Ted Cooper

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Theodore Cooper (November 11, 1920—December 5, 1999) was a longtime United States television producer and consultant.

Cooper is best known as the longtime art director and creative consultant for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, the leading producer of American game shows. He joined the firm in 1960 and was associated with it until his death at age 79.

Cooper was hired as a TV art director for NBC in 1950 gained significant experience in set design as a property master for the TV show Gunsmoke from 1957 to 1959, and prop master for the movies Back From the Dead and Blood Arrow. He served the same role for various other fictional movies and TV shows (including the 1970s edition of The Bob Newhart Show and the TV movie The Boy In the Plastic Bubble) for the next two decades.

But Cooper’s best-known achievement would be in creating set designs and game displays for TV quiz shows. For the Barry and Enright game show Concentration, which aired on NBC for 15 years before moving into syndication, he created the prize display that slowed the list of gifts as the contestants matched them. The display did not show the stagehand slipping in the name of the prize on the side It had the prize name in place but obscured by a front covering, which would then be pulled to the side to reveal the prize name.

The game shows for which Cooper would serve as art director or creative consultant after 1960 include quiz programs The Price Is Right, Match Game, What’s My Line?, To Tell The Truth, He Said, She Said (and its successor Tattletales), Family Feud, Double Dare, Card Sharks, Blockbusters, Body Language and Trivia Trap. Many of the designs were executed without the benefit of computer generated special effects for which the industry is known today.

Cooper’s best-known single TV stage design is the psychedelic set he created for the 1969 syndicated revival of To Tell the Truth. The bright-colored panels and elegant lettering he supervised for the show’s Ed Sullivan Theater set in New York gave a modern, youthful feel to a show that had already been a success for 12 years on CBS.