Being quite the fan of the show (there was a time when I even had audio tapes of both of the finals), I remember quite a bit about it. Here are a few details that have been left out:
In the first season, the first four "typewriter" questions were two-part multiple choice (although a couple of players got a "choose two out of three" question at the $128 level); the machine had a few glitches - one of the eventual $64,000 winners (the Football expert) was called incorrect on a $512 question because the machine gave the wrong answer.
The three "monitor" questions were one-part "normal" questions, except that for the first few contestants to reach $4000, that question had two parts. (Two brothers competed on the show separately; they both chose Opera, and both missed $4000 questions, each going home with $1 plus consolation prizes.)
Once reaching the $4000 "plateau", a player missing the $8000 or $16,000 question won a car (a Buick Skyhawk, I think); a player missing the $32,000 or $64,000 questions won $16,000.
There was one significant change from the old version here; if you missed any one question in an "isolation booth" multiple choice (4 questions at $8000, 5 at $16,000 and $32,000, and 7 at $64,000), you were given a "make-up" question and could still win. (Two of the first season's $64,000 winners - the Wine and Sousa experts - needed it in the last question.) (There was one exception: the first contestant to get a $64,000 question (category: U.S. Presidents) got a 6-part question but no makeup - too bad, too; he got the first five right but didn't know that Eisenhower was the President when Hawaii became a state (if that sounds familiar, it was recently an answer on Jeopardy!).)
(Two contestants were told that if they got the first five parts of their $64,000 question correct, they would be guaranteed $32,000; however, one missed one of the five parts and the other won $64,000.)
The first question ever asked (in the category Michelangelo): was "Michelangelo" the artist's first name or his last name? (Answer: his first name - Michelangelo Buonarroti.)
Nobody missed the $64 question, but somebody did miss at $128, not knowing that Lyndon Johnson was the only President sworn in by a woman (normally, the Chief Justice does it, but LBJ was in Texas when JFK died, and they wanted him sworn in as soon as possible.)
There were, in fact, four $64,000 winners the first (Mike Darrow) season (and I think they won in this order): I can't remember the first winner's name - I think it was something like Robert Lupinsky - whose category was Wines (later clarified as "Great Wines of France and Italy"); Don Chu (I think he was a watch repairman - I do remember he was from San Francisco), whose category was Big Bands; Dr. Jacuqline Hill (the show's answer to Dr. Joyce Brothers, although Hill's degree was in meteorology), with professional football; and June Bacon-Bercey, expert on John Phillip Sousa.
There were also at least four contestants who missed at $64,000; two of them were Susan B. Anthony (a distant niece of the women's rights leader), whose category was Women's Rights (and yes, one of the answers was "Susan B. Anthony"), but who missed both one part of her $64,000 question and the make-up (and she realized what the right answer was the minute she was told her answer was wrong), and former basketball player Jerry Lucas, whose category was The Bible (I think it was more of a test of his memory training system); the only question he missed was at the $64,000 level, but when he was asked to name the chapter and verse of the Golden Rule, he knew the chapter, but took a guess at the verse because, he didn't memorize the verse numbers (there were just too any of them).
Anyway, the end-of-season tournament lasted four weeks. In each of the first three weeks, each of the four contestants got four questions; anybody who got all four right received a fifth question. After three weeks, the two high scores (the Wine expert, and Don Chu) returned for the final; the first to six won. Both got to six at the same time, so they went to "overtime" rounds; I think they both got one right, but then the Wine expert missed his question and Chu was correct on his, so he won the $128,000 (i.e. $64,000 in addition to the $64,000 already won).
(By the way...the "security agent", Michael O'Rourke, was shown once, in a long shot handing Mike one of the $64,000 questions. It could be the same person who was on one of the '50s game shows (Tic Tac Dough, I think); there is a picture of someone with that name in one of the older Game Shows books.)
-- Don (to be continued)
