Upped Ante

The inevitable descended last week upon CBS's $64,000 Question. Rival NBC announced a new program, scheduled to start Oct. 8. Its name: The Big Surprise. Its jackpot: $100,000. Not too surprisingly, Surprise comes from the same fertile source as Question--the inventive office of Louis G. Cowan.

Surprise will not only toss around nearly twice as much money as Question; it also promises to be at least twice as complicated. Containing elements of Talent Scouts, telephone quizzes, and the bygone "Miss Hush" mysteries of radio's Truth and Consequences, Surprise will ask viewers to supply the name of someone who is about to receive a surprise--a promotion, a plaque, a reunion with relatives, in fact, anything at all. The "surprise" will then be shown on the program, and that clears the way for one of those concerned--either the surprisee, the talent scout, or some people selected by a new electronic machine--to answer a riddle for $100,000.

Though The Big Surprise is produced by Louis G. Cowan Inc., Lou Cowan insists that he had nothing to do with it. Early last month, Cowan resigned from (but retained a financial interest in) his own company to go on the payroll of CBS as one of the network's resident geniuses (TIME, Aug. 22). Surprise has been largely handled by the Cowan executive vice president, Steve Carlin, who claims he can discover a further difference between the two programs. Says Carlin, with deadpan seriousness: "Despite the $100,000 payoff, The Big Surprise will not be, strictly speaking, a quiz show; rather, it is a novelty show, based in the main on human interest."

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