Dan Enright
Encyclopedia
Daniel "Dan" Enright was one of the most successful game show producers in American television. Enright worked with Jack Barry from the 1940s until Barry's death in 1984. They were partners in creating programs for radio and television. Their company was called Barry & Enright Productions
.
Enright (original surname Ehrenreich), who grew up in British Palestine and New York, met up with Barry as the latter was working in stand-up comedy. After a stint at WOR
radio, the two developed several early TV shows, including the seminal "interactive" show Winky Dink and You, as well as Juvenile Jury and Life Begins at 80.
The duo hit the jackpot as producers of network game shows Back That Fact
, You're On Your Own
, Tic-Tac-Dough
, Twenty One
, Concentration
and Dough Re Mi
in the 1950s.
, Barry and Enright developed their flagship show, Twenty One, a quiz which had a scoring system based loosely on Blackjack
. Contestants were placed in twin isolation booths and asked questions ranging in value from one to 11 points — the higher the point value, the more difficult the question. Enright himself has described the initial broadcast of Twenty One as "a dismal failure. It was just plain dull." Contestants repeatedly missed questions and, in Enright's own words, "It lacked all drama; it lacked all suspense. The next morning the sponsor (Geritol
) called my partner, Jack Barry, and me and told us in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to see a repeat of what happened the previous night. And from that moment on, we decided to rig Twenty One." Even with rigging, initial ratings were unimpressive.
Enright believed they needed to find heroes and villains—contestants the audience would either root for or root against. Though not illegal at the time, Enright and his assistant producer Albert Freedman went beyond merely finding appealing players by actually manipulating them: providing certain contestants with answers in advance, and scripting games and the players' mannerisms in the isolation booth. It was a process the producers duplicated for Tic Tac Dough.
Enright's most famous contestant protégé was Twenty Ones Charles Van Doren
, who went on to win for 14 weeks and became a cover subject for Time
, thus causing the show's popularity to soar. Van Doren replaced Herb Stempel
, who himself had been given answers over his extended run on the show, but was eventually forced to lose (so that the more telegenic Van Doren might replace him). After waiting for Enright to fulfill his promise of a job in exchange for throwing the match, Stempel realized it would never come and went to the authorities. It was only when other contestants came forward about game show rigging did they take Stempel seriously.
As the press was publishing allegations by former contestants of quiz rigging, NBC purchased from Barry and Enright the shows Twenty One and Tic Tac Dough, along with two new daytime entries, Concentration and a musical quiz Dough Re Mi, all of which aired on NBC, for $1 million. Eventually the truth came out, and Enright admitted to rigging the show and giving contestants the questions and answers in advance.
As Twenty One's emcee and co-producer, Jack Barry did not directly rig the shows himself (even quiz-show scandal investigator Joseph Stone questioned his involvement, and Herb Stempel has said in interviews that he believes Enright hid the rigging from Barry until it was exposed), yet he admitted in interviews given in the 1970s and 1980s his role in covering up the rigging for Enright.
on a short-lived prime-time game, The Generation Gap
on ABC. Two years later he sold his first post-scandal game show, also to ABC, called The Reel Game
, which he emceed as well.
Slowly, Enright managed to work his way back into television, having to go to Canada to do so. He was a producer of the early-70s syndicated game show All About Faces
with Richard Hayes
. Barry and Enright also collaborated on other small Canadian-produced quiz shows including Line 'em Up, Photo Finish shot in Montreal, and It's a Match which was taped in Toronto. It was on these shows that a number of young American and Canadian producers and directors got their start, including John Kastner, Sidney M. Cohen
, Mark Phillips
and Jay Wolpert
.
. One of the original pilots of The Joker's Wild was produced in 1969 during Barry's collaboration with Mark Goodson
and Bill Todman
and was emceed by Allen Ludden
. Although credited as "A Jack Barry Production", there had been speculation that ex-partner Enright was somehow involved with the show, and indeed Enright was credited as executive producer in the show's final year on CBS. Nonetheless, Joker proved to be a success. In 1975 it was canceled by CBS but reruns of Joker did so well on local Los Angeles and New York TV stations that in 1977 a whole new series was produced for syndication. The syndicated Joker ran until 1986 (with Bill Cullen
succeeding Barry after his death).
By 1977, Barry and Enright had resumed their partnership full-time. In the spring of 1976 they sold a revival of Break the Bank
to ABC. Despite promising ratings, the daytime network version hosted by Tom Kennedy was canceled. A weekly first-run syndication version aired from September 1976 to September 1977, hosted by co-packager Barry.
