to just drop dead, which meant it was safer to like them. They had qualities that were appealing in their own way, the most important of which was cuteness. They could be quite funny sometimes, and were simple and direct. Quiz Kids was designed to showcase this new ideation of children, and my father was a born performer playing himself, cracking up the audience by earnestly contradicting guest stars such as Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Jimmy Stewart. There’s a comic book from that period called True Comics that ran a banner of their honorary child advisers every issue; my father’s name appeared next to other junior luminaries such as Shirley Temple, Roddy McDowall, and Robert Blake. He and the other Quiz Kids met and were photographed withall kinds of celebrities, politicians, and military heroes, frequently sitting on their laps. They said smart things; they said dumb things; they said adorable things. All were of equal interest.

The other big event driving both my father’s stardom and the Quiz Kids program was World War II. Quiz Kids was first broadcast in August 1940, and America had entered the war, against a strong degree of public resistance, in December 1941. It was common knowledge by then that the worst things possible were happening to the Jews of Europe. The American people had to be encouraged to believe in the aims of the war, one of which was saving the Jews from extinction. I don’t believe it was an accident that Quiz Kids (developed and produced by Louis