Dotto
Dotto
| 06 January 1958 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 1
  • Reviews
    rusher-3

    As a ten-year-old TV junkie during television's golden age, this show was one of my favorites. It was fun to try and solve the puzzles before either my parents or the contestants could. Sometimes, I actually succeeded. I can even remember the theme music (played by and organist on the daytime version, and a full orchestra on the night-time version). Genial host Jack Narz was a true professional -- a pleasant alternative to the boorish Jack Barry of "Twenty-One" and "Tic-Tac-Dough". But my favorite memory of the night-time version was when they rolled out that big '58 Lincoln convertible on stage for the weekly drawing of postcards sent in by home viewers. "Send in a postcard and you could win it". I sent in five every week, keeping my fingers crossed that one week, I might be the lucky winner. Of course, I never was. Then came that fateful evening when, expecting to see "Dotto", an announcer proclaims "Dotto, usually seen at this time, will never be seen again. In its place will be 'The Colgate Theater'". The show had been hastily pulled and replaced by a temporary series of failed pilots. I was crushed. My hopes of winning that big Lincoln were gone forever.

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    bncshapiro

    In addition to contestants being given answers to the game's questions, I am positive that some were provided the solutions to the puzzles to be solved. I distinctly recall seeing an episode as a young teen where a contestant correctly "guessed" a puzzle without answering a single question correctly. There were no dots connected at all, but the contestant "guessed" Charlie McCarthy which was the puzzle solution. Her only response to a flabbergasted audience was that the puzzle "didn't look human." Even as a naive 13-year-old, I sensed coming up with that answer to a 50-dot puzzle without any lines at all had to be fishy....Bob Shapiro Goleta CA

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    Michael Daly

    "Dotto" was a peripheral series in the quiz-show crush of the 1950s. It was hosted by Jack Narz, of later "Beat The Clock" and "Concentration" fame. But "Dotto" proved the be a fateful series in the budding scandal of quiz-show rigging by networks; during taping of one episode, a standby contestant was waiting backstage when he chanced to notice the show's defending champion reading a book that contained the answers to the show's questions. After this was revealed and "Dotto" abruptly cancelled, the experience led to the much-delayed revelations of "Twenty-One" fall guy Herb Stempel on quiz-show rigging.

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