New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Dialing For Dollars began as a radio show in 1939 and grew into a popular franchised television show in the late 1940s.
Here is another installment in our Who Remembers? series. You can browse previous articles by using the search bar on the right. These articles are strolls down memory lane. In some cases the buildings, but new businesses have replaced them. In other instances, the buildings or even the properties have been razed. Instead of a building, it may be a TV show, personality, or commercial that no one longer exists. Either way, it can’t stop us from taking the Memory Lane stroll!
As always we would rather this be a discussion. No one knows this area better than those who grew up here! Please, leave constructive criticism, feedback, and corrections. We’d love to hear your anecdotes. Please share!
New Bedford’s franchise on WLNE-TV 56
Just mentioning the words “Dialing For Dollars” conjures George Allen’s voice and the cheesy set that he worked. Why was I fascinated by Dialing For Dollars considering that I was a child, far too young to participate? Because after he dialed that number, there was a hush…a holding of one’s breath – would my phone ring? Could George Allen accidentally called our house? Mom entered her phone number without telling us, maybe?
We’re going to win the $100 – which would buy a car, some candy, a house, a lifetime supply of Cookie Crisp, and one each of every comic book down at Magazine World.
Even if someone else called at that one moment, it would have been – to quote Hulk Hogan – “Hulkamanias running wild, brother!”
That darn phone never rang. One of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood.
For those of you who need a jogging of the memory, the program was on WLNE-TV. If I remember correctly, it was Channel 56 – at a time when there were about 12 channels. The show had its inception on WCBM in Baltimore, Maryland in 1939 as a radio program, but moved to television in the late 1940s where it was franchised.
At the beginning of the television show, Allen would mention a password. He would then randomly draw a phone number from a bowl.
George Allen hosted ‘Dialing For Dollars’ on WLNE-TV 56
These numbers were strips containing lots of eighteen phone numbers cut from a telephone book. Allen would then “count” from the bottom or the top, i.e. “eight from the top”, “six from the bottom.”
If you were called you were required to declare the “count and the amount (current prize amount)” as well as the password. If there was no answer, the prize amount was raised until someone finally won.
As more and more women were leaving the household and building careers in the workforce, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find people home to answer the phone. Daytime talk shows increased in popularity, ‘Dialing For Dollars” waned in popularity. These two factors led to the eventual death of the show.
George Allen passed away in November of 2010 at the age of 71.
they called my house once!!! My mom answered and didn’t know the count & amount nor the password, it must have been summer of 86 or 87, I remember because it was the summer around the time I had finished or was going into 2nd grade. Doug was a nice guy, he asked my mom “do you have any kids Terry?” she said yes and we got tickets for 4 to the Circus in New Bedford (not Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus) but if I remember right “Cole Brothers Circus” in a field.
I’m from Baltimore Maryland. I was a child in the ’60s and very ill so I stayed home a lot. I remember writing them a letter to please call my house because I watched them every day. They never called me but they read my letter on the radio