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It Pays to Be Ignorant #452: Herbert Polesie Papers

It Pays to Be Ignorant made its debut on radio in 1942. Described as “the buffoon’s version of a quiz show”, the program had a nine-year run. Director Herbert Polesie was involved with both the radio and the televised versions of the program.

The show was a spoof on popular quiz shows of the era. A panel of three comics made increasingly ludicrous attempts to answer questions like “How long does it take a ship to make a five-day journey?” The humorous answers were full of puns and one-liners. Tom Howard served as the ever more exasperated quizmaster.

Listen to this sound clip from the beginning of a show.

It Pays to Be Ignorant - Herbert Polesie Papers clip1.mp3

You can study scripts from the It Pays to Be Ignorant radio show in the Herbert Polesie papers at UW’s American Heritage Center site.