Speaker 1: Originals.
Speaker 2: This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Our Little Job.
Speaker 2: It's two thousand and nine and Ben Moehler, a ten
Speaker 2: year old fifth grader from Arizona, should.
Speaker 3: Be in school instead.
Speaker 2: He's standing on a stage in Los Angeles. He's enclosed
Speaker 2: in a prop the shape of a doughnut that's being
Speaker 2: pulled to the rafters for a dramatic reveal. Behind him
Speaker 2: is a giant seventy five foot screen. In front of
Speaker 2: him are roughly three hundred audience members. His father is nearby,
Speaker 2: and so are television cameras. Ben's vision isn't great and
Speaker 2: things are a little blurry, but he can hear the host,
Speaker 2: Kevin Pollack.
Speaker 3: He's selling the shell right.
Speaker 4: He's talking about how these are the hardest questions that
Speaker 4: I've ever been put to television quiz, but these are
Speaker 4: the smartest kids that we've ever brought, you know before.
Speaker 2: Ben is taping a new game show on the Fox
Speaker 2: Broadcasting network. It's called Our Little Genius. He's one of
Speaker 2: several child prodigies who have been invited to test their
Speaker 2: knowledge for a chance to win up to five hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. Ben's specialty is dinosaurs. He's prepared for this
Speaker 2: for months. He knows as much as any ten year
Speaker 2: old possibly could about palaeontology. If he does well, there's
Speaker 2: the possibility he could earn enough money to pay for college.
Speaker 2: He nails the first question, which consists of a multi
Speaker 2: part answer, but when the next question comes, Ben is confused.
Speaker 4: I can't really see it on the big screen, but
Speaker 4: I can see it on my small screen. That's where
Speaker 4: my emotion start to. Really I'm getting really confused, and
Speaker 4: I'm getting really in my own head about like is
Speaker 4: there another game being played on me that I didn't understand.
Speaker 3: Until right now. Because something is not right here.
Speaker 2: Something isn't right, And it's not because the question is
Speaker 2: too difficult. It's the opposite. Moments before he walked onstage,
Speaker 2: a member of the production team approached his father with
Speaker 2: information about the game, information that Ben now realizes is
Speaker 2: the answer to the question. Even at age ten, Ben
Speaker 2: realizes that isn't supposed to happen on game shows. In fact,
Speaker 2: it's a violation of federal law.
Speaker 4: You would be able to see on my face just
Speaker 4: confusion and concern, and on the tip of my tongue
Speaker 4: in that moment was me wanting to say they told
Speaker 4: me the answer to this off stage.
Speaker 3: Something's not right here, but can they start over?
Speaker 2: In a split second, Ben has to decide whether to
Speaker 2: answer the question in a way that feels like cheating,
Speaker 2: or tell a studio full of people that the quiz
Speaker 2: show they're taping isn't on the level, that maybe these
Speaker 2: child geniuses are getting a little extra help. While he's
Speaker 2: still processing all that, the stage lights suddenly and mysteriously
Speaker 2: go out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something is afoot.
Speaker 2: Welcome to very special episodes and I heart original podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Dana Schwartz, and this is Hemi Demi
Speaker 2: semiquaver a modern quiz show scandal.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to very special episodes. I'm Jason English, She's
Speaker 5: Danas Swartz, He's Sarah Burnette. What any of you have
Speaker 5: a stressful game show experience you want to share here?
Speaker 2: I mean, Jason, I was on Jeopardy.
Speaker 5: I don't want to drag gan ya. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: I was on Jeopardy. It was not a great I
Speaker 2: didn't do the best. It was not like a gold
Speaker 2: medal situation for me. I'm not one to make excuses
Speaker 2: in my defense. I was twelve weeks pregnant at the
Speaker 2: time until I was just like housing saltine crackers backstage,
Speaker 2: and so I was like nauseous and in a cold
Speaker 2: sweat the whole time, But no one knew I was
Speaker 2: pregnant because it was like, you know, it's like very early.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: But still it was not the best performance of my life.
Speaker 2: But it was a dream come true just to be
Speaker 2: on Jeopardy, but very scary, and at that moment I
Speaker 2: realized I never wanted to be on television a or
Speaker 2: maybe be perceived.
Speaker 5: Ever again, you've done Jeopardy, Celebrity Jeopardy next, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Could kill Celebrity Jeopardy. Those questions are way easier.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: How was the button pushing? I've always wondered this is
Speaker 6: it really hard?
Speaker 2: Impossible? I mean, that's the real problem of Jeopardy. It's like,
Speaker 2: even if you know the answers, it's just a game
Speaker 2: of being able to push it faster than the other people.
Speaker 2: It's very hard and very stressful.
Speaker 6: Do they give you pointers. They're like, hey, you gotta
Speaker 6: have real quick thumb strength and maybe like spend the
Speaker 6: two weeks before the show practicing.
Speaker 2: You do a practice round before, but I don't know
Speaker 2: if you can prepare for it. It's just kind of like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, Maybe you can and I just didn't.
Speaker 2: But I was just like, you know what, getting on
Speaker 2: Jeopardy was the bucket list item. Now it's in the
Speaker 2: universe's hands.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, you went up so high in my esteem.
Speaker 5: I'm so jealous.
Speaker 6: I've always wanted to be on Jeopardy.
Speaker 5: Saron, have you ever been on any kind of game show?
Speaker 6: No, I've never done a see I've never even been
Speaker 6: on a game show set. And I've been on a
Speaker 6: lot of TV sets and shows and stuff, but never
Speaker 6: a game show. I don't know why. It's just like
Speaker 6: the side show, like the midway of the County Fairgrounds
Speaker 6: I never go to. So, yeah, what about you, Jason.
Speaker 5: I've never been on a game show. But in I
Speaker 5: think it was twenty eleven, I did go on the
Speaker 5: Rachel Ray Show with my two year old daughter.
Speaker 2: What how did I not know this?
Speaker 5: And let Rachel Ray quiz her our presidential history? Oh
Speaker 5: my god. After hearing Ben tell his story, I feel
Speaker 5: like a terrible Paris and we can put a pin
Speaker 5: in that. Just let Ben tell his story and get
Speaker 5: into this. In the outro.
Speaker 2: In the early two thousands. Unscripted television was popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2: The contestants came cheap but earned huge ratings. Nearly twenty
Speaker 2: nine million people watched the American Idol Finale in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, featuring Adam Lambert and Chris Allen.
Speaker 3: Of the four major.
Speaker 2: Networks, Fox was always pushing the envelope for the next
Speaker 2: unscripted sensation. There was Man Versus Beast, which pitted a
Speaker 2: professional sprinter against a giraffe, and a professional eater against
Speaker 2: a Kodiak bear and a hot dog eating contest. The
Speaker 2: Moment of Truth, which strapped participants to a lie detector
Speaker 2: and asked them in reacingly personal questions, and The Swan,
Speaker 2: which crowned a winner based on who got the most
Speaker 2: impressive plastic surgery. In this tsunami of tastelessness was a
Speaker 2: relatively harmless entry, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
Speaker 2: Debuted in two thousand and seven and tasked adults with
Speaker 2: questions called from grade school textbooks with assistance from kids.
