By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

There’s one quiz show on TV that has everyone at Brooksby Village tuning in.

For the past two years, contestants and viewers have been racking their brains on Brooksby’s “Whaddya Know?” Now the program has a new claim to  fame—it inspired another Erickson community to try its hand at a quiz show.

Communities collaborate
Last summer Frances Galton, who lives at Linden Ponds (Brooksby’s sister community in Hingham), was watching her campus TV station when she happened  to see “Whaddya Know?”

“I said, ‘This is very interesting—why don’t we do that?’” Galton recalls. “We put together a committee and decided we’d do it our own way.”

Late last year, the “Whaddya Know?” crew met with the Linden Ponds committee to share ideas. This month, the “Linden Ponds Quiz Show” is set to debut.

Historical challenge
John Murphy, the master of ceremonies on “Whaddya Know?” isn’t too surprised by the enthusiasm about trivia. “Quiz shows were started by people in our generation,” he says.

 Quiz shows emergedas radio hits decades before television; and shows that had been originally confined to radio—like “Winner Take All” and “Quiz  Kids”—later translated to the tube.

But it wasn’t until the mid-1950s that televised quiz shows became flashier and the winnings grander, paving the way for the infamous “Twenty One,” which became the center of widespread scandal involving contestants who had been prepped with questions beforehand and results that had been rigged in a number of shows.

Intellectual challenge
Brooksby’s quiz show invokes the competitive spirit without the Hollywood influence. “For us it is an intellectual challenge,” says Murphy.

Brooksby’s 30-minute show squares off two teams of three. Contestants have 12 seconds to answer each question, encompassing everything from geography to celebrities. Correct answers earn teams anywhere from 5 to 15 points (depending on the round). The final question is worth 25 points.