Ben Casey

Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity.

Ben Casey. M. D. was a neurologist; the writers found another way to work with your head

Ben Casey, "Keep Out of Reach of Adults"
OB: March 11, 1964, 9 p.m. EST, ABC
I was two months old when this episode was first broadcast.

Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity.

The five words at the top of this post, also opened every episode of Ben Casey, spoken by actor Sam Jaffee as a hand drew the representative symbols on a chalkboard.

This was a serious show, and it wanted you to know it.

The "cold open" of every episode, actually began with the chalk drawings, then a switch to that opening scene. It usually involved that week's guest stars, setting up whatever problem (or hinting that there may be a problem) before the burst of the gurney through the hospital doors interrupted it for the dramatic opening credits. We get the idea the stretcher is coming for one of those characters, and even get a patient's eye glimpse of the hallway ceiling lights flying by, to emphasize this series is as much about Dr. Casey's patients as the doctor himself. The dramatic theme sounds like the orchestra is chasing the gurney down the hallway, and even the shots of the two main characters look like we're looking at them from a stretcher or bed.

Just the whole idea of good health, and taking it seriously, was the bedrock of this show. It's a simple idea that drove some melodramatic, life or death plots. No daytime soap material (at least not yet), no "disease of the week"; Casey was a neurologist, and many of these diagnoses actually repeated themselves over and over (brain tumors were popular, for instance). And Casey himself took it all seriously, just as his cross-network rival, Dr. James Kildare, did.

Ben Casey premiered on ABC in the fall of 1961, the same time as Dr. Kildare on NBC. Dr. Kildare was based on the character played in a very popular series of movies by Lew Ayres (and a character that also got his own radio show). Both shows had a lot in common, in the reverence of their subject matter and the medical profession, their hunky doctors and the female audiences that watched them; and the fact the shows are always unfairly typed as nighttime soaps (until each series' final season, then guilty as charged). The two shows even came and went around the same time, paving the way for other medical shows to coincidentally follow in pairs (Medical Center and Marcus Welby, M.D.; ER and Chicago Hope; Grey's Anatomy and House, M.D.).

The NBC incarnation of Dr. Kildare featured a very young, seemingly gentle and timid Richard Chamberlain, playing Kildare as a polite, bookwormish, reserved (but very attractive to the ladies) type. His older mentor, Dr. Leonard Gillespie, acted like a fatherly figure as played by Raymond Massey.

Ben Casey's title character, the chief resident of County Hospital, couldn't possibly be more opposite; Vince Edwards played him as a tough guy, a surly, alpha male, to hell with all the rules (except the medical code of ethics and sometimes even then) type, whose initial impression on most strangers is that they were likely about to somehow step on his last nerve. He was Steven Kiley without the motorcycle; Hawkeye Pierce without the wisecracks, egos or alcoholism; Gregory House without the cane, limp or misanthropy. He was the grand marshal of the parade of edgy doctors who marched across our TV screens for the last 55 years. A great A. V. Club article on the show quotes writer-director John Meredyth Lucas summing up the character: "“A gangster with street manners and moist Latin eyes in a doctor’s suit was magic.” Indeed, Edwards, a B-movie tough guy, won the part based on his "bad boy" image.

And in a nod to his rival TV doctor's origins, Casey also had an older mentor, the hospital's chief of surgery Dr. David Zorba, played by Sam Jaffee. ABC nixed the producers' idea to play him as Jewish (as networks, unfortunately, often did in those days) so the writers never addressed Zorba's religion or culture, but did give him some Jewish sounding lines and Jaffee played him that way anyway. I suspect the talking lobster, Dr. Zoidberg on Futurama, is even partly modeled after Zorba. Zorba may have been more experienced and understanding of Casey, but he never pretended to be his father.

The show had a cause and a reverence for the medical profession, but it wasn't a blind one. For all of their support and their relationship, the traditional Zorba and progressive Casey fought at least once an episode but always from a level of mutual respect.

The show was created by James E. Moser, who started out writing for Dragnet and had already created the show that spawned all future medical dramas, the mid-1950s Medic. While hanging out at L.A. County General hospital, he met Dr. Allan “Max” Warner, a brash surgeon who served as the inspiration for Ben Casey and Ben Casey.

Mary Ann Watson, whose book, "The Expanding Vista," explored President John F. Kennedy's relationship with and influence over 1960s television, describes the series (along with The Defenders and Naked City) as “New Frontier character dramas… programs based on liberal social themes in which the protagonists were professionals in service to society.” Indeed, one of the most gripping episodes came as soon as the first season, when a smallpox outbreak results in the quarantine of the neurology ward. The episode might play especially well even now if you were to substitute, say, anthrax for smallpox. (Oh wait, ER did that already.) The episode took a number of mini-dramas (emergency officials working with hospital administration, a compulsive gambler played by John Astin, a sailor kicking a door down to be with his dying, quarantined father) and wove them together beautifully like a more-exciting-than-usual tapestry.

