Well, now, here's something you don't see (or say) every day: a whole slew of postcards from Canadian viewers of Tom Kennedy's You Don't Say!

Why hire writers? You can't pay them in trading stamps.

Did they plug the trading stamp company, thereby collecting a fee for the plug and getting their end game material written for free or close to it?

Bob Stewart may have been cheap, but there's cheap and there's Ralph Andrews.

You betcha, Red Ryder. John Harlan read the plug every day.

Refresh my memory as to what kind of trading stamps. I remember my parents collecting Plaid Stamps when I was a wee tot, and I don't think that was it.

Well, there were Green Stamps and Blue Chip stamps. My 40-year-old recollection of YDS isn't sharp enough to remember which one they used.

I'd like to know the cash value of those stamps, as well as the amount received for the plug.

We had Top Value Stamps and S&H Green Stamps around my neck of the woods.

IIRC, YDS! gave away Top Value, which I remember Kroger supermarkets in Pittsburgh used to issue.

I vaguely recall that it might have been Top Value Stamps that were given to people whose postcards were read on You Don't Say!

S&H is still in business and from what I understand will reedeem old books of Green stamps and those of Top Value as well.

In another era, before the era of fast litigation, it seemed more common to do viewer submissions of material on game shows. Back in the radio days of "T or C," the questions were submitted by listeners (and in those days, they were more often ridicuously obscure information than the bad puns of the Barker era). If you're watching "The Name's the Same," you'll notice Robert Q. mentioning every so often that they're sending out a little token of appreciation to a person who submitted a contestant for the show. Even "J!" did a home viewer contest where viewers were asked to submit an entire thirty-clue game board--of course stating that all entries would become the property of Griffin Productions.