QUICKY QUIZ! #15 WHEN WAS GEORGE BERNARD SHAW BORN?

Year Published: 1950s

Format: 16mm

Description: This short film is one of a series entitled "Quicky Quiz!", which were developed and produced by Los Angeles TV personality Jim Hawthorne. Billed as the "world's shortest TV show", each Quicky Quiz! posed a question for viewers to answer. In this case, the question is "When was George Bernard Shaw born?" If you got the right answer, you must be very smart so take a bow! The footage in the film shows an elderly George Bernard Shaw. Shaw was a renowned Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Short format shows of this type don't really exist today, but back in the early era of television -- especially during the live era when show lengths were irregular -- programs such as Quicky Quiz! were important to fill dead air. Jim Hawthorne (1918 –2007) was a beloved radio personality, disc jockey and TV comic actor who produced (in addition to Quicky Quiz!) the short format show "Jim Hawthorne's Funny World". He worked for a variety of TV stations including KLAC / Los Angeles Channel 13, where he created the first late evening talk show on television, "This Is Hawthorne."