The episode that aired the day after I was born, "The Only Place Where They Know My Name," was unavailable to me to review for this post...and that's a shame. It featured comedian and singer Phil Harris (Jack Benny's former bandleader) in a rare dramatic role, and I would love to have seen that. (The episode involved a skid row bum, a prominent zoologist, and Casey making a tough ethical decision...and Harris did not play the zoologist.) But I did binge-watch as many episodes from the 1963-64 season as I could, and one thing that jumped out at me (or at anyone else who ever binge-watches anything) is the formula. By then they already had a formula mapped out--we meet the guest stars, find out how they'll interact with Ben Casey, he'll give them a prognosis, they'll ignore it, he'll insist to the point of coming out of the hospital to make his case (or showing some X-rays or both), some bad guy will develop, the person regrets not acting sooner and if it's not too late, acts on the advice, and the bad guy either turns around or gets his due, or perhaps turns around because he gets his due. Having said that, sometimes it tosses that formula aside.

Another thing that jumped out at me, is that neurology isn't the only way the show looks at the human brain and nervous system. Psychology is a very important part of the show, since it's as much about the human condition as about the medical condition of humans. Daddy issues actually get a lot, I mean a lot of play in particular. Evidently there was enough psychology on this show to fit into a second show, and that's exactly what happened this season: Ben Casey gave birth to a spinoff, Breaking Point, in which Paul Richard and Eduard Franz played a pair of psychiatrists. In fact the season premiere of this Ben Casey season was the first of a two part crossover episode (possibly the first of that kind ever) that introduced the characters and continued as the first episode of Breaking Point. Unfortunately, I only saw part one, the Ben Casey half, a tense character study in which a son taunts his father over a deep, dark family secret that involves their former life, 20 years earlier, in Nazi Germany.

"With the Rich and Mighty, Always a Little Patience" finds Anne Francis as a rich diva who's attracted to Casey when he fails to put up with her crap. "If There were Dreams to Sell" centers on a little girl whose doting grandfather is dying and whose daddy issues are advancing. "Little Drops of Water, Little Grains of Sand" is an especially well done episode about a temperamental man with a failing marriage, who turns out to be a victim of lead poisoning, after working in a poorly ventilated sanding hut.

"For a Just Man Falleth Seven Times" is a quirky little character drama directed by Vince Edwards himself, about a dying man who suddenly leaves the hospital and gets engaged to a pretty but lonely young barfly. She's played by Lee Grant, who turns in a great performance as a woman who finally feels appreciated, only to have to face the pending death of her future husband and the concern of his family and their attorney. In a great piece of stunt casting, the man is played by none other than the original big-screen Dr. Kildare, Lew Ayres. I'd like to think there was some attitude behind that casting decision.

Two episodes take on religion in various forms. "The Last Splintered Spoke of the Old Burlesque Wheel" is about a money-grabbing tent revival preacher who finds himself star-crossed with a reformed former stripper as she develops medical problems. (Ironically that one actually aired on Christmas Day 1963.) The season finale, "The Evidence of Things Not Seen," has two plots: one featuring Wilfred Hyde-White as a dying priest (the same year he'd appear in "My Fair Lady"), the other has Katherine Ross, later of "The Graduate" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," as a woman with a brain tumor, whose boyfriend, an atheist, gets beat up by her bigoted, religious father. Both episodes make it clear, Ben himself is religious and a believer, but when his medical training and his religious beliefs intersect or collide, he won't throw his medical training under the bus and try to declare "a miracle" or "God's will." In fact, Zorba even makes clear in another episode, when he uses the world "miracle," it's simply to describe something unexplained.

The one I finally chose was the March 11, 1964 episode "Keep Out of Reach of Adults," in which we get to see Casey in top form, self-righteously preaching on behalf of the medical profession while taking on some forms of alternative medicine. In this case, it's some bizarre, new age treatment that involves lights, some kind of massage and what seems to be the power of suggestion. Apparently the show wasn't quite willing to take on more acceptable alternative medicine like acupuncture or chiropractic medicine, but it's probably something that would be more common among the rich, even famous.

The show's open that week follows "Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity." with "Silver skies, silent stars..." as a man performs the new age therapy mentioned above, on a Mrs. Hamilton, with a set of flashing lights illuminating the otherwise dark room. "I suspect it's a radical neutron imbalance...don't let the big words frighten you. Just relax," he tells her. Then he says something that would get the attention of anyone my age or younger who knows the original "Star Wars" trilogy. "The force is trying to help you now. It wants to help you. It's its only reason for existence."

