Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
← The Handover
1946–1954 · Mutual, then ABC
Twenty Questions
Animal, vegetable or mineral — the parlour game that took to both dials.
Twenty Questions was radio at its cheapest and most durable: a panel, a subject, and a bell. It arrived on Mutual in 1946, was on television by 1949, and for five years the same format ran in both media without either killing the other — the clearest possible demonstration that in the crossover years nobody yet knew which medium the game show belonged to.
- On radio
- Radio from 2 February 1946
- On television
- Television from 26 November 1949
- The overlap
- Radio and television versions ran side by side until 1954
7 recordings · New York
Surviving Mutual and AFRS transcriptions held by the Internet Archive. Public domain (US network broadcast, copyright not renewed); no Creative Commons or non-commercial terms apply.
19461
19502
Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
19511
Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
19541
Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Undated recordings2
Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Twenty Questions, Mutual, then ABC. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.