Barry & Enright Productions

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Barry & Enright Productions (or simply referred to as: Jack Barry-Dan Enright Productions or Jack Barry & Dan Enright Productions), was a U.S. television production company that was formed in 1947 by Jack Barry and Dan Enright.

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[edit] History

Jack Barry and Dan Enright first met at radio station WOR in New York, where Barry was a staff announcer. Their first collaborations were Juvenile Jury, a show which featured a panel of children, who came up with their takes on everyday problems and situations, which were submitted by listeners. This would be followed with Life Begins at Eighty, which was essentially a geriatric version of the former. Both shows made their way to television in 1950.

Another children's show from Barry & Enright, was Winky Dink and You, which engaged the young viewers to use their imaginations, as well as a special "magic slate" - a sheet of durable plastic that stuck to the TV screen via static electricity, which enabled the viewer to use crayons to "draw along" with Mr. Barry, as he told stories to the children. A kinescope of this series is available on the tape-trading circuit.

In 1953, Barry & Enright created their first game show, Back That Fact. Hosted by Borscht Belt comedian, and syndicated columnist Joey Adams.

In 1956 Barry & Enright created the game shows Twenty-One (which was created in response to the highly successful $64,000 Question), and Tic-Tac-Dough. The company, along with Robert Noah, also created and produced the original version of Concentration. Two years later Twenty-One was cancelled as part of the quiz show scandals, when it was revealed that the producers pre-arranged outcomes. The scandal led to Congressional legislation against the rigging of game shows (and every form of competition show). In 1959 Tic-Tac-Dough was also canceled. Barry & Enright were forced to sell their game shows to NBC, including Concentration, Twenty-One, Dough Re Mi and Tic-Tac-Dough. The company later ceased to exist.

In 1971 Dan Enright came back to television as executive producer for All About Faces. After an unsuccessful stint working with former rival Goodson-Todman, Jack Barry first staged a comeback as an emcee, replacing Dennis Wholey on the short-lived game show, The Generation Gap in 1969, then formed a production company (Jack Barry Productions) and in 1971, sold The Reel Game to ABC (he also hosted the 13-week game show), and in 1972, permanently resurrected his career by hosting the hit game show The Joker's Wild, which he reputedly created while with Goodson-Todman.

In 1975 Enright rejoined his partner, renaming Jack Barry Productions "Barry & Enright Productions", and their collaboration continued until Barry's death from a heart attack in 1984. Enright kept the company name and continued running the company. The company ended in 1991 after the 90s version of Tic Tac Dough was dissolved. Dan Enright died of cancer in 1992. Although the production company was primarily known for game shows, it also worked on other projects such as the comedy films, Private Lessons (1981) and Making Mr. Right (1987).

A common practice on most Barry & Enright games was an automobile was awarded for any player who won five front games in a row, typically winning a game by getting to a target score (i.w., $500 on The Joker's Wild), or in the case of Tic-Tac-Dough, getting three Xs or Os in a row. On most games, players continued playing until defeated.

Bonus rounds were of a game of chance, in which players faced a bad guy (such as The Devil on The Joker's Wild, Lightning on Bullseye or The Dragon on Tic-Tac-Dough). Winning these bonus games awarded the players cash and prize packages worth anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000 in winnings, which may include trips. The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough offered these prize packages if players accumulated $1,000 or more in bonus money without the bad guy revealed, while on Bullseye, players can win the prize package plus win a possible jackpot of up to $10,000 in cash, which can be accomplished by spinning three bullseyes in a row on one spin (and avoiding the Lightning space, which wipes out the contestant's bonus round winnings). On TJW, players could also win the prize packages by scoring a "Natural Triple" (i.e. getting all three slots to show the same amount), while on TTD, the player could uncover "TIC" and "TAC" to win the package. However, games like Play the Percentages and Hot Potato, while still having the chance element, had more of a quiz in their bonus rounds (i.e. on Hot Potato, instead of reaching $1,000, teams had to answer five questions correctly to win a growing jackpot that started at $5,000 and increased by that amount until won [or a new team played the bonus round])

All of the cash and prize winnings were in increments of $50, except on The Joker's Wild, where the winning were in increments of $25 due to the value of the money cards in the Face The Devil bonus round.

[edit] Known employees

Some known employees have included Susan Stafford who was vice president for public relations. Another noted staffer was Louis M. Heyward, who was vice president for development. Heyward is the father of Andy Heyward, who is chairman and chief executive officer of DiC Entertainment. Barry's sons Jonathan and Douglas Barry, his daughter Barbara Barry, Dan Diana, Chris Sohl, Gary Cox and Ron Greenberg (who, on and off, was also an independent producer; he may be best known for The Who, What, or Where Game) were prominent employees of Barry & Enright.