Speaker 2: It was successful enough that the network contemplated how they
Speaker 2: could pursue the child prodigy genre. The answer was Our
Speaker 2: Little Genius, which came from Super producer Mark Burnett of
Speaker 2: Survivor fame, as well as Mike Darnell, Fox's in house
Speaker 2: reality show Mastermind. Mike was responsible for the Giraffe Races, sure,
Speaker 2: but also a lot of hits in reality TV terms,
Speaker 2: this was like Scorsese teaming up with Tarantino. The premise
Speaker 2: was simple. Take a kid between the ages of six
Speaker 2: and twelve who had a knowledge specialty, their field of genius,
Speaker 2: and ask them a series of multi part questions that
Speaker 2: required between three and ten answers to complete. It wasn't
Speaker 2: multiple choice, but if they got it right, they'd win cash.
Speaker 2: The parents then decided whether their child should keep going
Speaker 2: to win more cash or risk losing what they've already won.
Speaker 2: A panel of experts in a given category could weigh
Speaker 2: in on the kid's chances of success. If they navigated
Speaker 2: all ten levels, they'd walk away with five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: The show's producers recruited from MENSA, from schools for gifted children,
Speaker 2: and from the media, which loved to cover kids doing
Speaker 2: extraordinary things. That's how they found Ben. Tw thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: Ben was living in Gilbert, Arizona, happily immersed in paleontology,
Speaker 2: passionate about it in a way that children often are.
Speaker 2: His mother, Eke, was a teacher. His father, Sherman, had
Speaker 2: a few different careers, including one as an electrical engineer.
Speaker 2: They were all too happy to encourage and nourish his fascination.
Speaker 4: So when his younger son came along and he's like,
Speaker 4: I want to do paleontology. As a parent, you want
Speaker 4: to encourage your kids. But he just didn't know, like,
Speaker 4: how do I actually do that? So he sought out
Speaker 4: experts to ask, and in this case, down here in
Speaker 4: Tucson is the world's largest Gemen mineral show.
Speaker 2: Arizona is a good place for dinosaur lovers. The Southwest
Speaker 2: is home to lots of fossils. Ben's father made the
Speaker 2: right contacts to facilitate Ben's education.
Speaker 3: He even got permission.
Speaker 2: For Ben to go on a fossil excavation where he
Speaker 2: looked on in amazement at an actual stegosaurus tooth.
Speaker 4: Teeth of Stegosaurus are quite rare, so that was one
Speaker 4: of those times when everyone puts their tools down and
Speaker 4: we all gather around to look at it.
Speaker 2: Ben's knowledge of dinosaurs earned him other opportunities like volunteering
Speaker 2: at a museum in Mesa to answer questions about everything
Speaker 2: from fossils to the theory of evolution.
Speaker 4: And it was basically my responsibility to stand there and
Speaker 4: answered people's questions as they came. By the way that
Speaker 4: the exhibit was laid out, people would kind of turn
Speaker 4: a corner and sometimes they would see the Therizinosaurus looming
Speaker 4: over them, and they just scream and run away. But
Speaker 4: those who are brave enough to actually go into the
Speaker 4: side gallery would see an eight year old standing there.
Speaker 2: He also got some media attention, including on the local
Speaker 2: news and a write up in a magazine, though he
Speaker 2: can't be certain that's likely where the producers of Our
Speaker 2: Little Genius discovered him, least a phone call to his
Speaker 2: parents and explain the premise of the show. Ben knew
Speaker 2: something was up when his father picked him up from
Speaker 2: school one day rather than let him take the bus.
Speaker 2: Maybe Ben thought another family cat had died. Instead, his
Speaker 2: father told him a quiz show was looking to have
Speaker 2: him on.
Speaker 4: Like, I was not pressured into doing this in any way.
Speaker 4: He would have been perfectly happy, I think telling him no,
Speaker 4: thank you, but again because all the other times I
Speaker 4: had been on, you know, interacting with media had been
Speaker 4: no big deal.
Speaker 2: The opportunity to win five hundred thousand dollars was significant.
Speaker 2: It could cover not only his education but his brothers.
Speaker 2: And while his family wasn't in financial trouble, Ben had
Speaker 2: a loose concept of the greater financial crisis hitting the
Speaker 2: middle class. In Ben's mind, that might impact his ability
Speaker 2: to attend college.
Speaker 4: I mean, again, this is two thousand and nine. I'm
Speaker 4: ten years old, but the recession is happening. And when
Speaker 4: I came home from school, I would be watching on
Speaker 4: the nightly news everything about the stock market crashing.
Speaker 3: And I know that in order.
Speaker 4: To succeed at the career that I wanted, I needed
Speaker 4: to go to college. College costs a lot of money,
Speaker 4: and here was an opportunity for me to potentially earn
Speaker 4: my way using.
Speaker 3: The knowledge that I already had.
Speaker 4: So to me, it seemed like, I mean, why not,
Speaker 4: you know, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 2: But Ben's parents weren't stage parents. They didn't place any
Speaker 2: pressure on him.
Speaker 4: They basically encouraged me to like, look the third question,
Speaker 4: the ten thousand dollars safety net question. Make that the
Speaker 4: goal as long as you can answer the first three
Speaker 4: questions in a row. You walk away with at least
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars and that'll still help with tuition. That'll
Speaker 4: still put you ahead of where you would have been.
Speaker 4: So just focus on that. Everything after that can be
Speaker 4: a bonus. Yeah, just focus on getting those first three
Speaker 4: questions correct.
Speaker 2: The taping of Our Little Genius was set for December
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine. That gave Ben a few months
Speaker 2: to cram as much information into his brain as he
Speaker 2: possibly could. He soaked up details of fossil discoveries of
Speaker 2: genus and species, sizes and characteristics, and the producers also
Speaker 2: said they wanted generic paleontology rather than limiting it to
Speaker 2: just dinosaurs, which added whole new subjects to cran.
Speaker 4: When my dad would take time off to go and
Speaker 4: study with me, he would it was stuff like, you know,
Speaker 4: printing off web pages with list of questions about fixtinct
Speaker 4: animals just so that we understood like what the potential
Speaker 4: questions could be.
Speaker 2: But here's the issue with dinosaur trivia. It's not like
Speaker 2: math or history where things can be cut and dry.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of like, well, this source says,
Speaker 4: this answer, this sources this answer, well, this answer, this
Speaker 4: source is newer, so this may be based on more
Speaker 4: up to date information. You know, this source looks more
Speaker 4: trustworthy than the other one, so again it's not quite
Speaker 4: as unambiguous about what the answers to some of these
Speaker 4: questions could be.
Speaker 2: Ben also did mock appearances for producers, answering questions over
Speaker 2: the phone and sometimes in front of a camcorder at
Speaker 2: his house.
Speaker 3: A few of them were recorded.
