okay enough to compete? He says, yep. And they continue.

But Snodgrass is in deep water now. He has no idea what the next questions are going to be, and he has to answer them fair and square. And this leads to a truly amazing moment.

Here's host Jack Barry setting everything up in the rematch one week later. As you may recall, you each chose an 11-point question which asked for the five groups of bones in our spine. Now, Jim, your first answer was sacrum. Now, all I have here in front of me are these question cards, and there are answers on there which are approved in advance of the program. Well, sacrum was not on the answer card, so I had to rule you wrong.

Then, Hank, you proceeded to name the five groups and you named as one of them "Coxic." Well, my answer card did call for "Coxic" or "Coxigual," so I had to rule you right, and you won an awful lot of money. Well, immediately after the program, there were thousands of phone calls, hundreds from doctors, and we found out that there was an inconsistency in the answers.

We went through a great deal trying to find out how we should square this out with both of you in an effort to be fair in our decision, and here's what we decided to do. We decided that you're both going to play the game over again at $3,500 a point, right back where we were. But Hank, NBC and our sponsors... Despite being furious at Snodgrass in the moment, Enright eventually comes around. I mean, this is a big draw. Lots of numbers. Snodgrass loses the rematch.

In the short term, this whole going rogue stunt, yes, that turned out to be a win for the producer. The letters, though, that's our hidden snake in the grass, just waiting for the perfect time to strike. Meanwhile, at this exact same moment, Stemple finally makes good on his threat and takes his story to the Southern District of New York's Justice Department. So far, this has been a story worth

of people offering fame and people taking the devil's bargain. For the rest of the story, you've got to understand the power of shame. From an evolutionary perspective, shaming, exile in a small band of a hundred villagers, that equals death. You know that image of the hands and the face being locked in while everybody throws fruit at them? The punishment is not the fruit.

The punishment is the fact that the stocks are built to force the person inside to look at all the disapproval from their fellow villagers. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about it in The Scarlet Letter. There are stories of people who committed crimes and their one request is, please pull out my fingernails right now while nobody's looking before the mob gets stirred.

We are built in our core beings, our weird lizard brains, to associate shaming with death. All right, do me a favor. Think of the moment of your own personal biggest shame. A moment where you did something so embarrassing that you can't let go of it. When you did something that you knew that was going to stick with you for the rest of your life.

The funny part is I didn't even have to ask you to do that because the moment I mentioned personal shame, you already went to work. You were already thinking of your personal lowest moment. Now imagine that the whole world knows about it. Everybody you know and love and everybody they know and love, every single person on the planet knows it. I'm not doing this to be cruel. I'm about to reveal my deepest shame.

Keep in mind, I'm a guy who will stick a nail in his eye just to get you to clap. I built a career as a touring magician because I sought out every media opportunity I could get my hands on. If you had a TV show, local, national, a radio show, a morning program, an internet program, I wanted to be a part of it.

And as a result, I did a lot of stuff, 99% of which I'm very proud of. Every appearance was just another clip, another scratch-off lottery ticket that might be the one that made me famous. Normally, I always do super polished material. But there was one time I had a goofy one-off lark, an idea that I thought would be perfect just as a standalone bit on TV. It's a viral video, actually.

And if you're like the rest of the world, you probably thought it was totally real. ...called Stigmata. What it is, it uses a knife, four styrofoam cups, and a turntable. The knife goes in the turntable where it can spin around...

And then I cover up the knife. It's a grainy video where a magician, me, is about to slam his hand down onto a styrofoam cup with a knife hidden underneath. And if all goes well... And for a split second, it really looks like the knife just goes right through my hand. Oh, sh...

The camera cuts. The next thing you see is my hand all bandaged. Me with a sheepish grin saying, ta-da. I said it as a joke to my friends over at the Tonight Show. And to my delight, they had me out to do it live on the show. And if all goes well. Ed Asner said he was impressed. So flash forward a few years and America's Got Talent is looking for magicians.

Because I have this very, very simple one-note joke that I think is hilarious. Hell, if it's good enough for The Tonight Show, surely it's good enough for America's Got Talent. I send them the tape. They dig it. Drive up to Dallas with my wife and two kids. We get up there, spend an entire day in production. But when that moment comes and I walk out there, my seven-year-old daughter tears off a piece of her blankie.

