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Billiards: More Than a Game, It’s a Game Show

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Earlier this year, English game show host Tom O’Connor sadly passed. One of the shows he hosted, though it never aired, was Pick Pockets, which paired traditional trivia with snooker and featured top players. 

Today, it’s beyond fanciful to imagine a game show dedicated to billiards. Especially in the US, no players are household names. Ask most people about billiards and they’ll stare confusedly at you. To my knowledge, Jeopardy! was the last game show to feature billiards. That was in 2014 with the elementary Pool Shots category.

But, while modern game shows have not been kind to billiards, TV game show history tells a more complicated story that echoes the rising and receding popularity of our favorite cue sport.

Ten-TwentyThe first billiards-themed game show was ABC’s Ten-Twenty, which aired in 1959 and lasted approximately 13 weeks. Conceived by billiards evangelist and promoter Frank Oliva, Ten-Twenty was intended to bring pool out of the murky pool halls. Quite the challenge as this was still two years before both the movie The Hustler popularized the sport and the brothers Jansco organized the first Johnston City Hustler Jamborees. 

Ten-Twenty pitted top players of the era, such as “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore and Irving “The Deacon” Crane, against one another in games compressed for 30-minute television watching intervals.  Though Ten-Twenty was hardly a national success, the fact it ever aired is downright impressive.

The first billiards tie-in that I could find occurred one year earlier, when World Straight Pool Champion Willie Mosconi appeared on To Tell the Truth in 1958. Mosconi subsequently appeared on I’ve Got a Secret (1962) and What’s My Line? (1962), in which celebrity panelists questioned contestants to determine their occupations. Perhaps, it was a harbinger of the future that none of the panelists successfully guessed Mosconi’s job.

Celebrity BilliardsOther billiards players similarly appeared on these celebrity panel shows, including a six-year-old Jean Balukas on I’ve Got a Secret in 1966, but the next big step in the billiards-themed medium was Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros in 1967, followed by the more successful Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats in 1968.  Fats, the quintessential showman and impresario, was the perfect host for a game show in which he entertained audiences by playing celebrities for charity. The game show ran for four seasons, and starred a who’s-who of the era’s A-listers.

But, by the early ‘70s, America’s appetite had waned. Indeed, it took 16 years before another billiards game show appeared. This time it was in the UK, where snooker was truly catching fire, as evidenced by 18 million TV viewers watching the 1985 World Snooker Championship. In 1984, the Stuart Hall hosted quiz show Pot the Question launched.  Contestants were paired up with a snooker player, and the points per question were determined by what the snooker player potted. 

Big Break - billiards game showSurprisingly, Pot the Question only lasted one season. The aforementioned Pick Pockets was the next attempt to cash in on snooker’s popularity, but that too failed.  It took a few more years before the BBC’s Big Break nailed the formula, launching by far the most popular billiards-themed game show, with 222 episodes across 11 seasons. 

Hosted by off-color comedian Jim Davidson and former snooker player John Virgo, Big Break paired three contestants with three professional snooker players in a series of rounds that combined trivia and snooker play. Many of the snooker giants of the era – e.g., Dennis Taylor, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, and Allison Fisher — appeared on Big Break.

Beat the SharkBack in the US, billiards was back in the shadows. The sport had disappeared from game shows, with 2002 being the one outlier. That year, in the “Billiards for Gross Eats” episode of Fear Factor, contestants were given a cue ball to sink four balls in five shots. The missed balls had pictures of the gastronomic horrors they would have to eat.  In the “Beat the Shark” episode of Dog Eat Dog, a contestant competed against a billiards professional to sink four balls before he cleared two tables.  It didn’t help that the opponent was Dave “The Ginger Wizard” Pearson, who set the Guinness World Record by potting two consecutive racks of 15 pool balls in 82 seconds.

In 2005, what many hoped would provide an industry resurgence proved to be the final nail in the coffin. That game show was Ballbreakers. Executive produced by Mars Callahan, director of Poolhall Junkies, and featuring commentary by Ewa Mataya Laurance, the show consisted of contestants competing in 9-ball for a chance to win $20,000. Intended to be the “coolest pool show ever,” according to its creator, Ballbreakers was an unmitigated disaster, lasting only one season and proving there is no joy watching amateur players compete in 9-ball. 

Assuming Jeopardy! emerges from its current PR apocalypse and begin its 38th season, I have a suggestion – or more precisely, an answer — for whomever replaces Mike Richard as executive producer.  

This sport, often maligned and portrayed unfairly in popular culture, is overdue for some recognition.

Answer: What is Billiards?

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This article first appeared in BCA Insider, BCA Holiday Issue, November 1, 2021.

