"Academic Challenge"/"It's Academic" -- Cleveland

[TimK2003]

Stumbled across this web page from WEWS-TV in Cleveland, featuring photos of Altman Production's "Academic Challenge/It's Academic" high school quizzer from the 60's through the present.

And Channel 5 has a full "Academic Challenge" website for the show as well.

I always thought the 1970's set was pretty good for a local TV station.

[MikeK]

There was actually a time when Academic Challenge had public schools from Cleveland proper competing?  I have tried getting teams from every school I have been at on Academic Challenge for each of the last 6 years, only to get snubbed (read: not even a response by e-mail) year after year.  [Upon looking at this year's schedule, one Cleveland public school competed.  (ObGS:  It was the alma mater of Drew Carey.)  Still, there are in the range of 18 high schools in Cleveland.]

Great pix.  Academic Challenge was mandatory Saturday night viewing in my house throughout the 80s.  A former teacher at my HS alma mater posted a number of Academic Challenge pictures from the 80s to his Facebook page.  I should drop a line and ask if there is any way he can share them with us...

[urbanpreppie05]

Mike, how does getting a team on the show work? I remember that my HS (Akron Garfield) did get to go, but it seemed that they went every other year, while Firestone went every year.

What I really want to see is a clip of the PYL-style board and SCTV theme era from when i was a boy...

[MikeK]

Mike, how does getting a team on the show work? I remember that my HS (Akron Garfield) did get to go, but it seemed that they went every other year, while Firestone went every year.

I e-mailed the producer about getting the school on the show.  The response from the producer was basically "Don't call us, we'll call you."  Methinks they prefer suburban teams over Cleveland schools.

When I was on the high school academic team 20+ years ago, the advisor told us our school went every other year.  At the time, that was true; our school was on AC during my sophomore and senior years.  I would assume we were on every other year because my alma mater was either the smallest or second smallest public high school in Cuyahoga County.  A good friend and former co-worker has been a co-advisor of my alma mater's academic team for the last 4 years.  In that time, they have not been on Academic Challenge.

[Matt Ottinger]

By way of [unsolicited] reference, we have 64 schools that play every year.  Once you're in our lineup, as long as you field a team every year, you stay in our lineup.  We have a small waiting list of teams, and if any school drops out, they're replaced with the team at the top of that list.  That new team becomes a permanent member.  You can't just skip a year and expect to be re-inserted the next year.  Once you drop out, if you want back in you have to get on the waiting list and wait your turn.

For a long time in the late 90s and early 00s, there was very little change in our 64 team field.  More recently, as budget cuts have reduced extracurricular activities at a lot of schools, we've had more openings and opportunities for new schools to play.  This past year we exhausted our waiting list and actually had to go out and find a new team ourselves, something we hadn't had to do before.

We don't give a whit about demographics in terms of city school vs suburban school.  In fact, a few of our schools lie totally outside our viewing area and just really, really like to play our game.

[TimK2003]

Mike, how does getting a team on the show work? I remember that my HS (Akron Garfield) did get to go, but it seemed that they went every other year, while Firestone went every year.

Back in the days when Ohio Edison & The Illuminating Company sponsored the show, schools had to be within either utility's coverage areas to be even considered, which was pretty much the whole viewing area.  Just how they picked from the eligible schools I have no idea.  Not sure if there were "new" schools added into the eligibility list when the Ohio Lottery sponsored the show, nor do I know if Westfield has any say-so as to who gets on nowadays.


It seemed like there were some schools who were on every year, while others were seen in alternating years in the Illuminating Co./Ohio Edison days  My high school was not on the perennial list, and sadly was not on in the year when I was on our school's Quiz Bowl team either.

[mbclev]

Mike, how does getting a team on the show work? I remember that my HS (Akron Garfield) did get to go, but it seemed that they went every other year, while Firestone went every year.

I e-mailed the producer about getting the school on the show.  The response from the producer was basically "Don't call us, we'll call you."  Methinks they prefer suburban teams over Cleveland schools.