And says, for luck, daddy. I tuck it into my pocket. I mean, how easy is this going to be? The same trick that became a viral sensation. The same trick I did on the Tonight Show that Ed Asner called me, you fool with a smile. I'm just going to do it one more time. It didn't go well. Two of the four judges instantly thought I had actually injured myself live on stage.

After buzzing, after cackling, I came back and realized that not only had the judges decided they didn't like being made the sucker, they were turning the audience against me. And even in that moment on stage being booed by 2,000 people, I knew one thing. I wanted to bury this segment. And then the three and a half hour drive home.

And then the sitting there for three months being convinced that I had career cancer that was about to drop like a nuclear bomb, that I was going to be the sucker. If I had the chance to personally break into that place and destroy the tapes, I would have done it. And that's the beginning of what I would have done for fear of the shame that was coming. And then finally, the fateful night arrived.

America's Got Talent in Dallas, standing alone in my living room. I'm watching the show begin. And in the first four seconds, I am the first pop that they put in the coming up on this episode.

My heart is pulsing and racing. I feel that tight band of ultimate anxiety. And I just think this is it. It's all over. And I watch through the first segment, the second segment, the third segment. And finally, we get to the fourth segment. This is the one where they round up all the joke acts, all the idiots who do everything wrong. And I'm not in it. I spent three and a half months watching.

agonizing about what I thought was going to be the end of my career for a moment that never showed up. And I dodged a bullet of shame. But for the people we're talking about in this story, they live with that shame for decades. It ultimately becomes the single line of their obituaries.

It's 1957 and things are getting a bit hot in the game show world. There's whispers about talent grooming, meddling from title sponsors, out and out fraud starting to bubble up all through the press. Most of the stories, they never make it to print. The in-house attorneys at all of the press outlets, they're super scared of a libel suit from one of the networks. And that's enough to kill the investigative reporting that initially goes into it.

But in 1957, two national magazines both run articles compiling some of the allegations. Combine that with a prosecutor from the Justice Department who's calling for a grand jury investigation into industry wide practices and specifically 21. NBC calls in Enright. Hey, man, what's going on?

Enright says, oh, well, you know, he's never given any answers. And to prove that Stemple's a crank, he even plays for him the blackmail tape that he secretly recorded, shows them the signed note. That's good enough for the network. They ride with Enright, and that means there are some pretty powerful forces defending 21. In his book about the whole investigation, the prosecutor who impaneled the grand jury describes the pressure he was under.

That pressure shows up in how many former members of the Justice Department who are now in private practices represent the interests of the network or Enright. Think about that. These are people who used to be the deciders of truth and fiction, and now they're working for one side or the other. You got overt hints that there might be a, you know, a future in politics from if you just let this one go.

But the more Enright and the network stonewalled, the more this prosecutor pushes. And the whole time, Enright is thinking, dude, what's the crime here? The sponsor isn't complaining about theft or fraud. Network is getting what they paid for. The contestants... The contestants...

Well, I mean, yes, technically they're misrepresenting themselves on national television. Sure. But they're doing it because I'm telling them to. But you know what? From that first moment I walked into Stimple's dumb apartment, I was up front about what we were doing and what they were getting themselves into. I mean, they're actors, right? They're actors in a story I'm writing. I'm pretty much Shakespeare. And he's right. They are actors to him.

But they are not actors by reputation. Their friends, their family, their business associates, they don't know them as actors. The pride that comes from the show is a lie. The act is a deception. This show is a con. But like so many people who have been conned, the shame of admitting it becomes a prison sentence.

A very cozy prison that people are willing to stay locked in forever. And at this moment, the prosecutors begin to interview former contestants, members of Enright's production staff. Almost to a man, they lie. They say nobody gave any answers to anybody. The prosecutors say, look, man, you can lie to me now. But if you're called back for a grand jury and you're put under oath, that's perjury.

That's a real crime. The grand jury is impaneled. The same witnesses who were just interviewed are called. And again, almost to a man, they all lie again. All to protect their own reputations. That is the power of shame.

Meanwhile, Enright goes full offense. He releases the stemple tape publicly to combat press reports of what's coming out of the grand jury. Enright is actively punishing the defector by ruining his reputation. And yes, this is a rough road for Enright. But at this moment...

I mean, the most beloved champions are saying they're clean. The only guy who says it's rigged is on tape blackmailing the boss for another bite of TV fame. The network wants to believe them. They're putting all the pressure that they can to make this go away until the prosecutors get a hold of the Snodgrass letters. The smoking gun.

