End of TV quiz show disappoints

By Bob Dunn
Staff Writer

Published on September 29, 2006

For generations of Pioneer Valley residents, the sounds of Leroy Anderson's 'Bugler's Holiday' meant three things: It was Saturday night, it was 7:30 and 'As Schools Match Wits' was on.

The show, which began airing on WWLP in Springfield in 1962, billed itself as 'America's longest running high school quiz show.' That run ended this year when WWLP decided this month to cancel the program, making that iconic bugler's holiday permanent.

'I thought it would go on forever,' said Phil Shepardson, the show's original host from 1962 to 1991.

Shepardson, who is now a professor in the Communication Arts program at St. Thomas University at Miami, hadn't learned of the show's cancellation until contacted by phone to comment for this story. He was disappointed to hear of the show's demise.

WWLP said that the show was canceled due to a new FCC regulation that requires all programming to be closed captioned. WWLP said that the station did not have the staffing, time or equipment necessary to comply with those regulations and decided to pull the plug.

Shepardson, who boasts that he started hosting the show one year before Johnny Carson took over hosting duties on 'The Tonight Show' and retired one year before Carson did, said that the reason the show was so popular and lasted so long was due to a simple formula.

'Pace and people,' Shepardson said, 'It worked.'

Shepardson said that the secret of compelling television is that people like to watch people.

'Especially people in conflict,' he said.

Shepardson said his approach to the show was to treat it like a sporting event.

One thing that fans of the show remember was the difficulty of the questions that students were asked.

For the first 19 years of his tenure, Shepardson worked with producer Leonard 'Bunky' Collamore to come up with the show's questions.

For his final 10 years, Shepardson wrote the formidable questions himself.

'We wanted the show to have high standards,' Shepardson said. 'This was not a trivia show.'

Shepardson said that by keeping the difficulty level of the questions high, he felt that the students would rise to the challenge.

'I felt I wanted to do a quality program with a high standard of questions,' Shepardson said. 'Not surface kind of stuff.'

Keeping the questions at college level or above paid benefits to the schools that would participate as well.

Shepardson said that a lot of colleges would watch the show and keep track of which high schools from the area were turning out the most knowledgeable students.

Shepardson said he can't recall exactly who decided on the show's indelible theme music, but that people from the area always associated it with 'Wits,' much the same way people link the 'William Tell Overture' to 'The Lone Ranger' television program.

Shepardson said that whenever fans of the show heard 'Bugler's Holiday' performed by an orchestra like the Boston Pops, they would tend to think that they were paying homage to the show, not playing the piece for it's own sake.

While Shepardson admits he's not always pleased with television, he still holds it in high regard.

'It's still a grand medium,' Shepardson said. 'The power of it is extraordinary.'

From his office in Miami, Shepardson maintains a great deal of pride when discussing 'Wits.'

'It proved it's point,' he said. 'It lasted 46 years, you've got to be pretty proud of that.'

Robert Dunn can be reached at RDunn@gazettenet.com.