Speaker 4: They had us set up a camcorder and a tripod
Speaker 4: because they wanted to ask me questions over the phone
Speaker 4: and verify that, you know, I wasn't looking at a
Speaker 4: sheet of paper to answer it, or that someone else
Speaker 4: wasn't like, you know, whispering in my ear. There were
Speaker 4: a few interviews we did where it's it's us in
Speaker 4: the family, sitting down in front of the camera and
Speaker 4: they're asking me questions and I'm answering them.
Speaker 2: Ben thinks he got about seventy percent of the questions
Speaker 2: during the practice rounds correct.
Speaker 4: That was the one about in the test rounds, I
Speaker 4: had been asked named the three carnivorous dinosaurs larger than
Speaker 4: Torontosaurus rex.
Speaker 2: Unbeknownst to Ben, this would be important later. For now,
Speaker 2: Ben's parents signed a release, and Ben also signed a
Speaker 2: contract at ten in this the state of California. It's
Speaker 2: a binding contract if it's been reviewed and approved by
Speaker 2: a court.
Speaker 4: So it says I understand that as a contestant on
Speaker 4: the series, I may be subjected to severe mental stress, embarrassment, shock, surprise,
Speaker 4: or other unfortunate emotions in response to the events, stunts,
Speaker 4: and or challenges on the series.
Speaker 3: In addition, I understand that as a contestant on.
Speaker 4: The series, I may reveal and or relate, and other
Speaker 4: parties may reveal and or relate information about me that
Speaker 4: is of a personal, private, or embarrassing or unfavorable nature,
Speaker 4: which information may be factual and or fictional, So you
Speaker 4: may be embarrassed, and it may or may not even
Speaker 4: be factual.
Speaker 2: The contract also made a point of the seriousness of
Speaker 2: trying to cheat.
Speaker 7: I am aware that it is a federal offense punishable
Speaker 7: by fine and or imprisonment for anyone to do anything
Speaker 7: which would rig or in any way influence the outcome
Speaker 7: of the series with the intent to deceive the viewing public,
Speaker 7: and that it is a federal offense to offer or
Speaker 7: to accept any information or secret assistance in connection with
Speaker 7: the series. I agreed that I will not participate in
Speaker 7: any such act or any other deceptive or dishonest act
Speaker 7: with respect to the series. If anyone tries to induce
Speaker 7: me to do any such act, I must immediately notify
Speaker 7: the producer.
Speaker 2: Ben scribbled his initials next to the passage, and soon
Speaker 2: it was time to head to California, where Our Little
Speaker 2: Genius was taped at Los Angeles Center Studios and one
Speaker 2: of their massive eighteen thousand square foot sound stages. Ben
Speaker 2: and his father arrived there in December two thousand and nine.
Speaker 4: I remember waking up that morning when it was still
Speaker 4: dark out, and it's just one of those days where
Speaker 4: you're like wide awake the sucond. You wake up and
Speaker 4: it's like, well, today's day. Start going through the facts
Speaker 4: in your mind because today's the day. You know this
Speaker 4: could who knows this could change everything?
Speaker 2: It would change everything. And it all started with a
Speaker 2: curious conversation backs age. When Ben and his family arrived
Speaker 2: for the taping of Our Little Genius, the studio was
Speaker 2: slowly filling up with audience members and a bustling crew,
Speaker 2: including host Kevin Pollock. Ben doesn't remember interacting much with
Speaker 2: Kevin or with any of the other kid contestants. He
Speaker 2: does remember someone on the show, an adult, asking a
Speaker 2: weird question.
Speaker 4: He was trying to strike up a conversation to me about, like,
Speaker 4: well do you like do you like coffee? And I'm like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm ten, I don't like coffee.
Speaker 2: But he did notice something peculiar. While the kids were
Speaker 2: on stage, they were asked to pretend to have gotten
Speaker 2: an answer wrong and to look slightly dejected.
Speaker 4: So that you know, in the case that there's an
Speaker 4: emotional meltdown, they've got footage that like doesn't involve a
Speaker 4: small child like complete breaking down, Right, They've got a
Speaker 4: more controlled, faked rehearsed ending that they can go to.
Speaker 2: As Ben later found out, they wanted the option of
Speaker 2: using a reaction that would be less disturbing for viewers.
Speaker 2: As this is going on, Ben is getting a microphone
Speaker 2: threaded through his clothing, a red button up shirt and slacks. Then,
Speaker 2: shortly before Ben went on, someone involved in the production
Speaker 2: told his father something. It was information about dinosauria, the
Speaker 2: umbrella term for two distinct groups of dinotes, the lizard
Speaker 2: hipped and the bird hipped.
Speaker 4: They had already asked me questions about that I already
Speaker 4: knew all that, and what this producer wanted to make
Speaker 4: sure my dad made sure that I knew was that
Speaker 4: this had happened in eighteen eighty eight, This official division
Speaker 4: of dinosaur had happened in the year eighteen eighty eight,
Speaker 4: and that it was the researcher Harry Seely that had
Speaker 4: made that distinction.
Speaker 2: To put this into some context for the non paleontologists listening,
Speaker 2: this is not what would be considered common information to
Speaker 2: have in all of Ben's preparation. He hadn't been expecting
Speaker 2: to feel these types of questions.
Speaker 4: But in all these questions they had been asking me
Speaker 4: about dinosaurs, it was about dinosaurs and not about like
Speaker 4: the history and development of paleontology as a field all
Speaker 4: that much.
Speaker 3: There's a few key names and dates that would come up.
Speaker 4: But yeah, knowing Harry Seely eighteen eighty eight off the
Speaker 4: top of your head, I mean even today as a paleontologist,
Speaker 4: is like, not something that's useful to know, right.
Speaker 2: Sherman later told Ben he wasn't sure what to do
Speaker 2: with the information he'd been given, that maybe it would
Speaker 2: simply be a matter of knowing Harry Seely in case
Speaker 2: he was mentioned during the show. It didn't seem wrong,
Speaker 2: not right away.
Speaker 4: Then, and he's like, I'm it was implied to me that,
Speaker 4: like this is important contextual information for someone who might
Speaker 4: be on your expert panel, Like this person might be
Speaker 4: a descendant of Harry Seely or might be a scholar
Speaker 4: in Harry Seely's work.
Speaker 3: And like you might look stupid if you don't know
Speaker 3: who that is.
Speaker 2: Each kid competed one at a time. Finally, it was
Speaker 2: Ben's turn on stage. He stood inside of a giant
Speaker 2: illuminated ring that slowly rose to the ceiling. A panel
Speaker 2: of expert stood at the ready to advise a Ben's
Speaker 2: father if he needed guidance on whether Ben could answer
Speaker 2: the question.
Speaker 3: We're going to consult the experts on.
Speaker 4: The experts are going to get to see the question,
Speaker 4: and then they talk amongst themselves and decide, like, okay,
Speaker 4: does it could a ten year old realistically get this
Speaker 4: question right? And so they can advise the parents like
Speaker 4: either go for it, try for that five hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: or like don't risk it.
Speaker 3: If you cash out now, you'll keep you know whatever.
