Truth and Consequences

The biggest television drama of the 1950s wasn't a romance, or a western, or a cop show. It was the TV quiz-show scandals of the late 1950s -- deception on a grand scale that played out on a small screen. After contestants became beloved celebrities, the nation learned that all was not as it seemed -- that many of them went on the air already knowing the questions they would be asked, the answers to those questions, and how to "perform" when answering them on the air for maximum dramatic effect. A story that began in a producer's study on Park Avenue ended in a congressional hearing room in Washington, D.C. Along the way careers were wrecked and reputations were ruined. TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES is a all-encompassing look at the people involved, the chicanery behind the scenes and the Madison Avenue Mad Men who enabled it.