On Italian TV prime time viewing is taken up by the quiz show. The current RAI 1 schedule, before the evening news at eight, presents the quiz show called “l’eredita”’ (the inheritance) presented by Flavio Insinna. This show concentrates on words and general knowledge and can be viewed in a truly educational light. For example, there’s a question dealing with vocabulary; unusual words are given a variety of meanings and the contestants have to guess the correct one. Then there are two words linked by a third whose letters remain hidden and are only gradually revealed, lessening the number of points scored of course. If anyone is learning Italian or just interested in the language l’eredita’, which has been running since 2002, is truly educational fun.
RAI has a long history of quiz shows starting with the iconic ‘Lascia o Raddoppia’ (leave or double your money) presented by Mike Bongiorno, based on the American ‘the 64,000 dollar question’ show and first broadcast in 1955, the year after TV transmission in Italy started.
I recently discovered a fascinating vignette about this show relating to the Avant Garde composer John Cage. In 1959 Cage was a participant answering questions on mycology (mushrooms) and winning 5 million lire (around 40,000 euros in today’s money). During the show he performed in a concert called “Water Walk”, under the astonished eyes of Mike Bongiorno and the Italian public, in which the “instruments” were, among others, a bathtub, a watering can, five radios, a piano, ice cubes, a steamer and a vase of flowers.
The dialogue that took place between Bongiorno and Cage when he took his leave was as follows:
MB: “Very good, good good good good. Good very good, good Cage. Well, Mr. Cage has undoubtedly shown us that he knew about mushrooms … so it wasn’t just a character who came to this stage to make some wacky performances of wacky music, so he’s really a prepared character. I knew that because I remember he told us he lived in the country near New York and every day went for walks and picked mushrooms. ”
J.C .: “Thanks to … mushrooms, and to RAI and to all the people of Italy”.
M.B .: “To all the people of Italy. Goodbye Mr. Cage, goodbye and have a good trip, will you go back to America or will you stay here?”.
J.C .: “My music remains here”.
M.B .: “Ah, so you go away and your music remains here, but the opposite would be preferable: that is if your music went away and you remain here”.
Of course Cage’s music must have sounded rather more unpalatable to a fifties Italian audience brought up on Claudio Villa and Verdi. Sadly no recording remains of the concert apart from a few photos.
Regarding my own participation in TV quiz shows: that’s another story and for another post…