Word starts to get around to all of the ex-contestants. Guess what? The jig is up. Enright's assistant, the one who took over all the direct coaching after Stemple, he's indicted on two counts of perjury. Several of the contestants come back and tell the truth, hoping they'll get a reduced punishment. But mostly, they're worried about one thing. When the grand jury minutes become public, are their names going to be in it? Are they going to be shunned? Will they be publicly shamed?

Prosecutors say your names are going to be left out of this. All they want is the people that pulled this off. And yet Enright never submits to testimony. He never lies under oath. After nine months, the grand jury concludes 59 sessions, 200 plus witnesses. Out of all of them, only 50 told the truth.

Now comes the best news for Enright. Against all precedent in these matters, the judge overseeing the grand jury seals the results. In his eyes, there's no crime committed. Therefore, no need to drag the names of all these fine people all through the press. That's it. That was Stemple's best shot. You went through the press, you got nothing. You went through the law, your results got buried in the front yard. Come at me, bro. I'm Dan Enright.

At this point, there's only one organization left that can do a damn thing about it. The United States Congress. And that's exactly what happens. In 1959, television star and famous intellectual Charles Van Doren gets his doctorate. And yet only months later, he's on the run, avoiding phone calls from his lawyer. He's avoiding phone calls from his bosses. And he's avoiding the highest legislative body in the United States.

This is the cost of shame. Congress opened an investigation into the fixing of television shows, and with it came the unsealed minutes of the grand jury investigation. Gone were the promises from the investigators that the names of the contestants would be protected. Once Stemple is called before Congress...

relishes in telling the truth. He narrates to the congressman, beat by beat, every move he made. There's a projection of a recording of one of his appearances. He points out where Enright told him to dot his brow for sweat, but never smear the makeup. Like a peak Las Vegas mentalist, Snodgrass opens on live television one of his famous sealed envelopes and reveals what's inside.

And yet still, Van Doren remains elusive. He puts out a new statement, sticking to his original statement. He never received any answers. Congress has to issue a subpoena in order to get him to appear, but they can't locate him. Grand jury investigators would eventually say that Van Doren was, in part, so terrified of coming clean because he believed it would kill, literally kill, his father. I mean, it would certainly kill his career. Hell, careers, plural.

Quite simply, he could not bring himself to face the repercussions that this shame was going to bring to his door. And yet, eventually, he comes clean. First to the investigators that he lied to, then to his attorney, then to his bosses, and finally, to all of America. He appears before Congress and tells the world that he's a fraud.

In the Senate hearing room, the dramatic climax of the probe of fixed and rigged quiz shows. Charles Van Doren's wife and father, poet Mark Van Doren, are in the audience as committee chairman, Senator Orrin Harris, opens the hearing. Charles Van Doren arrives to apologize and attempt to explain to the millions whose friendship and respect he had won. He admits that he received dramatic coaching and the questions and many of the answers. But his statement is a rueful and moving realization.

That for his wealth and fame, he paid a bitterly high price. He took the easy path and he took the money and he took everything that came with it. He's immediately fired from NBC. He's immediately fired from Columbia. He's indicted for lying to a grand jury along with all the other big winners. Van Doren never appeared as a regular on TV again.

He worked in West Coast academics for the Encyclopedia Britannica company, but never again as a beloved public figure. The New York Times obituary for Charles Van Doren, written in 2019, features this headline. Charles Van Doren, a quiz show whiz who wasn't, dies at 93.

That's it. That's his whole reputation. That's all you get. You get to be the guy who was a faker on TV. Compare that to this obituary headline. Dr. Joyce Brothers, on-air psychologist who made TV house calls, dies at 85. Brothers also appeared at those hearings. She denied getting any answers and her producers vouched for her. She got out clean and lived the dream.

Van Doren lived with his shame for the rest of his life, for that one fateful decision, the one that would cap his career potential forever. Never indicted for anything at all is Dan Enright.

Yeah, he's humiliated. But one of his own theses is proven right by this whole thing. Just after he's removed from day-to-day production on 21, now that Enright's not there with his cheating team and money machine, in the four weeks they went without the Dan Enright engine, 21 hemorrhaged $60,000 in prize money. Way over the budget from Geritol.

