What Is a Bicuspid?

What makes the moon light up? What is a bicuspid? If you had a buck rabbit, would Nellie be a good name for it?

In radio studios in 13 U.S. cities last week, alert young fourth, fifth and sixth graders perched on the edges of their chairs and strained for the answers to such posers. Each studio was jammed with soprano cheering sections from competing schools. Teachers, who had coached their hopefuls for competition, watched nervously. The program was Quizdown, an interschool contest conducted on old-fashioned spelling-bee lines.

In its first year and a half, Quizdown has flowered like a pressagent's imagination. Boards of education, startled at seeing book learning presented so that children cry for it, beam on the program. Its originator and chief promoter is no high-powered radio idea man, but a blonde, big-eyed ex-Powers model.

When she first thought up the idea, Carol Moody, 31, was so sure she had a natural that she decided to make the money and let others do the work. As sponsors, she went after newspaper publishers; that automatically took care of publicity. To save herself further trouble, she decided to let the eager little students themselves think up the questions for the program.

The first radioman she approached with her idea said bluntly: "It stinks. Too educational." Her first big Quizdown, jointly sponsored by the Chicago Times and Station WLS, went on the air in October 1945. It has gone on weekly ever since, sponsored by newspapers and local radio stations in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Detroit, Miami, San Diego. Next month Columbus, Ohio, becomes her 14th Quiz-down town.

As soon as she has sold the idea locally, Carol leaves town and the sponsors take over. Each show pays her a weekly royalty as long as it goes on. By last week, things were working so that she could collect about $700 a week without doing anything at all.

The idea cannot be copyrighted, but so far nobody has put on a quizdown without paying Carol. Married to a University of Indiana professor, Carol hopes eventually to start a "quizdown national," if it doesn't interfere with bringing up her own Pamela, 7, and Eric Craig, 2 1/2.

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