Pantomime Quiz premiered on November 1, 1947 on local TV station KTTV channel 11 in Los Angeles, California. The series started out as a local show in Los Angeles in 1947 and actually became the first program to ever win an Emmy in 1949 at the first Academy Awards show held in Los Angeles. The show was renamed in 1950 to Pantomime Quiz Time and began airing nationally on the NBC TV network. The host of both versions of the show was Mike Stokey who developed the series back in 1939 on his College Station while a student at Los Angeles City College. The shows’ off-camera announcer was actor and announcer Ed Reimers. Art Fleming was also an off-air announcer for this show for several years.

In the late 1960’s Stokey renamed his show once again this time to Stump the Stars. The series normally aired as a summer replacement series until it ended its run in July 1970. The series returned again to the air in 1979 titled Celebrity Charades. TV viewers mailed in words, phrases and the celebrities they would like to act them out. If what a viewer had sent in was used on the show they would get $100 and if the panel couldn't guess the word or phrase the viewer won $200. The rules were very simple in that the team that guessed their word or phrase in the shortest amount of time won that day. Many big name stars that loved to play the game of charades appeared on the series over the years. Some of those stars included Angela Lansbury, Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke, Hans Conried, Jackie Coogan, Robert Stack, Ruta Lee, Sebastian Cabot, Tom Poston and Vincent Price.