By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Trivia buffs, brace yourselves.

The TV station at Linden Ponds is putting together a quiz show that will provide a chance for contestants—and viewers— to test their knowledge.

Big ideas
 Frances Galton, who lives at Linden Ponds, was watching TV Six last summer when she saw Brooksby Village’s quiz show, “Whaddya Know?”

Galton says, “I brought it up in a meeting of the channel six and 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.”

After months of preparation that even prompted a brainstorming session with Brooksby Village (Linden Ponds’ sister community in Peabody), the “Linden Ponds Quiz Show” is set to begin taping.

“Whaddya Know?”
“We got a lot of very good ideas from them,” Galton reports of the meeting between her committee and the “Whaddya Know?” crew at Brooksby earlier this winter.

Brooksby’s half-hour show, which features three rounds and a final question,  has been entertaining faithful audiences for about two years. “Whaddya Know?” master of ceremonies John Murphy, who lives at Brooksby, says part of the allure of the popular program comes from the familiarity of quiz shows among his age group. “Quiz shows were started by people in our generation,” he says. “For us it is an intellectual challenge.”

Historical challenge
Quiz shows emerged as 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.