Bill Cullen’s & Goodson -Todman’s First Television Show… ‘Winner Take All’
Bill Cullen’s & Goodson -Todman’s First Television Show…
‘Winner Take All’ began on CBS Radio on June 3, 1946. Original emcee Ward Wilson stepped down after just three months at the helm, and announcer Bill Cullen stepped in as a temporary host on September 9. Cullen’s work on the show stunned executives, who made his hosting job permanent.
CBS, noting the show’s popularity on radio, added the series to television on July 1, 1948 with Bud Collyer as host. The radio series continued with Cullen for another two years, with Collyer taking over radio in August 1950. The televised show, while popular, bowed on October 3, 1950.
Over the next couple of year, the show came and went on CBS Television several times in different day parts.
Meanwhile NBC was looking for a show to replace its faltering game ‘It’s In The Bag’ at 10:30 AM. They struck a deal with the new Goodson-Todman partnership to air a daytime version of ‘Winner Take All’ with Cullen returning as emcee.
Debuting on February 25, 1952, the series originally went against ‘Arthur Godfrey Time’ on CBS. On April 7, CBS permanently slotted another program at 10:30 to provide a new network opponent to Winner – ‘Bride and Groom’. Winner ended on April 25 after just nine weeks. The announcer was Don Pardo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KinmXi2lF_0
After uploading Bill’s final TJW, it made sense to go back to the beginning and focus on Bill’s first TV game show, Winner Take All. Similar in structure to …
Bill Cullen was a guy that seemed like he would be welcomed into our homes. His personality ‘came across’ with the TV image. I still remember what I was doing when I heard of his untimely death.