Here's a bit of TV history. For many years, a man named Mike Stokey made a decent living by producing and hosting a series of programs where celebrities played the game of Charades. The one in our clip today was called Stump the Stars and it ran on CBS primetime from 1962 to 1963. Originally, it was hosted by Pat Harrington, Jr and then Stokey, who'd usually hosted in its previous incarnations, assumed command.
Most of its previous incarnations were called Pantomime Quiz or something similar. It started as a local (Los Angeles) show in 1947 where it was reportedly produced on a budget of under $500 per half hour. Subtracting Mr. Stokey's cut and union scale for the celebs, it was probably still done for about that throughout much of its existence. It was one of the shows that was rarely out of production for long. When something else got cancelled, the network would hurriedly order up episodes of Pantomime Quiz. When they needed a summer replacement for some series, the network would hurriedly order up episodes of Pantomime Quiz. It was at various times on CBS, NBC, ABC and Dumont, plus there were also a couple of syndicated versions.
Here's a little over six minutes of an episode that aired on February 25, 1963. The announcer is John Harlan.