Barry and Enright later found their longest-lasting success with syndicated versions of Joker and the revived Tic-Tac-Dough
with Wink Martindale
hosting.
a coming-of-age comedy featuring erotic film star Sylvia Kristel
.
and Gary Cox
and director Richard S. Kline
, all three of whom were not in favor of Enright taking over the company. Kline went on to form his own production company, Greenberg returned to producing his own programs, and Cox joined Reg Grundy Productions
in 1985.
Enright went on to produce a few other game shows on his own, including Bumper Stumpers (a joint venture with Wink Martindale Productions, which taped in Canada and aired on USA Network
) and a short-lived revival of Tic-Tac-Dough
, as well as a few projects with former Wheel of Fortune co-host Susan Stafford
, who was then Vice President of Public Relations for Barry & Enright Productions. Enright and Stafford shared a penthouse in Santa Monica, California
.
Dan Enright died of cancer on May 22, 1992, at age 74.
Barry & Enright Productions
Barry & Enright Productions , was a United States television production company that was formed in 1947 by Jack Barry and Dan Enright.-History:Jack Barry and Dan Enright first met at radio station WOR in New York, where...
.
Enright (original surname Ehrenreich), who grew up in British Palestine and New York, met up with Barry as the latter was working in stand-up comedy. After a stint at WOR
WOR (AM)
WOR is a class A , AM radio station located in New York, New York, U.S., operating on 710 kHz. The station has a talk format and has been owned by Buckley Broadcasting since 1987, after the station was sold by RKO. The station has conservative, or right-of-center hosts.Its call letters have no...
radio, the two developed several early TV shows, including the seminal "interactive" show Winky Dink and You, as well as Juvenile Jury and Life Begins at 80.
The duo hit the jackpot as producers of network game shows Back That Fact
Back That Fact
Back That Fact is a short-lived American game show that aired on ABC from October 22 to November 26, 1953. This was the first TV game show for creator/producers Jack Barry and Dan Enright...
, You're On Your Own
You're On Your Own
You're On Your Own was an American game show that aired on CBS from December 22, 1956 to March 16, 1957. Actor Steve Dunne was the emcee, with Hal Simms as the announcer and Joann Jordan was the commercial spokesperson for sponsor Hazel Bishop....
, Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough is an American television game show based on the pen-and-paper game of tic-tac-toe. Contestants answer questions in various categories to put up their respective symbol, X or O, on the board. Three versions were produced: the initial 1956–59 run on NBC, a 1978–1986 run initially on...
, Twenty One
Twenty One (game show)
Twenty One is an American game show which aired in the late 1950s. While it included the most popular contestant of the quiz show era, it became notorious for being a rigged quiz show which nearly caused the demise of the entire genre in the wake of United States Senate investigations...
, Concentration
Concentration (game show)
Concentration was an American TV game show based on the children's memory game of the same name. Matching cards represented prizes that contestants could win...
and Dough Re Mi
Dough Re Mi
Dough Re Mi was an American game show that aired on NBC from February 24, 1958 to December 30, 1960. The series was hosted by Gene Rayburn and was somewhat of an answer to CBS' Name That Tune, which began in 1953....
in the 1950s.
The quiz scandal
Capitalizing on the success of the 1950s big-money quiz The $64,000 Question on CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, Barry and Enright developed their flagship show, Twenty One, a quiz which had a scoring system based loosely on Blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
. Contestants were placed in twin isolation booths and asked questions ranging in value from one to 11 points — the higher the point value, the more difficult the question. Enright himself has described the initial broadcast of Twenty One as "a dismal failure. It was just plain dull." Contestants repeatedly missed questions and, in Enright's own words, "It lacked all drama; it lacked all suspense. The next morning the sponsor (Geritol
Geritol
Geritol is a US trademarked name for various dietary supplements, past and present. Geritol is currently a brand name for several vitamin complexes plus iron or multimineral products in both liquid form and tablets, containing from 9.5 to 18 mg of iron per daily dose...
) called my partner, Jack Barry, and me and told us in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to see a repeat of what happened the previous night. And from that moment on, we decided to rig Twenty One." Even with rigging, initial ratings were unimpressive.
Enright believed they needed to find heroes and villains—contestants the audience would either root for or root against. Though not illegal at the time, Enright and his assistant producer Albert Freedman went beyond merely finding appealing players by actually manipulating them: providing certain contestants with answers in advance, and scripting games and the players' mannerisms in the isolation booth. It was a process the producers duplicated for Tic Tac Dough.
Enright's most famous contestant protégé was Twenty Ones Charles Van Doren
Charles Van Doren
Charles Lincoln Van Doren is an American intellectual, writer, and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s...