Speaker 4: The previous tier was above one hundred thousand, so they
Speaker 4: were there kind of as the lifeline, but like realistically,
Speaker 4: in the function of entertainment property, they're there to make
Speaker 4: faces at the camera, and that in a situation I'm
Speaker 4: sure they were hoping for would be the experts say, like, no,
Speaker 4: I don't think a ten year old can answer this.
Speaker 2: The first round of questions began. Ben was asked to
Speaker 2: name the major geological periods of Earth's history in order.
Speaker 4: You start with the Cambrian Ordavision, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleogene, Neogene, Quaternary.
Speaker 4: The Carboniferous is a period of time in other parts
Speaker 4: of the world that they or actually they do it
Speaker 4: here in the US too. It's subdivided into different sub periods.
Speaker 4: Some consider them full period some consider them sub periods,
Speaker 4: and they're named after places where these major exposures are.
Speaker 2: Technically there was more than one correct.
Speaker 4: Answer, So the lower one is called the Mississippian period,
Speaker 4: and the upper one is called the Pennsylvanian period. So
Speaker 4: the twelve part answer that I gave, which is the
Speaker 4: one that they accepted, has just carboniferous.
Speaker 2: There was a beat, and then Kevin Pollock announced Ben
Speaker 2: had gotten all the answers right for the first prize
Speaker 2: of one thousand dollars. The ice had been broken. Ben
Speaker 2: could do this stand in front of a bunch of strangers,
Speaker 2: under hot studio lights and under pressure recall arcane information. Hey,
Speaker 2: it was about dinosaurs.
Speaker 3: Like I know, I had a different interest set.
Speaker 4: You know a lot of kids my age were in
Speaker 4: a Pokemon and they made them memorize hundreds of those suckers, right,
Speaker 4: so me knowing twelve things in a row is like
Speaker 4: not a big deal.
Speaker 2: The second round of questions came. This time they were
Speaker 2: worth five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Right, So the question they ask is, you know what
Speaker 4: two major groups are the clay DINOSAURA broken down into
Speaker 4: and again this is all paraphrasing. I don't remember the
Speaker 4: exact like language here, but what they're asking is what
Speaker 4: are the two major groups of dinosaurs?
Speaker 3: Who named them? And what year did he name them?
Speaker 2: Something wasn't right. The answer was Harry Seely and eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight, the same name and year his father had
Speaker 2: been fed. Just before Ben walked onstage, Ben deliberated answering
Speaker 2: was worth a lot of money, college money. But wasn't
Speaker 2: this cheating and.
Speaker 4: Of course I already knew the names of the groups,
Speaker 4: but I would not have known, Harry Seely eighteen eighty eight.
Speaker 4: Had they not used my father to give that information,
Speaker 4: had they not tricked him into thinking that this was
Speaker 4: about one of the experts, I would not have known that.
Speaker 2: Ben was also thinking of that contract. Was it too
Speaker 2: late to disclose? Someone had fed him answers? Had he
Speaker 2: done something wrong?
Speaker 4: My impression was like, all right, I promised not to
Speaker 4: embarrass the production team, and that like, whatever I say,
Speaker 4: they can do whatever they want with it, and it
Speaker 4: might be a huge mistake right to say the truth.
Speaker 2: The other problem was that our little genius didn't appear
Speaker 2: to have a contestant advocate on set, someone a child
Speaker 2: could turn to who wasn't directly part of the production.
Speaker 2: Child actors have those protections, child geniuses do not.
Speaker 4: Again, there was no representative on stage of a neutral
Speaker 4: third party. For a production that is done ethically and
Speaker 4: with safety in mind, you know, you should have a
Speaker 4: third party who does not have a stake in the game,
Speaker 4: who is present as a resource for the child. You know,
Speaker 4: who is not from the production team and is not
Speaker 4: one of the parents.
Speaker 2: Ben answered Harry seey and eighteen eighty eight, and again
Speaker 2: Kevin Pollack told him he was correct, but the relief
Speaker 2: he had felt after the first set of questions was
Speaker 2: replaced by confusion. This wasn't how game shows were supposed
Speaker 2: to work. You had to come up with an answer
Speaker 2: on your own, not parrot what had been told to you.
Speaker 2: Kevin Pollack delivered the third round of questions, which were
Speaker 2: worth ten thousand dollars. This time the problem was something
Speaker 2: very much like the one he had answered during his
Speaker 2: test runs at home, when he had been asked to
Speaker 2: name three carnivorous dinosaurs larger than.
Speaker 4: The t rex, and then in the actual taping, they
Speaker 4: asked me first name the largest dinosaur ever known, and
Speaker 4: then named the four carnivors dinosaurs larger than t rex.
Speaker 2: One question, five answers. To Ben, it was convoluted and confusing.
Speaker 2: He had demonstrated knowledge of three during the sample game.
Speaker 2: Now there were four, plus a bonus answer, the largest
Speaker 2: dinosaur ever discovered. Ben knew the answer they were looking for, Argentinosaurus,
Speaker 2: But this time the issue wasn't being fed the complete answer.
Speaker 2: It was that Ben felt there was more than one
Speaker 2: correct answer, or no way of knowing the right answer.
Speaker 4: And so what they were looking for Here again we're
Speaker 4: talking about biggest. That can mean a lot of different things.
Speaker 4: It can mean the longest, it can mean the tallest
Speaker 4: at the hip. Because dinosaurs in their natural posture the
Speaker 4: two legged bipedal dinosaurs, so all the carnivores are going
Speaker 4: to be basically their body is parallel to the ground,
Speaker 4: so their highest point is not like the head the
Speaker 4: way that humans stand. It's the hip is usually the
Speaker 4: highest point. So if you're looking for tallest, it's usually
Speaker 4: measured like at the hip. There's weight, and I think
Speaker 4: it's pretty intuitive to understand that it's difficult to estimate
Speaker 4: how much an animal would have weighed when we only
Speaker 4: have a skeleton.
Speaker 2: The problem was also that some species didn't necessarily have
Speaker 2: complete skeletons at the time, making an objective measurement difficult.
Speaker 2: Ben gave the best answer he could.
Speaker 3: What if it's forty three feet.
Speaker 4: You know you're hinging, literally wagering ten thousand dollars on
Speaker 4: this question. You know, even the answer that I gave,
Speaker 4: which is Spinosaurus, carcard Antosaurus, and Giganotosaurus. Even at that
Speaker 4: time you could have argued we don't actually know that
Speaker 4: the one or two specimens of these animals we have
Speaker 4: are larger than the largest t Rex.
Speaker 2: But he couldn't think of a fourth. Under pressure, he
Speaker 2: answered Suka Mimas. The show was looking for Tyranno Titan,
Speaker 2: which was at the time not conclusively proven to be
Speaker 2: larger than t Rex. While it did appear in some
Speaker 2: reference material, there was no consensus about its average size.
Speaker 2: This time, Kevin Pollock didn't have good news. The answer
Speaker 2: had been judged to be incorrect, and then suddenly there
Speaker 2: was a production issue.