I mean, maybe you're thinking, oh, at least Barry and Enright Productions has to write a big old check, filter some of that money back out, right? Wrong. While Van Doren was on his epic winning streak, NBC bought Barry and Enright to make sure that 21 couldn't switch networks over to CBS. That was a $2 million deal, 1950s money. And then Enright gets a golden parachute to make himself scarce from NBC when everything goes bad. ♪

Flash forward a few decades. Enright is in Canada, eating weird bacon and drinking Molson Ice. The only gig he can land is with Screen Gems Canada. This is the only American TV company that dared to base themselves in the minor leagues of Canadian television. During nights with the producers, this is at the bar after a shoot day, Enright spins tales of the story of 21. In his version, he's the fall guy.

Everybody knew what was going on. The network knew. The sponsors knew. Everyone. But he could never wrap his mind around why Stemple got so mad. What was so wrong about making money and being famous? And yet the answer was all around him. Why was a talented producer like Enright in Toronto and not Los Angeles or New York?

Why was a man who used to make shows that would be watched by tens of millions of people and give away hundreds of thousands of dollars making shows to be watched by a fraction of those people reputation? Believe Enright or not, the result of his shame is his exile to Canada, far away from the movers and shakers of real TV. Sorry, Canada.

And yet, eventually... Here's the game where knowledge is king and lady luck is queen. It's the Joker's Wild. And now, here's the host of our show, Jack Barry. Enright gets another hit right here in America. He even brought Jack Barry back with him.

And he eventually reestablishes Barry and Enright right in Los Angeles. The shame storm passed. I mean, yeah, talk to some friends at bars and maybe they wrote some of it down after his passing. But Enright never put his own words in a book. He did come close to doing it in dramatic fashion, too.

In the early 90s, Enright gets word that a script about his scandal is getting traction in Hollywood. It's eventually going to become 1994's quiz show, and Enright is definitely the villain. Seeing it coming, I have to imagine that Dan Enright saw his own career cancer bomb coming. And just like me, he has that same thought of how do I blunt this edge? In my case, I did nothing.

But Enright puts out a press release saying that he's making his own movie and it's going to be the real story. Movie never gets made. Dan Enright dies in 1992 before he ever had to sit through watching Quiz Show. Enright did his job. He got the ratings. But the path he took, the permanent damage he inflicted on the lives of every contestant...

The shaming he himself engaged in to protect it? All of this might well be the world's greatest con. This episode of World's Greatest Con was written by Justin Robert Young and me, Brian Brushwood, your humble host. Production and research by Dog and Pony Show Audio in Austin, Texas.

Credit to prime time and misdemeanors by Joseph Stone and Tim Yeohn, as well as television fraud. The history and implication of the quiz show scandals by Kent Anderson, which along with contemporary news articles, retrospectives and archive video made for the bulk of our research. Additional research by Rachel Oppenheimer.

Of course, you guys have questions and we want to answer all of them at the end of the season. So get yours in by hitting us up at worldsgreatestcon at gmail.com. So we just heard a story about a TV game show. We found out that beneath that family-friendly veneer, there's a very cutthroat world in which some very colorful, we'll say, characters are attracted. I'm here to tell you that the story of 21 isn't an outlier.

In fact, we're going to spend this whole season hanging around six different stories. We get to see the man screwing over the little guy, the little guy sticking one to the man. Truly awful people competing honestly, the honest ones ruining their lives for the sake of greed.

We're going to see federal agents burst through a door and find a hardened criminal shivering on top of a bathroom stall. A room of professionals wondering if a clever hoodlum just bankrupted their whole company. And we'll see a mysterious extraction so brazen that people still in the industry are left convinced they've been made fools of in front of the entire nation by a single bitter ex-employee.

These are shows you've heard of, stories about super password, who wants to be a millionaire, the price is right. Game shows are an irresistible lure for anybody whose ears perk up when the idea of free money quick is brought up. Suckers and con men both. You probably know that the story you just heard is dramatized in the 1994 movie Quiz Show.

It was a bit of a sensation back then. Got nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. And during all of that buzz, that led to one morning show appearance where they were looking for similar stories of similar game show dramas. And while it isn't the famous quiz show scandal that's playing in theaters, it is a story worthy of the big screen. And I determined that there was some sort of pattern. Not easily, it took time.

That's Michael Larson.

We just heard the story of a powerful producer fleecing good people. But next week, we're going to hear about the exact opposite. A devious mind whose thirst for those angles that would give him quick cash knew no bounds. Through ingenuity, deception, and good old-fashioned practice, he's going to rack up so much money on a TV game show that some people in the control room worry that he's about to bankrupt the network.

That's next time on World's Greatest Con. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program. Dog and Pony Show Audio. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor.

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