Cash and Carry is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television game show hosted by Dennis James

Dennis James

Dennis James was an American television personality, actor, and announcer. He is credited as the host of television's first network game show, the DuMont Network's Cash and Carry in 1946...

 that ran on the then-both affiliates of the DuMont Television Network

DuMont Television Network

The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...

 from June 20, 1946 to July 1, 1947. This made it not only the sole program aired on Thursday nights by the network, but also the first "network" television game show

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

 (all previous television games and quizzes were aired on only one station).

This series was sponsored by Libby's

Libby's

Libby's is a U.S.-based food company known for its canned food.The company was founded as Libby, McNeill & Libby in Chicago, Illinois, by Archibald McNeill and the brothers Arthur and Charles Libby. The business began with a canned meat product, beef in brine, or corned beef...

 Foods, and set in a supermarket

Supermarket

A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

.

Format

James asked contestants questions attached to cans of the sponsor's products, with correct answers worth from $5 to $25. Other tasks were stunts, such as a husband and wife having to work together for a common goal (such as the wife, blindfolded, having to feed her husband).

Home viewers could call in during the show to guess what was hidden under a barrel.

Episode status

No episodes are known to exist, as almost all television broadcasts from the first year of United States network television are lost

Wiping

Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

 due to a lack of means to preserve such content. The known exceptions are a few episodes of Kraft Television Theatre

Kraft Television Theatre

Kraft Television Theatre is an American drama/anthology television series that began May 7, 1947 on NBC, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. In January 1948, it moved to 9pm on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the J...

from early 1947 which were made to test the kinescope

Kinescope

Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...

 process which allowed television series to be preserved.

Even after the kinescope process was created, many shows were still not regularly preserved until the late 1960s.

See also

• List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network
• List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
• 1946-47 United States network television schedule