The man is Professor Paul Hamilton (played by Richard Kiley) and the Mrs. Hamilton happens to be his wife, Gwen (Geraldine Brooks). She says she feels better and trusts her husband, who thanks her for trying to "...trust a force we can't weigh or measure, or even understand." (I suspect the "weigh or measure" line was a backhanded reference to the B.S. that makes up his profession.) As he's called out of his office by his receptionist, Gwen looks out the window, then suddenly starts groaning and grabs her head. She reaches for the table that holds the light device, but can't support herself and collapses (a nice metaphor, actually). And that's when the gurney bursts forth through the doors, cuing the theme music.

After the opening sponsor billboards, Mrs. Hamilton, posing under the pseudonym Margaret Cane, goes to get her test results from Ben Casey at County General. He tells her she has an operable tumor, as long as she has surgery soon, but she says the medicine he prescribed her made her feel better, and wants to know if she can be treated as an outpatient. But Casey tells her she needs an operation and needs it now, prompting her to acknowledge his now-infamous bedside manner by accusing him being "so cold" and "so right." He admits he's no diplomat but says time is of the essence.

Her cover story to her husband is that she went shopping, not mentioning the hospital. Right about the time Casey tries to track her down by her phony name, she has another episode in her husband's office, this time struggling to call Casey on the office phone, this time under her real name.

After a commercial break, she's in her husband's office again, going through his "pretty lights and fancy words" therapy again. He locks the door to his office as he gives her a shot of morphine. He tells her she just fainted; she comes clean and tells him she's been to see Casey twice, and tells him about the tumor diagnosis. She says she was frightened and the pain was getting worse. Paul Hamilton tells her he's not angry about "This Casey business" but reminds her that her own mother came to see her after the doctors had given up, and she lived two more years.

Casey himself shows up in the Hamilton Clinic office during this conversation to talk to Gwen, setting the stage for a dramatic argument and debate over their chosen methods. Casey tells them, x-rays reveal she has a tumor in the fifth cranial nerve and reminds Gwen, it's operable now, but if it's not removed soon, she'll die. "I call that critical, what would you call it?" he says to Hamilton.

Hamilton says he doesn't agree with prognosis, or diagnosis, or suggested remedy; Casey reminds him he's not a doctor. When Hamilton says he disagrees with "cutting" and instead prefers to "rely on the sanity of nature," he puts Casey on the soapbox for one of his greatest speeches ever.

Casey: You are treating your wife, while time runs out for her, while her life hangs in the balance. You are a quack, Mr. Hamilton, a charlatan!...You're treating the sick with mumbo jumbo, and an arsenal of dead cats and newt eyes. Look at this place, it looks like an alchemist's cave in the middle ages. Where's your pointed hat, Mr. Hamilton? Or your jingling bells, or your sackful of specifics against the evil eye?

Hamilton says he's simply trying to give his wife two sides of the argument (which Casey says only has one side) and keeps referring to her "symptoms" as if the x-rays don't exist. Hamilton, in the face of all of this, suggests something with amino acids or even that her tumor is "psychosomatic." He puts doctors down for their salaries and claims "Doctors lose as many patients as they save." He claims to have treated cancer while Casey claims Hamilton treated "stomach aches and skin irritations" with "ten cents worth of ointment." When he tells Gwen if she doesn't have the operation she'll die...Gwen responds, 1960s style, by standing by her man.

Hamilton: I meant what I said, Dr. Casey, there are many roads but only one goal.
Casey: Well, keep that sentiment handy, it can double as an epitaph.

In a consultation with Zorba (that doubles as a political speech with a call to action), Zorba agrees with all of Casey's findings and acknowledges the Hamiltons of the world suck, "preying on the gullible, the foolish, the ignorant," while "fattening their bank accounts."

"Unfortunately Ben, the laws governing the disposal of refuse and garbage, are written with greater care than those that control and limit the use of quasi-medical techniques and administrations...Society has the weapons to cut the heads off these parasites," he preaches. In the meantime, Zorba says the decision still must be hers, and Casey still has a job and a lot of other sick people to worry about at County General.

Casey then meets with four of Professor Hamilton's former patients, who are current patients at County General, and even though they voice a few negative things ("He took my money," "I just wasn't getting any better") they ultimately back him up. It's clear this manipulative talks with them worked their magic.

He tells his colleague, Dr. Maggie Graham (Bettye Ackerman) that he's failing to break Gwen's blind trust in her husband, and without better proof, his only choice is to let Gwen Hamilton die. Maggie then uses the same ruse Gwen used in her first visit to Dr. Casey: showing up at the Hamilton Clinic, posing as a sexy nightclub singer named "Connie Allen" who started having pains after a high school reunion. She says doctors scare her.

