Play The Game

“Play The Game” was the very first ever game show shown on National TV and it was broadcast live. It had first appeared on a local NBC TV affiliate in the New York City area only in 1941. Very few people were able to see the show because there were not many sets owned in the early to mid 1940’s. The show was purchased by the “Dumont” TV network and first aired on Tuesday night, 24 September 1946 at 8 PM. This series was the very first attempt at a very popular home family game called “Charades”.

Celebrities each week would try to act out a title of a book or movie or a familiar phrase. This series invited home viewers to call in to the show and try and guess the title or phase. The host of the local version and then the nationally broadcasted version was Dr. Harvey Zorbaugh. He was a Professor of Educational Sociology at New York University. The series only aired for 13 weeks with the last episode appearing on 17 December 1946. In 1948 the show aired again but only on a local New York City ABC TV affiliate.