The $64,000 Question is an American game show broadcast from 1955–1958, which became embroiled in the scandals involving TV quiz shows of the day. The $64,000 Challenge (1956–1958) was its popular spin-off show.

The $64,000 Question had its roots in the CBS radio quiz show, Take It or Leave It, which followed in the wake of the pioneering Professor Quiz (radio's first quiz program) and Uncle Jim's Question Bee (the second radio quiz show). Take It or Leave It ran from April 21, 1940 to July 27, 1947. It was first hosted by Bob Hawk (1940–41), followed by Phil Baker (1941–47). In 1947, the series switched to NBC, hosted at various times by Baker, Garry Moore (1947–49), Eddie Cantor (1949–50) and Jack Paar (beginning June 11, 1950). On September 10, 1950, Take It or Leave It changed its title to The $64 Question. Paar continued as host, followed by Baker (March–December 1951) and Paar (back on December 1951). The series continued on NBC Radio until June 1, 1952.

On both Take It or Leave It and The $64 Question, contestants were asked questions devised by the series' writer-researcher Edith Oliver. She attempted to make each question slightly more difficult than the preceding one. After answering a question correctly, the contestant had the choice to "take" the prize for that question or "leave it" in favor of a chance at the next question. The first question was worth one dollar, and the value doubled for each successive question, up to the seventh and final question worth $64.

Martha Raye (August 27, 1916 – October 19, 1994) was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television. She was honored in 1969 with an Academy Award as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer efforts and services to the troops.

Raye's life as a singer and comedic performer began very early in her childhood. She was born at St. James Hospital, in Butte, Montana as Margy Reed, where her Irish immigrant parents, Peter F. Reed and Maybelle Hooper, were performing at a local vaudeville theatre as "Reed and Hooper." Two days after Martha was born, her mother was already back on stage, and Martha first appeared in their act when she was three years old. She performed with her brother, Bud, and soon the two children became such a highlight that the act was renamed "Margie and Bud." Some show business insiders speculated that the Judy Garland song from A Star Is Born, "I was born in a trunk in the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho" was inspired by Raye's beginnings.

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante. Bankhead was also known for her deep voice, flamboyant personality, romances with men and women, and support of liberal causes, which broke with the tendency of Southern Democrats at the time to support a more conservative agenda. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1981.

Bankhead was born in Huntsville, Alabama, to William Brockman Bankhead and Adelaide Eugenia "Ada" Bankhead (née Sledge). The event took place on the second floor of what is now known as the Isaac Schiffman Building; a marker has been erected to commemorate the site and, in 1980, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. "Tallu" was named after her paternal grandmother. Her mother died as a result of blood poisoning on February 23, 1902, shortly after Tallulah's birth, and is buried in Huntsville's historic Maple Hill Cemetery. Tallulah has been described as "an extremely homely child", overweight and with a deep, husky voice resulting from chronic bronchitis. However, others described her as an exhibitionist, performer, personality, and star from the very beginning.

Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American comedian, vaudevillian, radio, television, and film actor, and also a notable violinist. Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny played the role of the comic penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, and often playing the violin badly.

Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!" His radio and television programs, tremendously popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, were a foundational influence on the situation comedy genre. Dean Martin, on the celebrity roast for Johnny Carson in November 1973, introduced Benny as "the Satchel Paige of the world of comedy".

Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky on February 14, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Waukegan, Illinois. He was the son of Meyer Kubelsky and Emma Sachs Kubelsky. Meyer was a Jewish saloon owner, later to become a haberdasher, who had emigrated to America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. Benny began studying the violin, an instrument that would become his trademark, when he was just six, with his parents' hopes that he would be a great classical violinist. He loved the violin, but hated practice. By age 14, he was playing in local dance bands as well as in his high school orchestra. Benny was a dreamer and a poor student and he was expelled from high school. He did equally badly in business school and at his father's trade. At age 17, he began playing the instrument in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week. He was joined by Ned Miller, a young composer and singer, on the vaudeville circuit. They became life-long friends and Miller eventually joined the cast of The Jack Benny Program in the 1960s.

Irwin "Sonny" Fox (born June 17, 1925) is an American television host, executive and broadcasting consultant, who was the fourth full-time host of the children's television program, Wonderama.

Born June 17, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York, Fox is a World War II veteran, whose first experience in children's programming came in 1954, with a St. Louis program, The Finder on KETC-TV, a children's news and travelogue program. His first national exposure came when CBS brought him aboard in 1955 to co-host the children's travelogue, Let's Take a Trip... live, remote location, no audience, no sponsors", Fox himself described that show, during interviews for PBS's The American Experience.^{[citation needed]}

Fox became the first host of The $64,000 Challenge, the game show spinoff of The $64,000 Question, in 1956, but he was fired a few weeks into the series and replaced by Ralph Story, reportedly because he simply was not as funny or bright hosting the game as he was in person, according to producers. Fox himself admitted later (in the same PBS interviews, regarding the quiz show scandal of 1958-1959), that he was so awkward he "had a predilection for asking the answers."^{[citation needed]}