As Hamilton talks to her, in his clinic, he gets a butt goin'. O.K., normally when we see something like this in an old TV show or movie, we just assume we were "that far gone," that it was O.K. for people in medicine to light up a cigarette in their offices. But in this case, they've already established Paul Hamilton is a quack, so, just as the real-world surgeon general is calling for warnings on cigarette packs, this is being played as reinforcement that this is not a true man of medicine.

Hamilton makes her repeat three things, the third being."A sub-oxpital craniechtemy, and laminechtemy, were performed to increase pressure on the spinal cord." (I'm sure I butchered the spelling on those, I'm not one of the nurses in our family.)

He then makes her repeat them again, very fast, prompting her to say "relieve" instead of "increase" pressure on the spinal cord. This is where he apparently felt like he caught her. He tells her he doesn't think he can help her and recommends she see a doctor. "I imagine you know where to find one," he says tersely. As she leaves, his receptionist hands him a call from a former patient, who's apparently spoken to Casey.

In lieu of the usual argument with Zorba, this time Casey gets a visit from an investigator with the county medical association, on a complaint filed on behalf of the Hamilton Clinic. He reminds Casey it's always the patient's decision, which prompts Casey to shoot back, "Bat boys are coaching third base and the inmates are running the asylum," but the "quack" gets away with everything. When he asks the investigator if he's just supposed to let her die, the investigator says "We have to be that tough on ourselves." He says he's tried repeatedly to build a case against Hamilton but the laws have too many loopholes, and warns Casey if he contacts Gwen Hamilton again, his career will be in jeopardy. This being a rule, you can guess how Ben Casey handles it.

Gwen comes into her husband's office while he's on the phone to Casey admitting his wife filed the complaint against him. The look on her face indicates that's a complete surprise to her. The whole final act is a showdown between her and her husband as she finally sees his motivations, especially when he complains that their nice home and club memberships are now at stake because of "one doctor's sick ego." She also gets him to admit he was concerned about how it would look for his wife to get surgery while he's trying to run a clinic designed to convince people not to trust doctors.

"Is that what my life means to you? A way to keep score in your fight with the AMA?" she demands. Hamilton reminds her of the terminally ill who visit him after the doctors give up,and he gives them hope.

"But what about people who come to see you before they see a doctor, who waste precious time, who buy words instead of medical attention?" Gwen asks. Paul simply accuses Casey of "using every trick in the book" to "hustle business."

The couple argument takes so long that Casey has time to arrive since that phone call that set it off. When Paul says he's making more charges against Casey, Gwen finally breaks out of her Stepford shell, and declares, "You're not making any charges, unless you want to make them from a prison cell!" Then to Casey: "I've been given hypodermic injections, doctor, by my husband."

Casey wants her to testify against her husband but instead, she thinks he deserves a second chance and is simply content to blackmail him into closing his clinic. But instead, she has yet another episode, and Hamilton prepares a syringe of morphine. However, she wants Paul to give it to her...and Casey to watch.
This is how the episode ends, with Gwen Hamilton passive-aggressively giving Ben Casey enough evidence to put her husband Paul out of business forever.

Paul: How can you use my love this way?
Gwen: How can you use my pain?

And that's all we see. We don't know if the blackmail or Casey's testimony does it, but we can presume Paul Hamilton closed his clinic and went into the car business; Gwen Hamilton had the surgery and separated from her husband; then perhaps she visited the psychiatrists on Breaking Point to work on her denial and co-dependency issues, as they perhaps explained his control issues to her and told her the definition of "projection."

Psychology plays a major and obvious role in character motivation on this show. And the problems of one man's psychological makeup shook up the whole show. That's another way of saying...Vince Edwards had a gambling problem and the show pretty much went to hell for it. The other cast found Edwards' entourage so disruptive, but even moreso his long absences from the set, when he went to the track, and guest stars had to shoot entire scenes with stand-ins--that Sam Jaffee finally walked off the show, to be replaced by Franchot Tone. (The voice saying "Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity." changed from Jaffee's to Edwards' when that happened.) In the final season, 1965-66, ABC retooled the show, making it more a nighttime soap, like their then-current hit Peyton Place. We hadn't seen much of Casey's personal life up to that point (it was implied he was on-again off-again with Maggie Graham), but suddenly Stella Stevens was brought on to be his full time love interest. And all of that resulted in plummeting ratings, and the show being cancelled. (Over on NBC the same thing happened to Dr. Kildare to the point it even aired two half-hours a week like Peyton Place.)

