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"Beat the Clock" show involving 300 Boy Scouts (1951) - Picture Gallery

by: Beat the Clock (CBS)

Publication date: 1951

Topics: Beat the Clock, 1951, Columbia, Columbia Broadcasting System, CBS, Beat the Clock (CBS), Roxanne, Boy Scouts, elephant, cheesecake, stunts, television, kinescope

Language: English

The greatest moment in human history.

Can 300 Boy Scouts be wrong about a game show assistant? Let's find out...

This is a collection of newspaper and magazine media referencing a 1951 episode of the game show "Beat the Clock" that featured 300 Boy Scouts. Yes, you read that correctly. These pictures are proof that this show actually happened.

A little housekeeping:

In 1951, "Beat the Clock", an audience participation game show, was airing on CBS. The show was sponsored by Sylvania Electric Company and was hosted by Bud Collyer. But amazingly, none of those things were the show's main draw. That distinction belonged to "Roxanne", a blonde assistant who wore a short, white dress with polka-dots on it on every show. At this point, she was quite popular.

She would take pictures of contestants during stunts and would introduce contestants, but not do much else. Despite this, she was the show's main draw, and so it's no surprise that the producers of the show decided to invite 300 Boy Scouts to be near her.

I discovered this show in October 2020. It is not known why this broadcast was done in the first place. To date, very little information exists about this show online, and they are now on one page on the Internet for the very first time.

Four photos that are known to be from this broadcast are included here.

The episode featured a stunt that included an elephant, which three Boy Scouts had to identify while wearing boxing gloves and blindfolds. In this collection, there are three photos of this stunt.

A fourth photo, which involves (what looks like) a Boy Scout trying to get a balloon near a wooden plank by using the shoestrings of another Boy Scout, while "Roxanne" is taking their picture, is also included.

And then came the ending.

At the end of the show, all 300 Boy Scouts walked onto the stage and said "Let's take your picture, Roxanne!". Afterwards, an 11-year-old proclaimed, "Boy, you're terrific cheesecake!".

That is not a misprint.

Sadly, no kinescopes are known to exist of this show, meaning that we cannot see this show for ourselves. In fact, virtually no kinescopes are known to exist of this show from this period at all.

We should be thankful that we have as much information as we already do on this show. It is my hope that it becomes well-known enough that the average person knows about it.

Feel free to download or share these pictures.

Clippings come from the following sources:

Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA; July 1, 1951

Boy's Life magazine; September 1951

LIFE magazine; September 17, 1951

Addeddate: 2022-08-21 22:34:27

Identifier: beat-clock-300-boy-scouts-1951

Scanner: Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.7.0

Year: 1951

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Reviewer: Anonymous - - May 8, 2023
Subject: The Greatest Broadcast Show Ever

300 Boy Scouts being put near a scantily-clad assistant, and one of them telling her he liked her: Instant qualification for the title of "the greatest moment in television history". Nothing like this has ever happened again since, in the entire history of television.

Please note that we do not know an exact date for this broadcast. The closest time frame that has been figured out so far is March 17, 1951 to May 26, 1951 (all dates being Saturdays). Any date before or after this period has already been excluded as a possible date for this program.

The program has become sort of an "inside joke" on the amIright song parody website in recent months. While this has increased awareness of the show quite a bit, more still needs to be done.

Since it has been more than 70 years since this show originally aired, maybe we should start a search for any surviving Boy Scouts that appeared on the program. Last I checked, "Roxanne" was still alive at 94 (though she goes by a different surname now).

Another thing that would be useful is to try to contact any Boy Scout troops in New York that could possibly give us additional info on this program.

Essentially, all of the known information about this program so far can be located on this page. We know the very basic information about it, but this is not enough for an extensive book to be written. At any rate, much more research needs to be done on this show, and more areas need to be explored for finding additional information.

Reviewer: Anonymous - - May 1, 2023
Subject: Great gallery!

Can only agree with what has been said in the description. It is unfortunate that no one preserved this unusual program.

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