Speaker 4: When I gave the answer Suka Mimas spelled incorrectly pops
Speaker 4: up on the screen, and then they cut the lights
Speaker 4: and they pretend that there's a power outage.
Speaker 2: Ben was led off stage and into a room. When
Speaker 2: they came back on, Kevin Pollack had an announcement Ben
Speaker 2: could try again in what amounted to.
Speaker 5: A do over.
Speaker 4: And here in that side room is where I learned
Speaker 4: that we could have another go. I didn't know until
Speaker 4: that point that they would let me try again again.
Speaker 2: Ben made it to the third set of questions. Kevin
Speaker 2: Pollack wanted to know what family smilod On belongs to.
Speaker 4: Of course, I know what Smilodon is. I know that
Speaker 4: it's a cat. So the guest that I make is like,
Speaker 4: I don't know. Felis I think is verbatim what I said.
Speaker 4: Felis is the genus name for the domestic cat, and
Speaker 4: it's quite close to Philiday, right, Felis Pheladay. But that's
Speaker 4: not the answer they were looking for. So I end up.
Speaker 4: You know, at that point, they're just like, all right,
Speaker 4: you're done.
Speaker 2: As he walked off the stage, a confusing series of
Speaker 2: emotions began to grip him. One of the worst feelings
Speaker 2: was that he had let his older brother down, that
Speaker 2: he could have potentially paid for his college if the
Speaker 2: game hadn't been a mess of leaked information and ambiguous questions.
Speaker 4: He didn't know that at the time, and I'm really
Speaker 4: glad that he didn't know that He was there when
Speaker 4: we filmed. You know, he was there in the audience
Speaker 4: when we filmed the show, and so he saw me
Speaker 4: like bomb on stage, and so I'm really glad that
Speaker 4: he didn't know at the time, like I was trying
Speaker 4: to get money for both of us, because that would
Speaker 4: have made me feel a lot worse if, like I
Speaker 4: had promised that to him.
Speaker 2: At the taping, Ben was routed to a child psychologist
Speaker 2: who asked some perfunctory questions.
Speaker 4: At least that's what she identified herself as. And she
Speaker 4: basically looks at me and she goes, yeah, he looks
Speaker 4: pretty sad.
Speaker 2: He and his family were then ushered into an suv
Speaker 2: and driven back to their hotel.
Speaker 4: We get back into the SUVs and we go back
Speaker 4: to the hotel, and I am given a couple of
Speaker 4: hours to myself in the hotel room to kind of
Speaker 4: come to terms of the th that I blew it.
Speaker 2: Heading home, the reality was sinking in. He had failed
Speaker 2: to advance, a failure his ten year old self thought
Speaker 2: might endanger his chances of pursuing his passion paleontology without
Speaker 2: prize money, where would money from college come from. Later
Speaker 2: Ben was affected by another realization. He had effectively cheated,
Speaker 2: not with any premeditation, not because he wanted an advantage,
Speaker 2: but because he had been put in an impossible position.
Speaker 2: The question was what was anyone going to do about it?
Speaker 2: And what happened with the other kids. The original quiz
Speaker 2: show scandal was in November of nineteen fifty six, when
Speaker 2: a handsome man named Charles Van Doren stepped down to
Speaker 2: the set of twenty one. An English instructor at Columbia University,
Speaker 2: Van Doren had been invited to the show at the
Speaker 2: behest of producer Albert Friedman. For the next fourteen weeks,
Speaker 2: van Doren listened intently to questions, his brow furrowed in
Speaker 2: deep concentration. Then he'd emerge with the right answer, enough
Speaker 2: of them to dethrone the show's reigning champion, a comparatively
Speaker 2: nerdy player named Herbert Stemple. Van Dorn became a national celebrity.
Speaker 2: He won one hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars or
Speaker 2: the equivalent of one point five million today. He got
Speaker 2: a job with NBC, but by summer of nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 2: he was on a different kind of hot seat. Twenty
Speaker 2: one had been rigged for Van Doren to win. He
Speaker 2: had been given the answers, so had Stemple. Both had
Speaker 2: been coached to appear as sympathetic as possible to the
Speaker 2: viewing audience. Along with other contestants, Van Doren lied to
Speaker 2: a Manhattan grand jury about the allegations before finally coming
Speaker 2: clean in nineteen fifty nine. He lost his jobs at
Speaker 2: Columbia and NBC and rarely spoke about the scandal.
Speaker 8: When that came to light, Congress actually held an investigation,
Speaker 8: They held hearings, and is really the first time in
Speaker 8: the nation's history that it became widespread public knowledge that
Speaker 8: a lot of what was being presented on TV wasn't
Speaker 8: actually real, And what came out of those Congressional investigations
Speaker 8: was ultimately a criminal law.
Speaker 2: That's George Bright again. George is the Deputy District Attorney
Speaker 2: for Ventura County in California. In twenty nineteen, while he
Speaker 2: was still a law student at Chapman Universe City, George
Speaker 2: authored a paper where he took a deep dive into
Speaker 2: the legal consequences of manipulating televised contests. After the quiz
Speaker 2: show scandals, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC was given
Speaker 2: new powers to enforce fairness in game shows, and.
Speaker 8: It actually makes it a federal crime, punishable by up
Speaker 8: to a year in prison, to predetermine the outcome of
Speaker 8: an intellectual game, game of chance or a game of
Speaker 8: intellectual skill with the intent to deceive the viewing public.
Speaker 8: So it's actually a crime for producers to rig broadcast
Speaker 8: game shows.
Speaker 2: Following the quiz show scandals of the nineteen fifties, game
Speaker 2: shows cleaned up their act. No one wanted to be
Speaker 2: caught feeding answers to contestants and risk their reputations or
Speaker 2: their freedom, but there were still controversies. In the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: a game show producer criticized Hollywood Squares for writing funny
Speaker 2: answers for their celebrity panel, even though they still had
Speaker 2: to give a proper and unrehearsed response. Later in two
Speaker 2: thousand and one, a game show on UPN titled Manhunt
Speaker 2: received negative press when a producer revealed certain scenes had
Speaker 2: been scripted. The show, about people being hunted by paintballers
Speaker 2: on a remote island in Hawaii, actually shot some scenes
Speaker 2: at a Los Angeles park. Those were gray areas in
Speaker 2: which the lines between entertainment and competition seemed to blur.
Speaker 2: Is a competition with physical skill or talent and intellectual contest?
Speaker 2: Could you get in trouble for rigging a singing competition
Speaker 2: or a stand up comedy game?
Speaker 3: No one is really sure.
Speaker 8: So I mean, I think it's debatable whether or not
Speaker 8: comedy is an intellectual exercise, or whether or not something
Speaker 8: like singing would be an intellectual exercise. But yeah, I
Speaker 8: mean it's fairly broad what intellectual even means.
Speaker 2: What's more, the FCC rule only applies to over the
Speaker 2: air broadcast networks. Something on Netflix wouldn't be of concern,
Speaker 2: but Fox was and is a broadcaster on public airwaves.
Speaker 2: If Our Little Genius was indeed tainted by improper disclosure
Speaker 2: of information, then USC five oh nine would certainly apply.
