In 1953, the National Broadcasting Company created a show called At First Sight. The idea behind the show was that three young men and three young women would compete in a series of intellectual and physical challenges to assess their compatibility. Each man would be paired up with each woman during the course of the episode. At the end, the man-woman couple who had demonstrated the most compatibility would receive a cash prize and an all expenses paid date. It’s also believed they intended to bring the couples back to discuss how their date went, but it never got to that point. Three test episodes were shot but never aired. The network decided not to green-light the show. The rumor is that it’s because the idea of women being paired up with random men—even for something innocuous—had a somewhat scandalous connotation.
I have an interest in old game shows but I had never heard of this one until a co-worker of mine mentioned that his grandparents had met on a game show from the 50s.
Film of only one of the test episodes remains. Fortunately for my co-worker it was the one where his grandparents met. It can be viewed at the Paley Center in New York City.
The reason I call this “the most fruitful game show in TV history,” is because, according to the 1970 edition of the Encyclopedia of Radio and Television, out of just three test-episodes that were shot, four couples met and were married! And according to my co-worker, from those marriages there have been 12 children and 41 grandchildren.
Two of the couples were ones that won the episode, two others didn’t win their episode, but just met on the show.
The show was made up of different games, challenges, and “tests.” Of these, the one that seemed to be most predictive of a compatible match was a segment called “At Second Sight,” where the man would have an image of an object of a certain color on him and the women would have to guess what it was based solely on intuition. Of the four couples produced by the show, all had at least a partial match of color and/or object during this segment.
This segment was inspired by or related to a trend/fad in the northeast US at the time called, “The Soulmate Test.” Men would carry a picture of an object with them and approach a woman and ask to play the “Soulmate Test.” The woman would guess a color and object. If she got the color right that meant the two should share a (probably chaste) kiss. If she got the object right it meant they should go on a date. And if she got the color and object right it meant they were soulmates and should immediately run off and get married. I don’t know if that’s just a rumor or an urban legend, but people got married for less in the 50s.
This also led to a popular joke at the time where men would ask, “Do you want to take the Soulmate Test?” And if the women said, “No,” he would turn over his image to show it was the word, “No.” (Lame.)
As a fan of TV history, it was interesting to me to find a show from 70 years ago that did in just three episodes what The Bachelor failed to do in 20 seasons.
Danny's Mind 