CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Showdown (Canadian game show)

Canadian television game show

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ7503187 ↗
Source-derived summary

Showdown is a Canadian television game show, which aired on CTV in the network's inaugural 1961–62 season.

Hosted by Hamilton radio broadcaster Paul Hanover, the program featured contestants competing to answer general knowledge questions on music. Showdown was produced for CTV by Screen Gems (now Sony Pictures Television) and CFCF-TV (one of several co-productions between the network and Screen Gems) and was broadcast each Thursday at 7:30 PM beginning 5 October 1961.

Editorial summary

“Showdown (Canadian game show)” enters the record as canadian television game show. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Showdown, Canadian and game can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Showdown, Canadian and game.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Showdown (Canadian game show)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Showdown, Canadian and game provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7503187. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1961.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Showdown (Canadian game show)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Showdown (Canadian game show) primary sources, Showdown (Canadian game show) archive and Showdown research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Showdown (Canadian game show)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Showdown (Canadian game show)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.