Speaker 8: Uh, show like Our Little Genius, I don't think there'd
Speaker 8: be any doubt that it would come within the purview
Speaker 8: of the statute. I mean, that's the very quis essential
Speaker 8: type of quiz show that the statute was designed for.
Speaker 2: In order for that to happen, the FCC would have
Speaker 2: to learn about it in the first place. But back
Speaker 2: home in Arizona, Ben was having trouble coming to terms
Speaker 2: with the Our Little Genius debacle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, in the immediate aftermath and in the the
Speaker 4: time to follow, I honestly did not talk about it
Speaker 4: very much.
Speaker 3: I didn't really want to.
Speaker 4: I felt embarrassed about the fact that I had wasted
Speaker 4: I felt like I had wasted so much of their time,
Speaker 4: my father's time, and my mom and my brother and
Speaker 4: my grandfather's time, because they all got flown out with me,
Speaker 4: you know, to la to do this.
Speaker 2: Worse, Ben felt like he had been cheated out of
Speaker 2: a fair.
Speaker 4: Shot, and so yeah, in the immediate aftermath, I'm feeling frustrated.
Speaker 4: I'm feeling cheated of an opportunity to have actually earned
Speaker 4: my way. I'm feeling ashamed of myself for cheating, for
Speaker 4: knowing that they had given me an answer, and for
Speaker 4: bowing to the pressure to go forward with it.
Speaker 2: Finally, his father, Sherman, decided to sit down and pen
Speaker 2: a letter to Mark Burnett Productions. In it, he detailed
Speaker 2: what he felt was in propriety on the part of
Speaker 2: the production of Our Little Genius. He wasn't the only one.
Speaker 2: In a separate letter said in December two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine to the FCC, the parent of another contestant detailed
Speaker 2: a surprisingly similar story. The parent alleged that a producer
Speaker 2: had phoned with a list of categories that might be
Speaker 2: in the show to assess whether their child was well
Speaker 2: versed in them. Here's George bridegim again.
Speaker 8: And your son needs to know the Italian names of
Speaker 8: the piano pedals, and were getting so hyper specific that
Speaker 8: this parent was convinced that the producer was essentially feeding
Speaker 8: him what the questions were going to be in advance
Speaker 8: of the taping.
Speaker 2: The parent stated they suspected the producer had given them
Speaker 2: four specific answers to questions because the child was coming
Speaker 2: on as a music prodigy. The parents were told they
Speaker 2: should brush up on the names of musical notes, and
Speaker 2: that it was very important the child knew the sixty
Speaker 2: fourth note pemi demi semiquaver. When the parent broached their
Speaker 2: concerns over how the show questions were selected in a
Speaker 2: meeting with a production lawyer before taping, their child's appearance
Speaker 2: was abruptly canceled. Whether they actually got the relevant answers
Speaker 2: remained unclear, since the child never appeared on the show,
Speaker 2: but it was enough for the FCC to take action
Speaker 2: and launch an investigation, and that may have made some
Speaker 2: kind of history.
Speaker 8: So interestingly enough, from the time the statute was created
Speaker 8: in the nineteen fifties all the way to the present time,
Speaker 8: I believe Our Little Genius is the only show that
Speaker 8: the FCC actually seriously investigated for violating the statute.
Speaker 2: Soon Our Little Genius was becoming Our Little Scandal. In
Speaker 2: January twenty ten, just a week before the series was
Speaker 2: scheduled to premiere, The New York Times reported that Fox
Speaker 2: was pulling the show, which was supposed to air directly
Speaker 2: after American Idol. Instead, a rerun of the four hundred
Speaker 2: and fiftieth episode of The Simpsons would air in its place.
Speaker 2: Eight episodes had been taped, none would ever see the
Speaker 2: light of day. According to co creator Mike Darnell, Burnett
Speaker 2: had found quote certain information that was relayed in a
Speaker 2: way Mark found worrisome and offered to reshoot the show
Speaker 2: by paying for production costs out of his own pocket.
Speaker 2: According to the Los Angeles Times, it was Burnett who
Speaker 2: informed Fox there was an issue. In his own statement,
Speaker 2: Mark Burnett said that some concerns had surfaced about contestants
Speaker 2: being given more information than needed, and that the company
Speaker 2: was no longer comfortable moving forward with the show. Burnett
Speaker 2: said the following, I recently discovered that there was an
Speaker 2: issue with how some information was relayed to contestants during
Speaker 2: the pre production of Our Little Genius. As a result,
Speaker 2: I am not comfortable delivering the episodes without reshooting them.
Speaker 2: I believe my series must always be beyond reproach, so
Speaker 2: I have requested that Fox not air these episodes.
Speaker 1: Mark Burnett is one of the pre eminent producers of
Speaker 1: unscripted programming on television. Even though we were incredibly pleased
Speaker 1: with the quality of Our Little Genius, we respect and
Speaker 1: appreciate its due diligence and the decision to pull these episodes.
Speaker 1: We agree there can be no question about the integrity
Speaker 1: of our shows. While these episodes will not air, the
Speaker 1: families who participated in the show will receive their winnings,
Speaker 1: and we are grateful for their participation.
Speaker 2: This decision triggered an intriguing dilemma. The FCC rule prohibiting
Speaker 2: the orchestration of game shows applies to shows that, per
Speaker 2: the rule, are intended to mislead the public. But how
Speaker 2: can you mislead the public if your show is never
Speaker 2: seen by the public. What jurisdiction does the FCC have
Speaker 2: over a show alleged to be improper when it never airs.
Speaker 2: That question was never really put to the test. While
Speaker 2: the FCC reportedly opened an investigation into Our Little Genius,
Speaker 2: they never arrived at any conclusion. Since it was never broadcast.
Speaker 2: It would be hard for anyone the FCC included to
Speaker 2: argue viewers had been misled. It just disappeared, and even
Speaker 2: if it had aired, the FCC's purview would probably have
Speaker 2: been limited to the broadcaster, Fox, not the production company.
Speaker 2: According to George Bridegan, once the decision was made not
Speaker 2: to air the show, the FCC abandoned its investigation.
Speaker 8: There's a legitimate question about whether or not a crime
Speaker 8: even occurred. A good analogy would be if a cop
Speaker 8: were to sit in a bar and see a guy
Speaker 8: get absolutely drunk, go and grab his car keys and
Speaker 8: start to walk out towards his car, stop him before
Speaker 8: he even gets into the car, and says, hey, we're
Speaker 8: going to conduct a dui investigation. And it's clear that
Speaker 8: this guy is completely drunk, but he never actually drives
Speaker 8: the car. Did he commit a UI have no, of
Speaker 8: course not. It's sort of the same thing that Fox
Speaker 8: did here. The show is never actually broadcast across the air,
Speaker 8: and the statute is designed to protect the viewing public.
Speaker 8: So if the viewing public isn't ever being deceived with anything,
Speaker 8: there's really no reason for the FCC to continue pursuing
Speaker 8: the investigation.
