I was researching the famous quiz show scandals ("64,000 Question,” “21”) of the Fifties when I came across, on goliath.com, these examples of how contestants of later game shows scammed the producers. Thought you might be amused:

Adriana Abenia is a model who is most notable for appearing on the front cover of FHM. During her appearance on the Spanish game show Pasapalabra, contestants had to correctly state the title and artists of several songs that played. As it turns out, the model had a phone hidden between her legs and on the phone was “Shazam,” which is an app that can identify any song being played. Abenia claims that she was embarrassed by her lack of musical knowledge, and then admitted during recording that she had her phone hidden between her legs.

“Patrick Quinn” won a whopping $58,000 on Super Password in 1988, but his fortune turned out to be fairly short lived. “Patrick Quinn” was actually Kerry Dee Ketchum, a fugitive who was wanted in three states. A viewer recognized him, and tipped off the authorities. Ketchum was arrested when he showed up to claim his prize money. Ketchum was sentenced to five years in prison for faking his wife’s death to collect on a $100,000 insurance policy.

In a 1978 episode of The Dating Game, Cheryl Bradshaw found herself a winner, but in reality, she didn’t win at all. She won a “date” with convicted rapist and registered sex offender, Rodney James Alcala. Host Jim Lange introduced Alcala as a successful photographer, and not the serial killer that he was. Thankfully, Bradshaw refused to go out with Alcala, calling him “creepy.” Alcala is now on death row in California for his conviction on five murders counts and was actively killing and at large during his appearance on the show.

I well remember those 50's quiz shows and their respective scandals. I wasn't aware of the subsequent ones though.

That last one about the Dating Game made my skin crawl, TB. I guess they didn't do much research on contestants back then!

I thought the movie Quiz Show about the 21 scandal was very well done. Rob Morrow and Ralph Fiennes were terrific, but John Torturro as the guy who was made to take a dive so that the more appealing Van Doren could win was really great.

There was also the Who Wants TBA Millionaire coughing major scam here in the UK.
https://youtu.be/BBWR0I9LbOQ