When I was on the high school academic team 20+ years ago, the advisor told us our school went every other year.  At the time, that was true; our school was on AC during my sophomore and senior years.  I would assume we were on every other year because my alma mater was either the smallest or second smallest public high school in Cuyahoga County.  A good friend and former co-worker has been a co-advisor of my alma mater's academic team for the last 4 years.  In that time, they have not been on Academic Challenge.

From what I remember, Mike, you went to Richmond Heights HS.  There is a co-worker at where I work who was on that school's team in the 80s, and she was the captain in the '87-'88 school year.

[mbclev]

Stumbled across this web page from WEWS-TV in Cleveland, featuring photos of Altman Production's "Academic Challenge/It's Academic" high school quizzer from the 60's through the present.

And Channel 5 has a full "Academic Challenge" website for the show as well.

I always thought the 1970's set was pretty good for a local TV station.

I mentioned the first-mentioned page to Susan Lechner of the original "It's Ac" show in Washington, hoping that one day the Washington set will be finally upgraded.  That particular set has been in place, with minor modifications, since the 1989-90 season.

[MikeK]

From what I remember, Mike, you went to Richmond Heights HS.  There is a co-worker at where I work who was on that school's team in the 80s, and she was the captain in the '87-'88 school year.

I graduated in 1992, so she likely doesn't know me and vice versa.

[mbclev]

My involvement with "Academic Challenge/It's Academic" is exclusively as a fan, because the high school I went to, Cleveland Heights, did not have a team during my years as a student there, 1975-78.  Heights, I think, did have a team from 1965-68, but it apparently did poorly on the show, and so the school administration banned the team (in the guise of saving Heights High's academic reputation), presumably at the suggestion of a faculty member who later became assistant principal.  The team stayed banned until this particular assistant principal retired in 1988.  I found this out from a former team adviser at my 25-year class reunion.  (I wish I had found out in the '70s, because I have been watching the show since at least the 1970-71 season, both here in the Cleveland area, and in the Washington, D.C. area, where I had grandparents on my father's side that lived there-in Kensington, MD.  That is how I got to watch original Washington version host Mac McGarry in the 1970s.  I got to meet Mac twice in my life at Washington tapings-the first on November 11, 2000, and the second on May 14 of last year, which turned out to be Mac's final taping as host.  I got to meet Mac's successor, Hillary Howard, last November 12.)

[Tim L]

Would Ohio Power have been one of the sponsors as well? I recall Canton area (Ohio Power territory) Schools being on in the 70's and 80's, including my alma mater, Magnolia Sandy Valley (On the southeast edge of rural Stark County, 12 miles south of Canton)

[Tim L]

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/news_archives/video-vault-inside-wews-academic-challenge-1981

WEWS-Channel 5 has a special site for classic video from years gone by, called "Video Vault" Here is a behind the scenes look at Academic Challenge from 1981..

Lots of other interesting historical WEWS video (some silent) dating as far back as 1957..

[mbclev]

Would Ohio Power have been one of the sponsors as well? I recall Canton area (Ohio Power territory) Schools being on in the 70's and 80's, including my alma mater, Magnolia Sandy Valley (On the southeast edge of rural Stark County, 12 miles south of Canton)

No, Ohio Edison was the only co-sponsor of the show.  They joined the Illuminating Company as co-sponsor in 1972, and the show's name was changed from "It's Academic" to "Academic Challenge" that year.  (The name "It's Academic" would be used again in Cleveland from 1996-99, when the Ohio Lottery was the sponsor.)

[mbclev]

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/news_archives/video-vault-inside-wews-academic-challenge-1981

WEWS-Channel 5 has a special site for classic video from years gone by, called "Video Vault" Here is a behind the scenes look at Academic Challenge from 1981..

Lots of other interesting historical WEWS video (some silent) dating as far back as 1957..

In addition to that video, I recently found what might be the oldest surviving video from the Cleveland show.  It can be found at:



(That is part 1.  Part 2 is sidebarred.  That show has the theme song previously mentioned on the web in between the electronic theme and the "SCTV" theme.)

[urbanpreppie05]

Found the cheap PYL board, but not the SCTV song!

[media]http://youtu.be/y4c-RA5nmto[/media]