Columnist Jack Gaver outlined the concept in his column "Up and Down Broadway", in 1946: "The author of a current best-seller is tossed in with a couple of guest critics and a commentator and, if he survives 30 minutes of unscripted pro and con, may decide never to write another book.
Sometimes the boys get rough and lucky is the writer who draws a couple of critics of such opposed views that they go after each other instead of him.
[2] The DuMont episodes of the series were produced by Phyllis Adams Jenkins (1923-2004), a pioneer in providing serious programming intended for daytime television audiences.
[1] It first made air in December 1940, on an Albany station, before moving to Schenectady, and then to New York City.
)[4] Stone produced the program remotely during much of this era, as he was serving as general counsel for the Lend-Lease Administration and in the United States Navy, during World War II.
On May 20, Mutual filled his old time slot with Books on Trial,[6] a series sponsored by the Literary Guild, featuring a "prosecuting attorney and jury."