It Pays to Be Ignorant

It Pays to Be Ignorant was broadcast from September 1973 to the beginning of 1974. It was a remake of the earlier radio and short lived television show. In 1973, the show was syndicated by Hatos-Hall Productions and shown as a weekly series with Joe Flynn as the host and Jo Anne Worley, Billy Baxter and Charles Nelson Reilly as panelists. The announcer was Jay Stewart. It featured dumb questions like "Who wrote Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens?" and "What river goes through Mississippi and has the same name?" The panelists fumble at trying to answer the question and never succeed. The questions are selected by a descending dunce cap and when time is up, a cuckoo bird sound is heard. The contestant who selects the question is usually given a dumb prize like a "do it yourself kit". When Billy Baxter asks what the contestant will do with a "do it yourself kit", Joe Flynn drily answers "Why would you care? She's going to do it herself". Does anyone know where the episodes to this show are? 

By the time It Pays To Be Ignorant aired, radio audiences were tiring of the intellectual quiz shows. It Pays To Be Ignorant was different than other quiz shows and enjoyed the barbs that flew between contestants as much as the dumb answers they provided.

Ruth Howard married Bob Howell and they collaborated on the scripts for It Pays To Be Ignorant until Bob passed away in 1944. Ruth continued writing the scripts after his death, but host, Tom Howard edited them to make sure the jokes flowed smoothly. For a while, the concept of It Pays To Be Ignorant was a skit on The Kate Smith Hour. Critics didn’t give the show a chance to survive, but It Pays To Be Ignorant hoodwinked everyone by lasting for more than nine years, sponsored by Philip Morris, DeSoto and Chrysler, upholding its popularity the entire time.

It Pays To Be Ignorant was watched on television from June to September of 1949 on CBS, and on NBC from July to September of 1951, with the original cast of the radio show.