Speaker 2: Naturally, we wanted to get the other party side of
Speaker 2: the story. We requested a comment from Fox, but didn't
Speaker 2: receive a reply. Mark Burnette was not able to be
Speaker 2: reached for comment, and Mike Darnell's representatives did not respond
Speaker 2: to a request for comment. To be clear, the FCC
Speaker 2: never disclosed or alleged any evidence of wrongdoing to the
Speaker 2: credit of Mark Burnett, Mike Darnell, Fox, and everyone else involved.
Speaker 2: Once suggestions of impropriety were discovered, they yanked the show.
Speaker 2: But was it improper? Asked about the controversy later in
Speaker 2: twenty ten, Kevin Pollack said, quote, there were some questions
Speaker 2: along the way as to how do you find out
Speaker 2: what a little genius actually does or does not know
Speaker 2: prior to the quiz end quote where's the line between
Speaker 2: assessing a kid's knowledge and giving them knowledge, between seeing
Speaker 2: if a kid knows about dinosauria and if he knows
Speaker 2: the name Harry Seeley, between knowing musical notes and specifically
Speaker 2: knowing about the Hemi demi semiquaver.
Speaker 8: Well, ultimately, it'd be up to a jury about where
Speaker 8: the line.
Speaker 1: Is for all of this.
Speaker 8: Could you meet with a contestant ahead of time and say, hey,
Speaker 8: we want to make sure your child is at least
Speaker 8: somewhat familiar with these topics. I think you probably could,
Speaker 8: But where the clear line is is you definitely can't
Speaker 8: be telling them what the questions are in advance and
Speaker 8: then presenting it to the viewing public as if the
Speaker 8: contestants hearing this information for the first time or they're
Speaker 8: getting these questions for the first time.
Speaker 2: But it does leave a pretty big unanswered question, what
Speaker 2: would be the reason for slipping crucial trivia to the kids?
Speaker 2: Why not just let them answer and let the chips
Speaker 2: fall where they may. George Bridigham has a theory.
Speaker 8: And then it's from the parents FCC complaint. They gave
Speaker 8: answers to probably about three or four questions, and it
Speaker 8: seemed kind of apparent that the production wanted the children
Speaker 8: to be able to get at least through three or
Speaker 8: four questions. They didn't want them all to be getting
Speaker 8: knocked out of the very first question, because that just
Speaker 8: doesn't make very interesting TV.
Speaker 2: Perhaps producers had realized they had concocted a show that
Speaker 2: was too difficult for kids to excel in that watching
Speaker 2: children fail over and over again wasn't going to be
Speaker 2: palatable to audiences, and so some steps needed to be
Speaker 2: taken to better their chances. That could be the reason
Speaker 2: the show also elected to institute the do over, where
Speaker 2: kids who missed out on the first four questions got
Speaker 2: a second chance, a change made later on and just
Speaker 2: before episodes were being taped. But if this was about
Speaker 2: making the audience feel good and the kids feel good,
Speaker 2: it did a lousy job of it. Ben Mueller didn't
Speaker 2: feel anything but resentment. He had come to play an
Speaker 2: honest game, and in his view, that opportunity never came,
Speaker 2: and it affected him deeply.
Speaker 4: Now here's another kind of darkly humorous aspect to the
Speaker 4: story is that after a couple of hours alone in
Speaker 4: the hotel room, that little boy perished in that hotel room.
Speaker 4: The adolescent who emerged afterwards was a little bit older,
Speaker 4: a little bit smarter, and wiser about how the world
Speaker 4: really works, you know, but not the same person at
Speaker 4: the beginning and end of that day.
Speaker 2: There were consequences that went well beyond preparing contestants for
Speaker 2: a game. Kids as young as six were being put
Speaker 2: in positions of feeling inadequate in front of an audience,
Speaker 2: of letting their parents down, or if a parent should
Speaker 2: decide their child couldn't answer a question, feeling their parents.
Speaker 3: Didn't believe in them.
Speaker 2: It was bumpy psychological territory. The cardinal sin of Our
Speaker 2: Little Genius may not have been that it divulged some
Speaker 2: information to the kids. It was that kids should never
Speaker 2: be signing contracts warning them that a TV show could
Speaker 2: cause severe emotional distress.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't think that this was going to be
Speaker 4: anything controversial, right. I really took at face value that
Speaker 4: this was I was being given a chance to answer
Speaker 4: questions using the knowledge that I had to potentially win
Speaker 4: my way to be able to not worry about college tuition,
Speaker 4: And like, what a huge relief that would have been,
Speaker 4: Like what it is hard not to think about how
Speaker 4: different my trajectory would have been if I had legitimately
Speaker 4: been given that chance. My understanding was that this would
Speaker 4: be a legit chance, and so I studied, you know,
Speaker 4: I put my back into it with the understanding that,
Speaker 4: like this is the opportunity, You're never going to get
Speaker 4: an opportunity like this.
Speaker 3: Again, what about the other Little Geniuses?
Speaker 2: The show's publicity material didn't use last names, which makes
Speaker 2: locating them difficult. We approached one other player we could identify,
Speaker 2: but because he was just six at the time, it
Speaker 2: couldn't recall a whole lot. The person's parent, while not
Speaker 2: consenting to an interview, told us they were never given
Speaker 2: information by the show's producers, meaning that not all Little
Speaker 2: Geniuses had the same experience. As of this recording, Ben
Speaker 2: is the only contestant from Our Little Genius to come
Speaker 2: forward publicly. In twenty twenty one, he decided to speak
Speaker 2: to reporter John Deanna of the Arizona Public and detail
Speaker 2: his experiences. It was difficult then and it's difficult now.
Speaker 2: He wasn't sure he wanted to revisit the story for
Speaker 2: this podcast, but ultimately he decided to move forward.
Speaker 4: So I didn't talk about it much with my parents.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to. I didn't talk about it at
Speaker 4: all really to my friends for many years afterwards, because
Speaker 4: I just didn't know how to tell the story.
Speaker 2: This story has mostly been about Ben Mohler as a
Speaker 2: ten year old, as though he were frozen in time.
Speaker 2: But Our Little Genius was fifteen years ago. There's another
Speaker 2: Ben Mohler story to tell, the one where bendes there's
Speaker 2: a lot of learning left to do, But.
Speaker 4: At the time my response was, you just have to
Speaker 4: learn more. Knows to the grindstone, take the opportunities as
Speaker 4: they come.
Speaker 2: He had worried about missing out on college. Instead, it
Speaker 2: was the lass that drove him to work harder than ever.
Speaker 4: I made the choice the same day to double down
Speaker 4: on paleontology. I blamed myself for not knowing enough. Even
Speaker 4: if I disagreed with the questions that I had been given,
Speaker 4: I still felt that I felt that I had been right,
Speaker 4: but that if I had still known more, I would
Speaker 4: have done better.
Speaker 2: Ben attended the University of Arizona and earned two degrees,
Speaker 2: one in ecology and evolutionary biology and one in the geosciences.
