Tic Tac Dough (1956)

Tic Tac Dough (1956)
Premiere	July 30, 1956
Finale	October 23, 1959
Creator	Howard Felscher
Host	Jack Barry (daytime host, 1956-58) Bill Wendell (daytime host, 1958-59) Jay Jackson (primetime host, 1957-58) Win Elliot (primetime host, 1958)
Network/Provider	NBC
Style	30-minute game show
Company	Barry, Enright & Friendly Productions
Seasons	3
Episodes	5 per week plus nighttime
Origin	USA

Tic Tac Dough (1956) was a quiz program on NBC in which two players, one designated by "X", the other by "O", answered questions in an attempt to make a tic-tac-toe with his/her symbol and win the game.

Nine boxes are presented on a tic-tac-toe grid, each box with a category. In turn, the contestants select a category, are asked a question pertaining to it and capture the box if correct. Each captured box was worth $100 in the jackpot, to be won by winning the game. The middle box was harder and was worth $200. (On the nighttime edition, the eight outside boxes were worth $200 and the middle box worth $400.) The player selecting the middle box was given ten seconds to think of the answer. The contestant making a successful tic-tac-toe wins the game and the money in the pot. In case of a tie game, the money building in the jackpot carries over to the next game. A continuing champion can stop and leave with his/her winnings or continue on. If he/she continues and loses, the amount of the winnings is subtracted by the amount won by the opponent.

Tic Tac Dough was fingered in the Quiz Show Scandals that befell sibling Barry-Enright show Twenty-One. Howard Felsher, producer of the show, told a grand jury that he provided answers to some thirty contestants and asked them and staff members to lie about it if it ever came up in an investigation. Kirsten Falke, a 16-year-old aspiring singer, was one of those contestants, and she deliberately threw the game. She told the grand jury that she was fed answers and was asked to lie. Charles Van Doren, the Twenty-One champion who fell from grace, originally tried out for Tic Tac Dough but was persuaded to go for the former show. Felsher, who had perjured himself to boot, followed the same path to TV exile as Barry and Enright did, only to land at Goodson-Todman Productions in 1973 where, ironically, he helmed the revival of Concentration (which was originally made by Barry and Enright).

19 years after being canceled, Tic Tac Dough returned to TV in an updated edition for CBS daytime (as The New Tic Tac Dough). It ran two months, followed by a syndicated run that lasted eight years.

Barry, Enright & Friendly Productions produced the series, with distribution now handled by NBCUniversal Television Distribution. A new edition, hosted by Tom Bergeron, is in the works for NBC.

Cast

Actor	Character	Duration
Main Cast
Jack Barry	Daytime Host	1	2
Gene Rayburn				3
Bill Wendell				3
Jay Jackson	Nighttime Host	1	2
Win Elliot				3
Bill Wendell	Announcer	1	2
Bill McCord				3

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series

DVD Releases

There are no DVD releases for this show.