Episode 9736: Beat The Clock (Band) - Broadcast Of August 23, 1949

Broadcast Of August 23, 1949

Contestants were chosen from the studio audience and were usually married couples, occasionally engaged, dating, or another familial relationship. Collyer would ask them general questions (usually including where they were from and how long they'd been married) and usually asked if they had children, their ages and genders. Sometimes the couple would bring some or all of their children with them on the show. Collyer would usually take some time out to talk to the children and ask them questions like what they wanted to be when they grew up, or if the kids were not at the show to have their parents wave to them at home. The husbands on the show usually wore a business suit. Collyer would often ask the husband to take off his coat for stunts to make it less cumbersome (there were a few hooks on the contestants' podium for this purpose, or Collyer would just hold the coat). Occasionally, if there was going to be a messy stunt, the husband would come out dressed in a plastic jumpsuit to keep his own clothes clean. Similarly, wives would sometimes play in their "street clothes", but sometimes the women would appear in a jumpsuit issued to them by the show due to the fact that their own clothing might be too cumbersome or perhaps fragile. The women's jumpsuits, unlike the men's, which were rather plain, were patterned to look like a pair of overalls with a collared blouse underneath. The women would also often be issued running shoes instead of their own high heels. One couple competed against the Clock to win a prize in stunts that could require one or both members of the couple. The first stunt was called the "$100 Clock". The stunt was described and the time limit was set on a giant onstage clock. The time limit was always a multiple of 5 seconds, usually at least 30 seconds. At one point Collyer said that a 55-second time limit was the maximum, but later on, stunts occasionally had 60-second limits.