Speaker 2: He digs up dinosaur bones with an adult knowledge and
Speaker 2: a ten year old's curiosity. He pursues his passion as
Speaker 2: a researcher and educator even after the quiz show experience
Speaker 2: threatened to contin emanated, and he's found some measure of
Speaker 2: peace in realizing his younger self isn't to blame. His
Speaker 2: love of science is intact.
Speaker 4: I would say, what from the beginning really hooked me
Speaker 4: about paleentology and has continued to keep me in this
Speaker 4: space even now at age twenty five, is just the
Speaker 4: fact that there's really no limit to the number of
Speaker 4: questions you can ask paleontology. The purview of this of
Speaker 4: this field of study is all of earth history and
Speaker 4: every aspect of the Earth.
Speaker 2: Now Ben Mahler can be the one asking all the
Speaker 2: questions he wants, and he relishes not always knowing the answer.
Speaker 2: This whole episode made me just stressed out in general.
Speaker 2: It made me nervous for Quisho producers, It made me
Speaker 2: nervous for parents, and it made me anxious for children.
Speaker 2: This is just a very anxious episod for me.
Speaker 6: Oh my god. It was so surprisingly moving, like when
Speaker 6: he says the line about the hotel room, like he
Speaker 6: relish is not always knowing the answer at the very end.
Speaker 6: But before that, when he's talking about the little boy
Speaker 6: who perished symbolically in that hotel room, broke my heart.
Speaker 6: I was like, oh my god, I'm not a parent,
Speaker 6: Thank God, because I think I would make terrible decisions
Speaker 6: and put my children in these places where they would
Speaker 6: have these stories and I'd have to hear them on
Speaker 6: a podcast and go, oh man, I messed up. But
Speaker 6: that little boy broke my heart. And then I was
Speaker 6: so glad that he made it and became a palaeontologist.
Speaker 6: This is the whole story was a roller coaster.
Speaker 2: Kids should never, though, feel like financial responsibility for their family.
Speaker 2: That's what stressed me out the most. But thought that
Speaker 2: these kids knew that, like the money mattered, and like
Speaker 2: what they did had like real world implications, like that
Speaker 2: broke my heart.
Speaker 6: His brother's future is hanging on how well he does
Speaker 6: his a ten year old on a crazy set and
Speaker 6: he's being told to have it was crazy for me,
Speaker 6: just like also two thousand and nine, what a wild
Speaker 6: time in reality TV. They were just throwing everything at
Speaker 6: the wall. I'd forgotten how crazy it was.
Speaker 3: Jason.
Speaker 2: See, this is why what you did was okay because
Speaker 2: your child wasn't under financial pressure. It was just entertainment.
Speaker 5: Well, so I'll tell you the story here. When she
Speaker 5: was two, we had a series of place mats. They
Speaker 5: were like two dollars place mats I'd gotten from Kmart,
Speaker 5: and one of them had all the pictures of the presidents.
Speaker 5: And she's learning to talk. She'd like point and say
Speaker 5: who's this, who's this? And so I would say that's
Speaker 5: Richard Nixon.
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon, who shows up in every one of these episodes.
Speaker 5: And then she would ask, what does he say, and
Speaker 5: I just thought it was a funny thing. So we
Speaker 5: filmed a little video and so I'd ask her what
Speaker 5: does Ronald Reagan say? And she'd say, mister Gorbachev, tear
Speaker 5: down that wall. Oh. So we posted that on YouTube
Speaker 5: and Gawker picked it up. At the time, very influential
Speaker 5: Ryan Williams, producer called and asked if they could run
Speaker 5: the video on the nightly news. I was like, sure,
Speaker 5: Good Morning America played it the next day. Wow, you know,
Speaker 5: millions views. And then Rachel Ray's team called and said,
Speaker 5: would you guys want to come on and talk about
Speaker 5: the making of this video? And we're like, okay, well
Speaker 5: come on. And we get there and they've recreated like
Speaker 5: a giant version of this place map and put it
Speaker 5: in the middle of the set and they have us
Speaker 5: come out and little Charlotte gets to ask questions and
Speaker 5: has to go and point at the board and do
Speaker 5: her little impressions. And it was incredibly stressful in the
Speaker 5: moment of like, oh my god, what are we doing?
Speaker 5: And that Rachel Ray's staff was great. They're like, look,
Speaker 5: if it doesn't work, like, we just won't run it.
Speaker 5: It's fine. Like they had the dogs from the dog
Speaker 5: show there that day, and so that was like a
Speaker 5: fun thing. Backstage, we have good photos with Rachel Ray.
Speaker 5: Oh that's awesome. But there was no money or no scandal.
Speaker 5: I had given her the answers, drilled the answers into
Speaker 5: her over our place, map learnings.
Speaker 6: No, wait, I have to know something. What does Charlotte
Speaker 6: say about this? What does she recall of this moment?
Speaker 3: Does she?
Speaker 5: Yeah, doesn't recall it at all. But we have the
Speaker 5: Brian Williams video and the Rachel Ray video, which we
Speaker 5: will occasionally pop out when her friends come over and
Speaker 5: she'll act embarrassed, but I think she thinks it's pretty cool.
Speaker 5: Now we're in college essay season where she can take this.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, like any direction. It can be like my
Speaker 5: stage dad, try and make me the bread winner after
Speaker 5: the two thousand and eight financial crisis.
Speaker 2: I'm going to insist that you send me this video.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is gold.
Speaker 2: I can't believe I've never seen this.
Speaker 5: Maybe we can play a little of it here in
Speaker 5: the episode.
Speaker 3: I would love to.
Speaker 9: You may have heard of the term presidential scholar, but
Speaker 9: the following piece of video, which got very big on
Speaker 9: the web today, brings.
Speaker 5: New meaning to that term.
Speaker 9: Two year old Charlotte English of Wayne, New Jersey got
Speaker 9: a place Matt showing the US presidents on it as
Speaker 9: a gift from her trivia above dad, who bought it
Speaker 9: for a kmart. Check out her knowledge.
Speaker 5: Hey, what are you doing to your place? Matt? Can
Speaker 5: you show me where Richard Nixon is?
Speaker 3: And what does he say?
Speaker 7: And?
Speaker 5: Very good, where's Ronald Reagan?
Speaker 3: That's right? And what does he say? Mister rocks right?
Speaker 5: Very special episodes is made by some very special people.
Speaker 5: Today's episode was written by Jake Rosson. He's one of
Speaker 5: our most prolific contributors. His last episode was the one
Speaker 5: about the time the Harlem Globetrotters actually lost. He's written
Speaker 5: about stolen moon Rocks, the kid inside the et costume,
Speaker 5: and many more and more to come. Our show is
Speaker 5: hosted by Danis Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English. Our
Speaker 5: producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound design by Jonathan Washington,
Speaker 5: Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Additional editing by Mary Doo,
Speaker 5: Original music by Elise McCoy, Show logo by Lucy Quintania.
Speaker 5: Our executive producer is Jason English. If you ever want
Speaker 5: to email the show, hit us up at Very Special
Speaker 5: Episodes at gmail dot com. Very Special Episodes is a
Speaker 5: production of iHeart Podcasts.