, who went on to win for 14 weeks and became a cover subject for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, thus causing the show's popularity to soar. Van Doren replaced Herb Stempel
Herb Stempel
Herbert Milton "Herb" Stempel is a television game show contestant and subsequent whistle blower on the fraudulent nature of the industry, in what became known as the quiz show scandals...
, who himself had been given answers over his extended run on the show, but was eventually forced to lose (so that the more telegenic Van Doren might replace him). After waiting for Enright to fulfill his promise of a job in exchange for throwing the match, Stempel realized it would never come and went to the authorities. It was only when other contestants came forward about game show rigging did they take Stempel seriously.
As the press was publishing allegations by former contestants of quiz rigging, NBC purchased from Barry and Enright the shows Twenty One and Tic Tac Dough, along with two new daytime entries, Concentration and a musical quiz Dough Re Mi, all of which aired on NBC, for $1 million. Eventually the truth came out, and Enright admitted to rigging the show and giving contestants the questions and answers in advance.
As Twenty One's emcee and co-producer, Jack Barry did not directly rig the shows himself (even quiz-show scandal investigator Joseph Stone questioned his involvement, and Herb Stempel has said in interviews that he believes Enright hid the rigging from Barry until it was exposed), yet he admitted in interviews given in the 1970s and 1980s his role in covering up the rigging for Enright.
Exile
Barry and Enright's careers went into eclipse after the scandal broke, though Barry did get some hosting and acting gigs and briefly collaborated on projects with game show packager Goodson-Todman Productions. Barry purchased a radio station in Redondo Beach, California, and in 1969 he made his first network comeback as an emcee, replacing Dennis WholeyDennis Wholey
Dennis Wholey is an American television host and producer, and the author of a number of self-help books, one of which was a New York Times bestseller. He currently hosts This is America with Dennis Wholey, an interview program shown throughout the U.S...
on a short-lived prime-time game, The Generation Gap
The Generation Gap
The Generation Gap was a primetime American game show that aired from February 7 to May 23, 1969 on ABC. It was originally hosted by Dennis Wholey for the first ten episodes, after which he was replaced by Jack Barry. Fred Foy announced during the entire run....
on ABC. Two years later he sold his first post-scandal game show, also to ABC, called The Reel Game
The Reel Game
The Reel Game was a game show that aired on ABC from January 18 to May 3, 1971. The series was hosted by Jack Barry and announced by Jack Clark....
, which he emceed as well.
Slowly, Enright managed to work his way back into television, having to go to Canada to do so. He was a producer of the early-70s syndicated game show All About Faces
All About Faces
All About Faces was a game show which ran from August 30, 1971 to September 1972; The series incorporated a "hidden camera" format similar to Candid Camera and Punk'd. The program was produced in Toronto by Screen Gems, at the studios of CFTO-TV. Richard Hayes was host, and the show's producer was...
with Richard Hayes
Richard Hayes
Richard Hayes is a professor of Buddhist philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of Toronto in 1982....
. Barry and Enright also collaborated on other small Canadian-produced quiz shows including Line 'em Up, Photo Finish shot in Montreal, and It's a Match which was taped in Toronto. It was on these shows that a number of young American and Canadian producers and directors got their start, including John Kastner, Sidney M. Cohen
Sidney M. Cohen
Sidney M. Cohen is a Canadian television director specializing in live multi-camera productions requiring minimal editing and is also a TV program creator.He was born in Montreal, Quebec and began his career with CFCF-TV and later CBC Television...
, Mark Phillips
Mark Phillips (producer)
Mark Phillips is the owner of Mark Phillips Philms & Telephision, located in Los Angeles, California. He is currently the executive producer of My Ghost Story on bio and The Protectors on A&E...
and Jay Wolpert
Jay Wolpert
Jay Wolpert is an American television producer and screenwriter.His first television appearance came as a contestant on the original version of Jeopardy! in 1969. He competed in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions that year and won....
.
Return to success
In 1972, after two failed attempts to sell a pilot, CBS bought from Barry the game show that would permanently revive his career as a host and producer: The Joker's WildThe Joker's Wild
The Joker's Wild is an American television game show that aired at different times during the 1970s through the 1990s. Contestants answered questions based on categories that were determined randomly by a mechanism resembling a slot machine....
. One of the original pilots of The Joker's Wild was produced in 1969 during Barry's collaboration with Mark Goodson
Mark Goodson
Mark Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.-Life and early career:...
and Bill Todman
Bill Todman
William S. "Bill" Todman was an American television producer born in New York City. He produced many of television's longest running shows with business partner Mark Goodson.-Early life:...
and was emceed by Allen Ludden
Allen Ludden
Allen Ludden was an American television personality, emcee and game show host, perhaps most well known for hosting various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and 1980.-Early years:...
