Post-Mortem
Although the show was brand-new to us, local versions of “It’s Academic” had been aired for several years by network affiliates in Baltimore and a few other cities. This was only the second show of the Greater NY version. The first NY show did not air until after our team was selected, and I don’t know of anyone in Hicksville who saw it. I wondered afterwards how well the selection criteria for the panels (we never knew what the criteria were) matched what was needed for the show. When you actually saw the show, you heard in its introduction that “teams from three high schools in the metropolitan area compete against each other both in the field of general knowledge and academic subjects.” That is, to have a good shot of winning on “It’s Academic” you had to know some unspecified stuff that definitely was NOT academic.
Doubtless, including non-academic questions in the show made sense for the show’s producers. The top contestants from all schools would have extremely similar academic backgrounds, and they probably would answer all the academic questions equally well. In a purely academic scenario, it was unlikely that any team would get too far behind to catch up: pupils who were not the strongest academically had been weeded out in the selection process.
Viewers, however, liked the excitement of dramatic come-from-behind victories, and that was why General Knowledge questions were shoehorned in. They destabilized the competition because they were hit-or-miss. You didn’t study for a Regents exam in General Knowledge; you acquired snippets of it by chance. Because of that inherent randomness, one might argue that General Knowledge questions were fair; on the other hand, panelists had been selected according to classroom learning.
General Knowledge often proved to be an Achilles Heel, and it was for Hicksville. As Chic Hassell and I sat together in the section reserved for Alternates, Hicksville was asked, “In the U.S. Army, what rank’s insignia features an oak leaf?” We both knew the answer, but he whispered to me, “These guys won’t know this,” and he was right. Dumbfounded, the panel could not even make a guess, and another team snapped up the discarded points. Hicksville never overcame that setback.
Incidentally, here is a 1960s insignia pin for a U.S. Army Major. I think it was designed with an excess of artistic license.
It was not much comfort to see the same thing happen to other teams. In the playoff show for the first-round victors, South Side looked strong early, but when asked to identify “a Polish hero of the American Revolution, after whom a highway has been named” it incorrectly responded “Tadeusz Kosciuszko.” Baldwin surged ahead by countering with “Casimir Pulaski,” but later it met doom on its own. When asked to identify “a 1920s dance craze that was named after a famous aviator” the Baldwin panel just sat in stunned disbelief. The game was nearly over, and they rushed through their remaining questions (i.e., the faster you answered, the more questions you got, and you might recoup lost points that way). In their haste, they made mistakes and sank into second place, miserable. South Side won after all.
Did winning or losing the show prove anything? Could anybody seriously think that one school was better than another because one teenager happened to have heard about a brief fad from two decades ago? If you’re curious, that dance was the Lindy Hop, an extremely athletic, throw-your-partner dance that eventually gave way to the different (and much tamer) Lindy. The latter was popular at HHS dances well into the 1950s.
Post Script
I kept in touch with Steve, but not with Barry or Mel. As I was writing this article, I wondered about them, and I did some online research, the fruits of which are included below. I have not attempted to contact either of them.
