I’ve always considered it one of the greatest moments in my life when, in 1981, my high school, Street Academy of Albany, completely beat the snot out of Albany Academy, Keveny Academy and St. Mary’s of Hoosick Falls on WRGB’s “Answers Please” TV high school quiz show. I even wrote a blog post about the history of “Answers Please” (and its earlier incarnation as “Little Red Schoolhouse”), and it was received well by my blog readers.
A few years ago, I found what I thought was the only surviving clip of the TV series – a one-minute news snippet filmed after we pummeled Keveny Academy 185-105. And at the time, I thought that little snippet was the only surviving Answers Please footage in existence.
Chuck was wrong. And Chuck’s not complaining about being wrong.
Apparently Andrew Gatt, who was a junior in 1985 at Coxsackie-Athens High School, recorded some episodes of “Answers Please” on his VCR when his school competed on the program in 1985. He posted them on YouTube, and I’m sharing them with you now. Hope you enjoy. These are actual full episodes from the series, and you can hear how tough these questions really are.
And Coxsackie-Athens facing off against Keveny Academy of Cohoes. What is it about Keveny, they can’t win against teams on Answers Please? Hee…
Here’s Coxsackie-Athens returning for a second game, this time playing against Cooperstown High School.
Apparently by this time in the show’s run, there were post-season playoffs to determine the championship team of the year. Here’s footage of Coxsackie-Athens against St. Joseph’s from Catskill.
So here’s the deal, here’s my challenge to all you loyal readers. If you have any knowledge of your high school ever appearing on “Answers Please” (or its earlier incarnation as “Little Red Schoolhouse”), please contact me. I’m looking for who you played against, how well you did, if there were any photographs taken on stage, any memories, etc. The fact that complete episodes exist, in one manner or another, and can be shown on this blog, is amazing. Thanks to Andrew Gatt for having the foresight to not only record these episodes, and to not only save them for nearly 30 years, but to also upload them to YouTube. Much appreciated.
Oh, and if anybody does have some surviving footage from 1981’s “Answers Please” episodes featuring my high school… listen carefully. I WILL PAY FOR ANY PREVIOUSLY UNFOUND FOOTAGE OF THOSE GAMES. If you have any of the games from March 1981 where my school ripped through those other three institutions, I WILL PAY FOR COPIES OF THAT FOOTAGE.
I MEAN IT. 🙂
Chuck The Writer 
LOL. Holy 80’s Batman. The host looks like the teacher from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, and the captain for Keveny Academy has the biggest hair and coke bottle glasses I have ever seen. These contestants have GREAT personalities. Chuck, will you pay for them because it’s the only way you’re going to see a Street Academy win again?
LikeLike
I’m glad you enjoyed the videos. I’ve been saving those tapes for so long that I was surprised that they still worked.
LikeLike
Chuck,
I should mention that your blog post from a couple years ago provided a lot of the motivation for me to finally post the videos that I had kept.
LikeLike
Andrew: I’m glad you were able to transfer those videos and that I could share them on my blog. I hope that other people who have these old tapes have the opportunity as well to transfer them to YouTube. This is a part of Capital District history that needs to be seen again. All the best!
LikeLike
I have the complete series of Answers Please on tape including the Street Academy trilogy. It’s not for sale. I MEAN IT.
LikeLike
D357,
Did you work for WRGB?
LikeLike
Nice to see that someone still has tapes of Answers Please. Shows that memories never die.
I also read the original blog from 3 years ago, and found it to be an interesting read. I actually didn’t know that Answers Please went by Little Red Schoolhouse in the 1960’s. I was actually in the audience for a taping of Answers Please in the 1983-1984 season when South Colonie was the returning champion, with Kevin Fitzgerald as one of the players, and I believe Mike Sirtori also being on the team. We ended up losing that night, but I had a good time. I also remember Answers Please sharing the studio with Mr. Food, with the studio also being used for the Jerry Lewis Telethon.
It also got me to thinking about another game show that WRGB had in the mid-1980’s called “Off Your Rocker,” which was hosted by Tim Welch, and was a quiz show pitting two senior service centers against each other. I’m pretty sure “Off Your Rocker” only lasted a season, but I could be wrong.
Finally, I think Answers Please, and WKTV’s High School Quiz from Utica were the gold standard for high school quiz shows back in the day. Later versions of high school quizzes which ended up either on local cable or public access, such as Masterminds, aren’t really the same. Actually wondering because of WRGB’s coverage area is some schools competed on both Answers Please and High School Quiz?
LikeLike
I bet some schools competed on both shows. I think that I remember Cooperstown and Canajoharie competing on Answers Please and they’re both closer to Utica than they are to Albany.
Coxsackie-Athens competed on two different programs. In addition to competing on Answers Please, I remember our team going to a television studio in Kingston at least once for a quiz show there. I never got to watch the recording of that competition since our cable provider didn’t carry the Kingston station.
LikeLike