Dog Eat Dog – “Beat the Shark”

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As evidenced by the 32 biographies that comprise David Baber’s 2009 book Television Game Show Hosts, the game show host had been, until recently, a celebrity vocation ruled almost exclusively by men. (Case in point: there are no women featured in Baber’s book.) Then, at the start of the millennium, several women finally grabbed the microphone. They included Anne Robinson, the host of the Weakest Link; Meredith Vieira, the host of the syndicated version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire; and Brooke Burns, the host of Dog Eat Dog, an NBC import that included a famous “Beat the Shark” billiards challenge as part of its first season in July, 2002.

Beat the Shark

Host Brooke Burns (center) with contestant Anastasia Normandin and British billiards sensation Dave Pearson.

While the choice of Ms. Burns helped dismantle the male game show host archetype, the decision to hire the 5’8” former fashion model and star of Baywatch was more likely intended to help NBC build momentum on top of its already popular and superior Fear Factor, a reality game show that similarly tasked eye-pleasing contestants with competing in a variety of physically and mentally challenging stunts (including a billiards-themed sequence in the “Billiards for Gross Eats” episode). Dog Eat Dog, too, often asked contestants to strip down to bathing suits, or in the case of playing Strip Quarterback, disrobe to nothing at all, for a chance to win $25,000. Thus, it’s no surprise that a show marketing the physical bodies of its contestants would, in turn, select a host equally gorgeous and marketable.

Beat the SharkOn each episode of Dog Eat Dog, the six contestants vied in a series of physical competitions, trivia challenges, and assorted games. For the “Beat the Shark” sequence, contestant Anastasia Normandin is chosen by the other players to compete in a round of speed pool against Dave “The Ginger Wizard” Pearson, a British billiards player, who shortly after the airing of the episode set a new Guinness World Record by potting two consecutive racks of 15 pool balls in 82 seconds. (He currently owns four world records, though he has set 20 of them in his billiards career.) In the sequence, Ms. Normandin must sink four balls on her table before Mr. Pearson clears two full tables.

The results are highly amusing and sadly predictable. Mr. Pearson moves around the table like a man on fire, shooting effortlessly and never missing a single shot; Ms. Normandin struggles to set up shots, fumbles with a cue stick, and seems incapable of making even the simplest ball-in-pocket. As a result, she is sent to the “Dog Pound,” like the other contestants who failed before her in earlier games. The full sequence is available to watch here.

In addition to “Beat the Shark,” the seventh episode included “Treadmill Trivia” (answering general knowledge questions while running on a treadmill suspended over a water tank); “Ladder Wheel” (climbing around a large wheel while removing flags); the aforementioned “Strip Quarterback” (trading articles of clothing for footballs which must be thrown through an elevated hole in a tower); and “Hang in There” (suspending from handle bars in the air while “rain” pours down).

Dog Eat Dog only lasted two seasons. (There is speculation that the show’s demise was inevitable after one former contestant sued NBC after he was hospitalized and had alleged brain damage resulting from losing consciousness during a particular underwater stunt.[1])

Since the cancellation of Dog Eat Dog, Ms. Burns had continued to host game shows, most recently The Chase on the Game Show Network. Mr. Pearson has continued to try to break his own world records on the billiards table. Last October, he flew into Ozone Billiards in Kennesaw, Georgia to try to beat his 10 table record in eight minutes and 51 seconds.[2] Unfortunately, I can find no further information on Ms. Normandin. Apparently, the humiliating defeat was more than she could bear.

Special thanks to Mike L for alerting me to this particular billiards television episode!

[1] https://gameshows.fandom.com/wiki/Dog_Eat_Dog

[2] http://www.azbilliards.com/news/stories/11582-the-ginger-wizard-goes-for-world-record-at-ozone-for-cancer-charity/

Ten-Twenty

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It is difficult today to conceive the challenge billiards evangelist and promoter Frank Oliva, and his partner, sportscaster “Whispering” Joe Wilson, faced in launching the billiards game-show Ten-Twenty in 1959.

Ten-TwentyBilliards columnist George Fels captured the time period well: “There was no The Hustler except in fiction form, where it barely created a ripple. There was no Johnson City or its hustlers’ jamborees, therefore no “Minnesota Fats” in the national eye, nor his fabled rivalry with all-time champion Willie Mosconi. In other words, the two men had absolutely no momentum of any kind going for them to support the pitching of their idea.”[1]

Fortunately, Oliva was a hustler – not the pejorative version that has become the archetype of billiards players in movies, but the unwavering type, who would pursue a goal with bottomless passion and courageous conviction.

In describing his mentor and teacher in an AZ Billiards Forum message thread years ago, Scott Lee (of Pool Knowledge) said, “Frank [Oliva] was an innovator, a master teacher…and an all-around good guy, who loved pool…All he ever wanted was to help pool players find a way to make legitimate money at pool, without having to resort to gambling.”

