Phillies Jackpot Bowling
"Jackpot Bowling" was the first national TV bowling show since "Bowling Headliners" aired in the early days of television (1948-50). Jackpot Bowling originally aired on Fridays at 10:45 PM following the "Cavalcade of Sports" Friday Night Fight. It took place at the T-Bowl in Wayne, New Jersey. Leo Durocher was the show's first host, but bowed out after only two shows and was replaced by Mel Allen. On April 10, 1959, Bud Palmer became the show's third host.[3] Allen and Palmer each had obligations during their respective sport's seasons (Allen was a baseball man, Palmer was from the field of basketball), and thus they would trade positions each October and April throughout the show's first run. The show was put on a summer hiatus after the June 24, 1960, episode, as its Cavalcade of Sports lead-in had ended its run on NBC. On September 19, 1960, Jackpot Bowling returned as a stand-alone show with its own 30-minute time slot, Mondays at 10:30 p.m. Brunswick became a co-sponsor with Bayuk's Phillies Cigars, and the series moved west to Hollywood, with the Hollywood Legion Lanes becoming the show's new studio. Milton Berle was installed as host with Chick Hearn providing play-by-play. The series would run only another six months with Berle as host and would end on March 13, 1961.
In its original format, Jackpot Bowling's time slot varied widely because it was lead into by professional boxing bouts, which could end very quickly or stretch out to the full fifteen rounds at the time. Jackpot Bowling would thus pad out the time slot for however much extra time was needed to round out the hour. (Make That Spare, a show produced by rival ABC with the sanctioning of the Professional Bowlers Association, followed a similar constraint when it debuted a year after Jackpot Bowling and would maintain that format throughout its four-year run.)
In the final season hosted by Milton Berle, two matches were played in each show. Rolling six strikes in a row in the first match won a flat $5,000. The winner of the first match played against the "king of the hill" bowler for another $1,000, and the right to return the following week as "king of the hill". Rolling six strikes in a row in this second weekly match won the jackpot, which now started at $25,000, with $5,000 added each week that it was not broken.