The two series where never syndication mainstays; I remember them in late night syndicated reruns on a Huntsville, Alabama station in the 1970s, and they've popped up on and off on cable. Dr. Kildare only recently saw an official DVD release of its first season, which is more than can be said of the long overdue Ben Casey. In fact, for lack of a better term, a lot of those New Frontier, "do-gooder" shows (like The Defenders, whose DVD absence I'll complain about every chance I get) have been painfully slow to be remastered for new audiences, and that's a shame. There's a lot of great writing, great drama, work from future acclaimed film directors like Sydney Pollack and Mark Rydell, and human/medical conditions that served as stand-ins for issues of the early 1960s. I would think the shows would make some jaws drop 50 years later. It shouldn't take a brain surgeon or neurologist to figure that out.

Availability: Three volumes of unofficial releases from ATI, with a smattering of episodes from the first four seasons. As you can see from the stills in this post, the video quality isn't the best in the world, and there's no word if we'll ever see an official release. We really should, though. This one is way overdue.

Next time on this channel: The Flintstones.

"Is It Bigger Than a Breadbox?"

Revisiting the original versions of the often-revived guessing games from back in the day.

I've Got a Secret, "Carol Channing has a secret"
OB: Monday night, January 13, 1964, CBS, 8 p.m. EST.
I was born the day after this show first aired.

What's My Line?, "Mystery Guest: Van Heflin"
OB: Sunday night, January 19, 1964, CBS, 10:30 p.m. EST.
I was five days old when this show first aired.

To Tell the Truth, "Will the Real John LeCarre Please Stand Up?"
OB: Monday night, April 27, 1964, CBS,, 7:30 p.m. EST
I was three months old when this show first aired.

Two reviews, two different shows, 52 years apart...but both shows were similar and came from the same family.

First, the TV Guide review by Cleveland Amory from the week of January 25-31, 1964, of What's My Line? Ouch. He really lets Arlene and company have it.

"The marathon dance that is known as What's My Line? has, in our opinion, not only run its course, it has, Massa, run it into the cold, cold ground," Amory begins with a rather unfortunate use of a racist Stephen Foster lyric. "When the show first went on the air, it was, our late grandfather once told us, highly popular. Since we last heard a favorable opinion, however, a whole new generation has been bored," of the blindfolds, the handshakes--geez, what did he have against handshakes?--the "mannered introduction" and "positively sick and tired of all the extraneous, intramural promotions." (He had a point with the last one. I watched a 1964 show recently on YouTube and actually groaned out loud when Arlene Francis, John Charles Daly and mystery guest Bert Lahr all went on and on and on about his new off-Broadway show, apparently to fill time because he was guessed so quickly.)

Fast forward to the night of June 14, 2016, the night ABC debuted a new revival of To Tell the Truth as one of a number of game shows (also including The $100,000 Pyramid and Match Game, both of which were especially well received by fans and critics) being used for a summer run. "I cannot lie, this show is caught in a TV time warp," wrote Cory Anotado on Buzzerblog, a blog devoted to game shows.


The 1964 To Tell the Truth panel

"The panelists are ill-trained compared to panels past, the interrogation format is disjointed and just not that fun to watch, and the premiere dragged for about a half-hour too long. The band is unnecessary, host Anthony Anderson’s mother is unnecessary, and the loser’s punishment is not only boring but also necessary, pushing the game away from the bluffers and onto the panelists," Cory writes, declaring this heavily tweaked version of the show "not great." Anotado's best point--other than tweaks like the loser's embarrassing tweet being "unnecessary" and the "two remaining imposters stick around for a second round" not being a bad idea--is that the burden is now shifted from the imposters and sworn guest to the panelists, with an actual score being kept. This makes it a totally different show. Now, the panel no longer functions as a team, it's every man and woman, Jalen Rose or the heavily experienced Betty White, for himself or herself. Whoever made that decision clearly wasn't thinking about game shows as much as reality shows.

Neither Amory nor Anotado felt a need to bow in complete reverence to the long-traditional formats of these beloved classics, and both found things to like (Amory did like Bennett Cerf's interactions with host John Charles Daly, for instance). But what's telling is that they're both really writing about changing times. Amory ultimately makes a good point about the genteel mannerisms of What's My Line? looking so anachronistic and the show looking like it still hadn't made it into the mid-1960s already. (The show finished #24 for the 1963-64 season, its last in the top 30.)

Anotado makes it clear he's open to new twists on an old format...as long as they work and they complement the format, not hijack it in our current short-attention-span, texting-distracted world. He knows the days of the cosmopolitan Manhattan-centric interaction of What's My Line? are over forever (and even a bit laughable now, but still not as bad as Amory said), but still calls for better panelists than say, Nene Leakes and Jalen Rose. After all, the various versions of To Tell the Truth had panelists who were master interrogators, like Tom Poston, Kitty Carlisle and Orson Bean, and up-and-coming television legends sitting in on the panel occasionally, from Dick Van Dyke to Johnny Carson to (on the 2000 revival) Walter White himself, Bryan Cranston. Sure the show is now produced for a young demographic--the opening guest (and two imposters) all claimed to be a guy Taylor Swift dated in high school, and later wrote a song about.