Robert Noah and Howard Felsher, who were producers of Twenty-One and Tic-Tac-Dough respectively, saw their careers revived several years after the quiz show scandals faded from the public's memory, with Mr. Noah first working for Goodson-Todman, as producer on the original Match Game, then working for many years with Heatter-Quigley Productions, as executive producer on several of their shows, beginning with the original version of The Hollywood Squares. From there, he finished his career with Reg Grundy Productions, on shows like Scrabble. Mr. Noah also wrote a novel, a fictionalized account of the quiz show scandals, All The Right Answers in 1990. Howard Felsher also went to work for Goodson-Todman, where he was the producer for the second version of Password, which aired on ABC-TV. In 1976, he was executive producer of the original version of Family Feud, where at times during the show's run, he and host Richard Dawson were involved in their own "feuds"- on occasion, for real.

Barry & Enright producer (and frequent director) Richard S. Kline, set designer John C. Mula, and music composer Hal Hidey (even though Tic-Tac-Dough and The Joker's Wild would continue to use his music package) would leave the company, following Jack Barry's death, to form Kline & Friends, where they would co-produce the game shows, Win, Lose or Draw and 3rd Degree, with Burt Reynolds and Bert Convy. Gary Cox left following Barry's death to join Reg Grundy Productions, which was adjacent to Barry & Enright in Century City, as an associate producer of Sale of the Century (US game show). Ron Greenberg departed Barry & Enright a year before to produce other game show projects.

Longtime Chuck Barris game show announcer Johnny Jacobs, a longtime friend of Jack Barry's, was the primary announcer of all Jack Barry-produced and Barry & Enright produced-game shows from 1972 to 1977, while working on Barris' The Newlywed Game, The Dating Game and The Gong Show, among others. In 1977, a year after Let's Make A Deal went off the air, its announcer Jay Stewart replaced Jacobs as its primary announcer for four years, and was also its primary spokesman for all Barry & Enright projects outside of the game show world. Jacobs, who died in 1982, did fill in for a few months during the 1978-79 season of The Joker's Wild, and in addition, Johnny Gilbert was also used as a fill-in. Bob Hilton was also used as a fill-in announcer towards the final weeks of the 1979-80 season.

In 1981, Stewart left Barry & Enright productions following his daughter's suicide, replaced by longtime Wheel of Fortune voice Charlie O'Donnell. The popular Charlie O. would remain with Barry & Enright until the cancellation of Joker and Tic-Tac-Dough. Again, Johnny Gilbert filled in for O'Donnell on occasion, as well as Marc Summers and John Harlan.

Jack Barry, Jim Peck, Geoff Edwards, Wink Martindale, Art James (who also got his big break, as the announcer on the original version of Concentration in 1958), Tom Kennedy, Jim Lange and Bill Cullen were the main hosts during that period. Nipsey Russell and Jim Caldwell also hosted at least one game show from B&E. Jim Perry, Peter Tomarken, Patrick Wayne and Bill Rafferty were given auditions for future game show pilots, none of which were produced. Wayne however went on to host the 1990 revival of Tic-Tac-Dough.

[edit] Ownership of properties

The Barry family, along with former Wheel of Fortune letter-turner and Enright's companion Susan Stafford, sold Barry & Enright Productions and its library of game shows to Columbia TriStar Television sometime in 1994, before the launch of Game Show Network on December 1 of that year.

Today, the pre-scandal library is owned by NBC Universal and the post-scandal library is owned by Sony Pictures Television. There are five exceptions: the 1950s version of Tic-Tac-Dough is owned by NBC Universal and the 1990 editions of Tic-Tac-Dough was held by Granada International through their acquisition of the ITC library, the 1958-1973 version of Concentration is co-owned by FremantleMedia and NBC Universal, and the 1989 kids' version of Pictionary is also held by NBC Universal through their ownership of the MCA library. The 1990 version of The Joker's Wild was held by Carolco (now Lions Gate) through Orbis Communications, is currently held by CBS Television Distribution in partnership with StudioCanal.

[edit] Titles by Barry & Enright Productions

[edit] Owned by NBC Universal Television

[edit] Owned by Sony Pictures Television

[edit] Owned by CBS Television Distribution

  • The Joker's Wild (1990-1991) (A Kline and Friends Production in association with Jack Barry Productions.) (in partnership with StudioCanal)

[edit] Other productions

[edit] Reference

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_%26_Enright_Productions"