CLEVELAND — That’s the buzzer. That’s the game. And this season’s winner of Academic Challenge is…
Oh, if these walls could talk. These walls at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 30th Street in Downtown Cleveland. They would tell you the stories of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends and family. Thousands of them walked through the halls of the historic WEWS building and screamed and cheered at the top of their lungs. They banged their feet in celebration and felt the joy of victory, community and pride on the set of Academic Challenge. All 57 seasons have brought together schools from all over Northeast Ohio. These walls hold history, and they continue to hear and see the stories of generations of families brought together by this amazing tradition.
I walked inside these walls almost 33 years ago. I couldn’t believe I was standing on the set of Academic Challenge. That I was going to work on its production. Everyone knew Academic Challenge. If you lived in Cleveland, you knew. Back then, we would shoot the show over a few weekends, ushering flocks of families in and out, sometimes taping five shows in an afternoon.
My job was to run the prompter and change all the students’ names with a giant crate of Velcro letters. The script was many sheets of paper that I would carefully tape together to hand roll on an old conveyor belt under an upside-down camera.
Our host back then was legendary News 5 weatherman Don Webster. I’m not sure if people were more excited about being on the show or just meeting Don.
The energy show after show was electric. People get to come here. Be within these walls. Be a part of something they’ve known since they were little. See their kids compete. Be a part of something special. It was always a long day for the crew, but it was special for us, too.
Something about this show just hits different. Every tight shot of mom and dad. Every peek at themselves on the monitor by baby bro or big sis, you can feel the excitement. It’s not just a weekly high school quiz show. It’s a tradition passed down from parents to kids and sisters to brothers. It’s bragging rights. It’s bonding with other folks that have been on the show, and IYKYK.
Flash forward over 30 years, and we are still here doing it. Faces have changed. The technology has advanced. But at its core, it’s still about the excitement that happens within these walls.
Current host and News 5 anchor Rob Powers feels it.
“I tell people all the time – this is the truth. My heroes walked these halls. My heroes sat at that desk. My heroes also hosted Academic Challenge. To have watched the show growing up and at this stage of my life, to be able to host the show means the world to me,” he said.
When asked about what he likes most about working on the show, Rob says it’s about family.
“It's just seeing, hey, my dad was on the show. Or, my uncle was on the show. It's really neat. Yeah, I think he sat in this chair. There's families with siblings and their uncles and aunts. And how, when someone comes on, they're like, ‘Can you get me a clip of that footage? Can you show me that footage?’”
It has always meant something for all the people who work on it as well. To see the faces of the families when they walk in the door. Seeing the kids getting ready. Some nervous. Some not so much. The atmosphere changes when the lights come up, and it’s time to record. From the studio to the control room, there’s just a feeling. A feeling like this is something special.
Producer/director Marc Boardman, another WEWS lifer, feels it too.
“The end of the show, when the audience is congratulating the teams, I go into the studio, and just seeing everybody happy and smiling, and the kids are having a good time, and they're ripping their name tags out so they can take them. It’s just a piece of paper with their names printed on it, but they want them. They want pictures with Cliff and pictures with Rob, and to see that everybody had a nice time, a good time, is probably my favorite part,” Marc said.
Oh, yeah, Cliff. Cliff Banks is the master of ceremonies. Our esteemed floor director. The man whose voice you can always hear echo throughout these walls. His laughter and joy for what he does make it even more special.
“My favorite part of the show is when the kids first come in, and I get to talk to them because they come in, and they're really nervous,” Cliff said. “They're really tight. And they come in, they sit down at this podium, and now they're in front of the lights, in front of the cameras, in front of their parents, in front of their grandparents, and they're like, what the heck? How did I get here? What's going on? And everyone is really nervous, right? It's my favorite part because by the end of the time I'm done talking to them, they're not nervous anymore, or way less nervous, and they're ready to go.”
Marc was the show’s floor director for many years before taking on producer/director duties in 2019. He feels the responsibility we have to the history and importance of this show.