But there's a reason the game was considered for a revival in the first place, even for an audience who may have been toddlers or in preschool or kindergarten when John O'Hurley's version ran in 2000: it's just plain fun, in its rawest, most pure form.

Although legendary game show producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman actually gave us more than a few panel-type shows over the years, from The Name's the Same to, I guess you could say, Tattletales, their big three--What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth and I've Got a Secret will always jointly represent the gold standard of panel guessing games. For years, people mostly knew them by their revivals. In fact, when I first saw What's My Line? it was running five days a week with the polite but rather wooden Wally Bruner as host (he would later leave for the perhaps more suitable Wally's Workshop, to be replaced by the more charismatic Larry Blyden), and Soupy Sales and Arlene Francis as regular panelists (also the first I ever heard of Soupy Sales...that just seems wrong). I got to know To Tell the Truth the same way, with Garry Moore hosting (again, first I ever remembered hearing of him) and Kitty Carlisle, Peggy Cass and Bill Cullen (now Bill I did know, from Three on a Match) as the regular panelists. The glory days of the three shows from their CBS runs in the 1950s and 1960s just weren't available for reruns, even during their network runs (although I did catch the 1975 clip-filled ABC special, "What's My Line? at 25," and was fascinated).


The I've Got a Secret panel

But an upstart cable network would change that.

It's not always unusual for a cable network to mine the classic TV vaults for classic programming as an affordable way to fill their schedules, until they make enough money to license more recent programming and then produce their own new content. Long before giving us Key & Peele and The Daily Show, for instance, Comedy Central actually reran 1950s kinescopes of Steve Allen and comic bandleader Spike Jones, and such short-lived sitcoms as Captain Nice and When Things Were Rotten. AMC originally stood for American Movie Classics and had a format similar to Turner Classic Movies; their changeover to more recent fare was first met with gnashing of teeth (and troll defenders berating people over their definitions of "classic") before groundbreaking shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad meant all (or most) was forgiven.

Dorothy Kilgallen of What's My Line?

And so it was with the Game Show Network. Licensing several vaults' worth of classics, including the likes of The Dating Game, the original Password, the Peter Marshall version of The Hollywood Squares and the 1970s Match Game that grew its own cult following (and became the network's flagship show), GSN built its brand before tweaking its mission and starting off in a new direction. But in the meantime, it dusted off and reintroduced the black and white kinescopes of "the Big Three" to new generations of game show fans, rerunning them for the first time ever. At one point they even anchored their own regular feature on the network, Black and White Overnight, with the shows often even having the original sponsor billboards intact and even a CBS network announcer delivering an occasional promo at the end, for shows like My Favorite Martian. And suddenly a fan base was born. Game show fans began discussing and debating game play, which panelists performed the best and their backstories, even fierce "conspiracy theory" debates over the unfortunate drug-overdose death of What's My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen in 1965...just hours after appearing live on What's My Line? and before a pre-recorded To Tell the Truth on which she guested appeared on CBS.

Betsy Palmer of I've Got a Secret

And they became experts over intricate details. In fact I'm pretty sure I'll get a fact or two wrong in this entry and probably hear from one or two of them. That's okay. Nearly all of them are my friends.

Panel games go back to old time radio, and one of the first, if not the first, was Information Please. Listeners would try to stump an intellectual panel of professors and editors--and at least one reasonably intelligent celebrity like Fred Allen, Groucho Marx or Oscar Levant--with questions on a variety of topics. (Future What's My Line? panelist Fred Allen took over as host for one round and utterly stumped the panel with his own series of especially tough astronomy questions, since that was one of his passions. "I sure could use those Encyclopedia Britannicas!" he said of the show's prize, to a studio audience roaring with laughter.) Others included Twenty Questions and the 1950s era Sez Who? the latter hosted by Henry Morgan, himself already a regular panelist on the TV version of I've Got a Secret.

What's My Line? debuted on CBS in February 1950; Dorothy Kilgallen, the controversial gossip columnist whose radio show she did with her husband was once parodied by Fred Allen, was there at the very beginning. The show's longest running panelist, actress Arlene Frances (an old time radio soap actress, TV hostess and Broadway player among many other things) showed up for the second show. (She later said she was supposed to be in the first broadcast but didn't make it, for a reason she later forgot.) Bennett Cerf first appeared later that first year, 1950. When panelist Fred Allen, who became a regular in 1953, died unexpectedly in March 1956 (and like Kilgallen, his death was reflected in an especially moving next show), his chair became a rotating one for guest panelists.