. Although credited as "A Jack Barry Production", there had been speculation that ex-partner Enright was somehow involved with the show, and indeed Enright was credited as executive producer in the show's final year on CBS. Nonetheless, Joker proved to be a success. In 1975 it was canceled by CBS but reruns of Joker did so well on local Los Angeles and New York TV stations that in 1977 a whole new series was produced for syndication. The syndicated Joker ran until 1986 (with Bill Cullen
Bill Cullen
William Lawrence Francis "Bill" Cullen was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades...
succeeding Barry after his death).
By 1977, Barry and Enright had resumed their partnership full-time. In the spring of 1976 they sold a revival of Break the Bank
Break the Bank (1976)
Break the Bank is an American game show created by Jack Barry and Dan Enright and produced by their production company Barry & Enright Productions...
to ABC. Despite promising ratings, the daytime network version hosted by Tom Kennedy was canceled. A weekly first-run syndication version aired from September 1976 to September 1977, hosted by co-packager Barry.
Barry and Enright later found their longest-lasting success with syndicated versions of Joker and the revived Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough is an American television game show based on the pen-and-paper game of tic-tac-toe. Contestants answer questions in various categories to put up their respective symbol, X or O, on the board. Three versions were produced: the initial 1956–59 run on NBC, a 1978–1986 run initially on...
with Wink Martindale
Wink Martindale
Winston Conrad Martindale , known professionally as Wink Martindale, is an American disc jockey and television game show host.-Radio:...
hosting.
Ventures in film
In 1981, Barry and Enright crossed over into the field of motion picture production with the release of their first (and only) film, Private LessonsPrivate Lessons (1981 film)
Private Lessons is the title of an American comedy film released in 1980. The film starred Sylvia Kristel, Howard Hesseman, Eric Brown, and Ed Begley, Jr.The screenplay was written by Dan Greenburg, who wrote the original source novel, Philly...
a coming-of-age comedy featuring erotic film star Sylvia Kristel
Sylvia Kristel
Sylvia Kristel is a Dutch actress, model and singer. Her most famous role is in the French film Emmanuelle.- Early life :...
.
Later years and death
Following Jack Barry's sudden death in 1984, Enright continued to run Barry & Enright Productions completely, retaining the B&E name as opposed to renaming the company Dan Enright Productions. Barry's death resulted in the departure of key Barry & Enright figures, including producers Ron GreenbergRon Greenberg
Ron Greenberg is an American television game show producer who worked on numerous successful network and syndicated programs of that genre from the 1960s through the 1990s...
and Gary Cox
Gary Cox
Gary Cox is a Gaelic footballer from County Roscommon, Ireland. He first came to prominence with the Roscommon Junior team that won Connacht and All Ireland titles in 2000 along with future Senior stars like Karol Mannion and Shane Curran. The following year he was part of the Roscommon side that...
and director Richard S. Kline
Richard S. Kline
Richard S. Kline is an American television producer and director whose most notable work was in game shows. He directed and produced programs for Barry & Enright Productions until 1984, after which he formed his own production company, Kline & Friends Richard S. Kline is an American television...
, all three of whom were not in favor of Enright taking over the company. Kline went on to form his own production company, Greenberg returned to producing his own programs, and Cox joined Reg Grundy Productions
Reg Grundy Productions
Reg Grundy Productions was the American wing of the worldwide television production company Grundy Worldwide, which was founded by Australian television producer Reg Grundy. Reg Grundy Productions was responsible for the production of two highly-successful daytime game shows on NBC during the...
in 1985.
Enright went on to produce a few other game shows on his own, including Bumper Stumpers (a joint venture with Wink Martindale Productions, which taped in Canada and aired on USA Network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
) and a short-lived revival of Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough is an American television game show based on the pen-and-paper game of tic-tac-toe. Contestants answer questions in various categories to put up their respective symbol, X or O, on the board. Three versions were produced: the initial 1956–59 run on NBC, a 1978–1986 run initially on...
, as well as a few projects with former Wheel of Fortune co-host Susan Stafford
Susan Stafford
Susan Stafford was the original hostess of the game show Wheel of Fortune from January 6, 1975 until she left on October 22, 1982...
, who was then Vice President of Public Relations for Barry & Enright Productions. Enright and Stafford shared a penthouse in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
.
Dan Enright died of cancer on May 22, 1992, at age 74.