Oliva recognized that for billiards to achieve public popularity, it must expand beyond the pool parlor scene to the television screen. Bowling provided a great analog and forerunner. In the late 1950s, ten-pin bowling went mainstream, entering millions of homes on Friday nights, thanks to hugely popular televised shows like Jackpot Bowling.

Ten-TwentyThe key was how to translate billiards to the television medium. In 1958, Oliva created a new game, Ten-Twenty, that was a variation of classic 14-1 straight pool. Each match consisted of eight innings of play. Each player could score up to 10 points each per inning. In the eighth inning, if a player scored 10 points, he could continue shooting for an extra 20 points. A perfect match score would be 100 points. Fouls would cost 1 point each. The matches were timed and if it ended before the eighth inning, the scores would be taken from the last fully completed inning. The full rules are available here. Oliva’s brilliance was acknowledging the need for time constraints, and then introducing the concept of timed play to professional pool in a way that could substantially, yet fairly, impact the outcome.

But, creating the game was only the first of many challenges. To pitch it to a broadcasting network, Oliva had to prove there was sufficient interest and financial support. Oliva successfully wrangled 82 different billiards parlors from the Chicago area to pitch in. (Many years later, Oliva elaborated, “Brunswick was main sponsor of the show, along with several distributors, manufacturers, and billiards rooms…Some that I remember were Hanson Billiard Mfg, Sydney Laner Co, and National Billiards…we probably had more sponsors than any show since.”[2])

Finally, there was the issue of player support. Unlike future US billiards game shows (i.e. Ballbreakers), Ten-Twenty was not designed for amateurs; it was intended to attract the top players of the era. The lure of playing on television of course helped, but so did the financial rewards. The best players could win more than $1000 ($8,160 inflated in today’s real dollars), or even $5000 for a perfect game.   And, since “each week’s winner would return the following week to do battle with a new qualifying top contender, seldom did anyone hold the championship beyond two weeks.”[3]

Ten-Twenty

Frank Oliva

This model would prove successful in attracting a who’s-who among billiards greats. Some of the players that appeared on the show included Joe Procita, Joe Diehl, Don Tozer, Charlie Cacciapaglia, Mike Eufemia, Cisero Murphy, Nick Oliva, “Little” Joey Canton, Jimmy Caras, Willis Covington, “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore, and Irving “The Deacon” Crane.

Armed with a masterful game design, a battalion of sponsors, and a commitment from many of the country’s leading pool-players, Oliva was able to convince WBKB, an ABC affiliate in Chicago, to air Ten-Twenty, starting in 1959. The 30-minute show ran was picked up in many cities, though it never achieved national syndication. Oliva played the role of show producer, referee and player recruiter. His partner, “Whispering” Joe Wilson, who was the Howard Cosell of sports-casting in the 1950s and 1960s, provided the sotto voce play-by-play.

Most of the Ten-Twenty episodes are no longer available (and sadly may no longer exist), but fortunately the entire match between “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore and Irving “The Deacon” Crane is available on YouTube split across five separate clips. You can watch them here.

For those not up on their billiards history, Moore and Crane were two of the world’s best. Moore, a straight-pool master, who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America’s Hall of Fame in 1994, won the United States National Pocket Billiards Championship in 1958. (He was also a technical advisor on billiards-related scenes in television and film, including My Living Doll and The Family Jewels.) Crane, another straight-pool master, won numerous championships, including six World Crown billiards titles in his career. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978.

Ten-TwentyThis particular episode not only showcased their incredible skill (a jubilant Wilson remarks at one point, “[That was] one of the greatest shots I’ve ever seen.”), buy also showed how even the greatest can make simple mistakes (check out the rare miss by Crane in Part 4 at 2:33). It also serves as an interesting time capsule, with its public service announcement from top leading man Jeff Chandler about mental illness, which he describes as “America’s number one health problem,” as well as its advertisement for ABC’s new show about the supernatural, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond.

Sadly, Ten-Twenty was short-lived, lasting maybe 13 weeks in total.[4] There are scant details available about why the show did not experience the same trajectory of success that occurred in bowling game shows like Jackpot Bowling and Make That Spare.  It would require two more years before billiards truly burst into the public imagination with the release of The Hustler in 1961.

Nor was our real hustler, Frank Oliva, deterred for long. His passion for billiards led him to found and organize in the Oliva Women’s Pool League, the country’s most enduring, women’s billiard league. And, his determination to get billiards its deserved national audience also led him back to television in 1967, when he partnered once again with Wilson to launch the game show Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros.

[1]       “November: Pool, Meet TV,” George Fels, Billiards Digest, November 2011.

[2]       “Frank Oliva,” Pool & Billiards Magazine, November 1986

[3]       “A tribute to the King of televised championship billiards in America,” by Jim Parker.

[4]       There is some confusion about how long the show ran. Various sources I checked said it lasted 8 episodes, 13 weeks, or 2 years.

Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats

It’s been almost 18 years since his passing, and an incredible 45 years since his television show Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats first aired.  But, watching the three episodes just released last month on DVD by VCI Entertainment, one instantly recalls his larger-than-life presence, both in his physical girth (at times as much as 300 pounds) and in his verbal swagger and elocution, to say nothing of his pool-playing bravado.

Celebrity BilliardsRunning for four seasons, from 1967-1971, Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats was, quite literally, celebrities playing billiards (for charity) with Minnesota Fats.  Until VCI released the DVD, I had never seen a full episode, though partial clips existed online.  The low-budget set, even by late ‘60s standards, featured a single pool table surrounded by a horseshoe of audience members a few rows deep.  Each episode featured Minnesota Fats, the “world’s most accomplished billiards player” (or some variation of such hyperbole), playing a form of billiards against one of the popular comedians or actors of that era.  The celebrity was given an agreed-upon handicap, and if the celebrity won, s/he got $1000 (about $6700 in today’s dollars) toward the charity of her/his choice; if s/he lost, then $500. At the end of the game, which was shown in its entirety, “Mr. Fats” then demonstrated a series of trick shots, sometimes successfully, other times not. Most of these shots felt impromptu and intimate between him and his celebrity guest, and in all the episodes I watched, the credits rolled even as he was continuing to share shots.

Before delving into the three specific matches on the VCI DVD, it’s worth providing some context around this show, and its master impresario.  To start, in 1961, the movie The Hustler was released, which had two notable effects.  First, participation in billiards skyrocketed. “Sales of equipment soared. The number of pool halls doubled. Organized billiards boomed. Even television sports began to cover straight pool matches,” according to one Chicago Tribune article.

Bank Shot and Other Great RobberiesSecond, in introducing the world to the fictional Minnesota Fats (played by Jackie Gleason), it enabled Rudolf Wanderone Jr., a traveling pool hustler from New York City, to claim the name as his own, forever mixing fact and fiction.   And with the Minnesota Fats moniker, the former Wanderone, a decent but largely unknown billiards player, became a household name, parlaying his fame into every facet of media, from magazine articles (Sport Illustrated) to autobiographies (The Bank Shot, and Other Great Robberies) to instructional books (Minnesota Fats Plays Pool) to television (The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) and later, even to movies (The Player).

Also, it had been more than a decade since Ten-Twenty, the last billiards game show.  And with the popularity of bowling shows, such as Jackpot Bowling, on the air, it was the perfect time to try the billiards game show format again, this time with its own superstar, who used to pass out stamped autographed trading cards proclaiming himself “the greatest pool player ever.” Pairing the portly propagandist with celebrities equally made sense, given the success of game shows prominently featuring celebrities, like Hollywood Squares, which debuted in 1966. On top of it all, pool had emerged at this time as the “number one sport in Hollywood, according to some news media.

In the four seasons of Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats, a who’s-who of the era’s A-listers came on the show, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Bill Cosby, Mickey Rooney, and Phyllis Diller.  Apparently, in the show’s pilot episode, James “Maverick” Garner came on, allegedly a reputable pool hustler in his own right, and actually beat Fats, winning the $1000 charity prize.

The newly-released VCI DVD features three episodes from 1971.  In the first episode, Fats plays the comedian Groucho Mark (sans cigar) in 9-ball, giving him the break plus three subsequent shots.  Marx’s game is okay, but his one-liners, such as “It wouldn’t hurt you to practice once in a while,” are classic.  After Fats wins, he reveals to Marx a number of trick shots, though he misses a handful, prompting Marx to reply, “You want to apologize?”  Some of this episode is available to watch below on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/tZFqhx0Aymo

In the next episode, Fats plays the folk-singing comedians, the Smother Brothers, in a game of “Last Ball,” in which players take turns pocketing balls, but the winner is the one who sinks the last ball.  The Smother Brothers played as a team, effectively getting two turns for every one turn Fats got.  Though the games were presided over by commentator Tim Travers, it’s Fats who provides the real play-by-play, such as describing Dick Smothers’ narrow miss as a “good boy who got in some bad company.” Fats also showcases some beautiful trick shots, including a “kiss, bank, kiss three-cushion” shot.

In the final episode, Fats plays “Mr. Television” Milton Berle in a game of three-cushion billiards, in which Berle is given a three point head-start.  Berle admits to picking this lesser-known variation of billiards because he thought Fats lack of familiarity with the game would give Berle an advantage. This episode tends to lag, as both players struggle to earn points.  Though it is rather amusing when Fats attempts to explain the diamond system to Berle in what comes across as near-dizzying calculus.

The DVD with these three episodes is available to buy on Amazon.