“I think the coolest thing is when they find out (their child will be on the show), and they tell you, I was on that, and they start talking about their experience on the show,” he said. “But hearing that legacy of this show and being a part of all of that and hearing people talk, and I know it was pretty cool because during the season, parents were sitting up in the audience who were on the show, and they also had maybe an older child who was on the show, and it's almost like it's being a passed down sort of thing. To be part of that group, it means a lot. It's part of the history of the show, of the people that put it together and take care of it. It’s my baby.”
The work that goes into the actual production of the show starts months before we record, with our director of community relations, Moreen Bailey Frater, reaching out to schools all over our viewing area. After we get our acceptances, there is show scheduling and pre-production. The questions come from a company called Altman Productions, and then we go to work making on-screen images and building rundowns and scripts. Trevor Taylor, one of our awesome directors, comes up with some of our end-of-round questions. Rob and Marc work together closely on show formatting, and Rob also does a lot of prep with the questions to help with a smooth production on show day. Unlike the old days, we now record one show a night during the week right after our 7 p.m. broadcast. It’s a quick pivot from news to Academic, and we’re ready for action.
Inside the walls of the control room is another cheering section. What started as a crew of at least 10 is now a team of four working together to bring these kids' dreams to life. It’s a well-oiled machine, and the show has everything that TV people love. It’s old school (tradition), and it’s new school (technology). We’re in the control room rooting for these kids to get the bonus. We’re amazed by the answers they get – and the ones they don’t. We’re yelling answers. (They can’t hear us.) Sometimes, we’re right. Sometimes, we’re wrong. We always get how smart these kids really are.
We’re all into it because it’s about the kids. Their excitement is palpable. It’s about the community, and something we do that still brings us all together to work on something that’s fun, and we know that it’s something we still do within these walls that connects with the hearts of the world outside of them. There’s evidence at every turn of how important this show is to our community.
“To be a part of the crew is something special. To get to work on this team is an honor. There's a pride in saying that you worked on the show. And, selfishly, I don't just get to be a part of the show. I'm in it. I'm talking to the kids. I'm talking to Rob. I'm talking to the parents. So, like, I'm really, really, really into it," Cliff said.
If you’ve ever been a part of our studio audience, you know that “The Cliff & Rob Show” is one of the best parts. These two guys riff off each other, and it’s hilarious.
One of Cliff’s memorable moments from the show came earlier this season when a team buzzed in right as the final buzzer went off, and Rob asked for the answer. The correct answer would win; a wrong answer would lose.
“He answered. Got the answer wrong. Slipped his hand out on the desk, and his head went down immediately, and they lost. I do remember that poor head. That episode was … unbelievable. Everybody felt for the kid. So many people on the crew went up and talked to the kid afterwards. And so that moment was – wow, these kids are in competition, and after the competition, they were all around this kid, like, it's all right, you're going to be back," said Cliff. "The good thing is, the kid's an underclassman. I said, listen, that kind of stuff happens in life. All right? You're an underclassman. You come back here, and you beat those kids next time. And he was like, ‘All right, Cliff.’”
I had to ask Rob if there was a single thing, one memory, that Academic has given him that stands out above all others.
“I had a young man, and his parents came in to tape the show. His grandfather was in hospice and was not expected to live by the time the show aired,” Rob said. “We were able to show grandpa that show. He died two days later. He said it was his last, you know, smile. His last really meaningful moment on earth was watching that show. And we did that.”
We did that. We are creating magic. Joy and memories that will last a lifetime.
Rob said it best: “The line we always use – we want them to have a memory 30 minutes from now and 30 years from now. We want them to have the memories of Academic Challenge that we have. We want them in 40 years to grab the grandkids, go down to the basement, plug in whatever you plug in 40 years from now, and say, ‘Look at this show I was on. Isn't this cool?’"
If these walls could talk, they’d say: It is cool. In this world of scrolling, instant gratification, and short attention spans, there’s nothing like our little high school quiz show to get people to put down their phones and come together. We hope that everyone who comes within these walls will feel a little bit of this history and will have stories for years to come.
And there’s the buzzer.
Meredith Kieger is the executive producer of Academic Challenge.