The point of the show was to try to guess the occupation of the person in question, by listening to their yes or no answers. Then there was a celebrity mystery guest. A number of television and Hollywood legends sat in that spot over the years--Lucille Ball held the record at six times, including once with her husband Desi Arnaz and once using her "Martian language" that she and Ethel used in an actual I Love Lucy episode that aired around that time. Alfred Hitchcock threw the rules out the window as he used goofy voices and lines like "that's impossible" instead of "no," for instance. Speaking of Goofy voices, GE Theater host and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan actually imitated the Disney character of that name. Andy Griffith even set aside his southern accent for a surprisingly convincing British-sounding one, while Sean Connery did the opposite, shedding his Scottish accent for a squeaky "Mr. Moose" voice. Rosalind Russell and Pearl Bailey even convinced the panel they were men, while Fred Astaire, Art Carney, Walter Brennan and Fred MacMurray convinced them they were female. MacMurray and Buster Keaton were even thought to be attractive blondes.

Steve Allen on What's My Line?

It was during a pre-Tonight Show stint as a regular panelist that Steve Allen coined the show's most famous catchphrase, "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" This led to an especially hilarious moment when Kilgallen asked that question...to a man who actually made breadboxes for a living. Steve Allen, and the breadbox question, actually make a return appearance on the first What's My Line? of my lifetime, the one of January 19, 1964.

After a set of animated opening credits, a Kellogg's sponsor billboard and the familiar logo that was used again in the 1970s, I hear the legendary game show announcer Johnny Olson say those immortal words, "Now, let's all play What's My Line?!" It's the first thing I ever remember hearing him say, long before he ever said "Come on down!" or "Get ready to match the stars!"

The What's My Line? panel

Each of the three Goodson-Todman panel shows had their own way of introducting the panelists. The host did it on I've Got a Secret, while the announcer had that duty on To Tell the Truth. On What's My Line? it was unusually elaborate and choreographed. Olson would introduce the first panelist--this particular night, it was Dorothy Kilgallen--then she and the next two panelists would introduce the person to their left. Kilgallen introduces guest panelist Steve Allen, who then introduces series regular Arlene Francis (strikingly beautiful even then at the age of 56) and plugs her appearance in a play in New Jersey.

Bennett Cerf of What's My Line?

Francis then says, "The reason Random House is so first class is that its president is so first class" in way of introducing Bennett Cerf. His name was always familiar to me; he compiled a children's joke book I often checked out from the church library when I was a kid, and I often read the jokes out loud ("What's the first thing you put into a pie? Your teeth!") to the church librarian, who also happened to be my elementary school principal during five other days every week, Miss Booker. (Yes, that was her real name.) I don't know of any current day game show that would have the president of a publishing house as a celebrity panelist or contestant...but then again, I also don't know any publishers who are that well known for being that entertaining, either, not enough to provide yuks on a game show. And Bennett Cerf was a hoot by all accounts, mine included.

Cerf, known especially for his wit and his hilarious efforts to trip up the host, introduced John Charles Daly as that "pristine gardenia on the lapel of American television." (That actually made me laugh out loud.) Daly then comes out and takes his own spot stage left (the audience's right) facing the panel across the stage, and says, "A gardenia would smell as sweet by any other name, I'm sure."

Daly was originally a network newsman and a member of radio's CBS World News Roundup. It was he who most CBS radio listeners heard break the news that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Four years later, he had the sad duty of breaking the news that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died. Daly was also ABC's first nightly network news anchor during his first ten years of What's My Line?, 1950-1960, and I doubt today a broadcast network news anchor like, say, Scott Pelley of CBS, could pop up on, say, NBC hosting a game show. (But yes I know CNN's Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer often pop up on Jeopardy! as celebrity contestants. Really bad contestants, in fact.)

White House secretary Geraldine Whittington.

Daly introduces the first "challenger"--he calls everyone "challenger" instead of contestant, even the mystery guest is a "mystery challenger"--and says "Will you enter and sign in, please," one of the show's beloved, iconic catch phrases.

The woman who signs in signs as Jerri Whittington...and she's about to make major history that the panel, the studio audience and the home audience are not going to expect.

As she takes her seat, Daly says the home and studio audiences will now see what her line is...and according to the super, it's "Secretary to President Johnson." "Miss Whittington is salaried and deals in a service," he tells the panel before questioning begins with Steve Allen.

...But first, I'm not going to bury the lede like the show does. This was a very significant moment not just in television history but American history. Geraldine Whittington has the distinction of being the first African-American to be the executive secretary to a sitting U.S. President. And this was the Lyndon Johnson administration's way of announcing it to the world. Apparently the White House felt more people would see it this way than if Johnson held a news conference. However, they never mention her groundbreaking role on behalf of her race. They simply talk about her being LBJ's secretary.

