Voting Station

Albert Freedman

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Producer

The Resume

    (March 27, 1922-April 11, 2017)
    Born in Taunton, Massachusetts
    Producer of Twenty-One (1956-58) and Tic Tac Dough (1956-59)
    Indicted and arrested for involvement in the Twenty-One quiz show scandal (November 7, 1958)
    Portrayed by Hank Azaria

Why he might be annoying:

    He and Charles Van Doren had strikingly different versions of how he proposed to help him cheat on the show.
    Van Doren stated that Freedman tried to extort $5,000 from him as payment for helping him win (which he denied).
    He tried to claim that the cheating allegations were part of a witch-hunt against television entertainment ‘led by aspirational politicians and a failing newspaper industry.’
    He admitted to lying before a previous grand jury and was indicted for perjury (September 1959).
    He was arrested and then recanted his testimony to the grand jury in order to avoid a conviction.
    Facing two counts of perjury and 10 years in prison, he admitted to lying, this time that he had given contestants answers ‘about 50% of the time.’
    The perjury charges were later dropped, but his career as a television producer was over (he relocated to London and worked for Penthouse and other pornography publications).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He joined the Marines and fought in the Pacific Campaign during World War II.
    He worked on The Groucho Marx Show before turning to game shows.
    He was pressured by NBC executives to help contestants cheat to stay on the show longer, because otherwise they lost too quickly and it was detrimental to ratings.
    By all accounts, after the scandal hit the fan, NBC threw him and Dan Enright under the bus.
    After losing his wife and two of his daughters to breast cancer, he earned a PhD to pursue cancer research and treatment options for the disease.
    He disliked how he was portrayed in Robert Redford’s film ‘Quiz Show.’
    Specifically, he took issue with Redford’s claim that the scandal was ‘the beginning of the demoralization and decadence resulting in the Vietnam War, in Watergate, [and] resulting in the breakdown of American morality’ (talk about overkill).

Credit: BoyWithTheGreenHair


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Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying