Jay Jackson

Who was Jay Jackson?

Joseph Edward "Jay" Jackson was an American radio and television quiz show host and announcer more familiar for a one-off, fictitious host he played on a legendary situation comedy than he was during his time as a real radio and television performer.

Jackson was the master of ceremonies of the panel quiz show Twenty Questions when it aired on the ABC Television Network starting in early 1953 and ending in May 1955. He then hosted the nighttime version of the popular quiz show Tic-Tac-Dough from its debut on September 12, 1957 through September 1958, yielding that job to Win Elliot for the remaining 13 weeks of the show's nighttime run. Before he got that job, Jackson appeared in one of the best-loved among the so-called "original 39" episodes of The Honeymooners.

The episode involved blustery bus driver Ralph Kramden spending a week reviewing everything there was to know about popular songs, the category in which he would compete on a fictitious television quiz called The $99,000 Answer -- a too-obviously satirical salute to CBS's quiz show phenomenon, The $64,000 Question.