Meeting of Minds: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

Steve Allen, already the originator of the Tonight show, later created what one critic called "the ultimate talk show" and presented, on the PBS network, a series called Meeting of Minds which was constructed in a typical chat-show format, but featured guests who played important roles in the drama of history. Among those who appeared were Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Marie Antoinette, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Paine, Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire and Charles Darwin. The multi-award winning series still exists in the form of video cassettes, audio cassettes and a four volume set of books, published by Prometheus. Most of the women's roles were played by Allen's wife, Jayne Meadows. Allen clarified at the time "The idea is that every syllable will be part of an actual quotation. The degree of the exact quotation varies from character to character.

Series details

• Title: Meeting of Minds
• Format: Talk Show
• Language: English
• Genres: History
• Premiere date: 1977-01-10
• Final broadcast date listed: 1981-05-03
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: PBS
• Network country: United States
• Typical episode runtime: 60 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 61084
• IMDb ID: tt0075536
• TVDB ID: 78311

Cast and credited roles

• Steve Allen — Host

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1977-01-10; final listed air date 1977-02-14; episode order: 6.
• Season 2: premiered 1978-03-06; final listed air date 1978-04-10; episode order: 6.
• Season 3: premiered 1979-05-26; final listed air date 1979-06-30; episode order: 6.
• Season 4: premiered 1981-03-29; final listed air date 1981-05-03; episode order: 6.

Source and licence

Adapted from Meeting of Minds on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.