If French scandals are usually about money and British scandals about sex, American scandals tend to be about ethics. And every now and then, from the Black Sox of the 1919 World Series to the 1973 Soap Box Derby, some episode roils the popular culture and re-spoils our national innocence. Exactly 60 years ago, it was the television quiz show scandals, whose principal protagonist, Charles Van Doren, died last week, age 93.

Sometimes it’s hard to discern why such episodes resonate, but not here. When the scandal broke, television was a relatively new and increasingly pervasive element in American life and the 1950s were perceived as a tranquil domestic interlude after the Great Depression and World War II. Quiz shows, in which “ordinary” contestants matched wits and erudition for impressive sums, dominated network programming. Van Doren, the charming, good-looking, self-effacing Ivy League-certified son of a famous literary clan, comforted America when he won an unprecedented $129,000 (about a million in today’s dollars) on an NBC show called “Twenty-One.”