Overall, the panel has ten turns to guess the correct occupation. Each non-affirming "no" adds $5 to the winning amount the challenger will receive, stopping no higher than $50--a rather paltry amount even then, considering we'd seen game shows giving away $64,000+ about seven years earlier before they were destroyed by scandals. (Even the other two G-T panel shows gave away more money, like To Tell the Truth.) But it was never about the money.

Steve Allen is able to get that both men and women may use her service...but not children. "That's one down and nine to go, Miss Francis," Daly says. His keeping count and flipping over the appropriate card is the game show equivalent to the chorus of a never ending song. ("That's two down and eight to go, Mr. Cerf.") And it does have that kind of rhythm to it, in fact. Repetition is one of the ways game shows will stay in your head. Woody Allen, himself a guest panelist a couple of times in 1963, even parodied all of this in two different movies of his.

Arlene Francis of What's My Line?

Arlene Francis gets a laugh about "physical dexterity," assuming her job might be manual labor. "There are some physical actions necessary to its completion," Daly offers in the way of clarity. (His sometimes long-winded clarifications were often the butt of Bennett Cerf's jokes.) When Francis gets a "no" to her job involving "gamemanship and sportsplay," Daly declares it's two down and eight to go and calling on Cerf.

All of the questions are supposed to be "yes" or "no" but Cerf actually gets away with getting a non-yes-or-no question answered, when he asks where James River, Maryland is located. She says it's halfway between Washington and Annapolis, thereby dropping a huge hint. Cerf gets a laugh with "Is this a non-profit-making organization?" then gets it out of her that it's a government job. Her "no" to whether she works in the armed services sends the questioning over to Dorothy Kilgallen.

It's Kilgallen, the most seriously competitive of the panelists who prided herself on her journalistic interrogation skills, who manages to narrow it down to the executive branch, rules out "special robes" (then reminds herself that's the "wrong branch"), that she's connected to the White House, then correctly guesses she's a secretary. Kilgallen was the best player of the bunch but not necessarily the most loved by fans; Francis had a Machiavellian way of acting like she accidentally just "backed into" the correct answer but her sharp questioning skills gave her away.

Whittington describes Johnson as having "great warmth..fair, kind," but also as being a perfectionist who demands "total excellence at all times." She acknowledges working long hours with the President and even traveling with him to his ranch in Texas, which she enjoys. (Daly says he has friends in the White House press corps who say they do not enjoy that part of the job.)

The second challenger, Sabin Segal, has a line that says he "sells bird seed." Daly tells the panel he "deals in a product." (Lines that have to do with animals are often comedy gold on this show, especially if the panel hasn't yet realized the "line" is actually about an animal. Steve Allen's 1950s questioning of a man who made horse feed bags is the stuff of television legend...improvisational comedy in its purest form.)

The questioning begins with Francis, who asks, "Might it be a product I would use?...would Mr. Cerf use it?" getting laughs both times. "Would we ever use it at the same time?" she asks. (Cerf: "There's nobody that I'd rather use it with." There's an awful lot of mutual admiration and even downright flirting on this show.)

"Do I take it that you have nothing whatsoever to do with breadboxes?" Cerf asks, the first "breadbox" reference of the night with Allen present. Cerf gets it out of Segal that the product is consumable, "taken internally," solid, and "some kind of food," but gets a no on whether it's "eaten in natural state as opposed to prepared," since it does go through a factory.

"Steve said its natural state is Arizona," Kilgallen quips, before asking "Is it something I can hold in my hand?" Segal says yes, and Kigallen notes it would be smaller than a breadbox. She gets a "no" on whether it can be eaten after it's cooked.

"I don't want to hear any jokes about muddah or faddah, but would describe this product as fodder?" asks Cerf, an apparent reference to I've Got a Secret producer Allan Sherman and his novelty song "Hello Muddah Hello Faddah."

Kilgallen manages to narrow it down that it's "eaten by birds or fish," and says she'll "take a stab at fish." That turns questioning over to Allen, who says "Something with feathers eats these things," and asks, "Is the thing that eats this bigger than a breadbox?" He narrows it down to something that can live in a cage, then guesses, "Are you a bird seed man of some kind?" Sabin Segal gets his $35, and is identified as an employee of Hartz Mountain pet products.

After a Kellogg's commercial, Daly makes sure the panel has their iconic blindfolds in place for the "mystery guest" segment, and asks, "Would you enter, mystery challenger, and sign in please?"

Mystery guest Van Heflin

Hollywood actor Van Heflin then signs in. The then-55-year-old character actor had been the lead man a few times--once as one of "The Three Musketeers" and once playing President Andrew Johnson--and was known for such 1950s movies as "Patterns" and the westerns "Shane" and "3:10 to Yuma." Here, his vocal disguise is as an older, vaguely New Yorkish man with a tobacco-stained voice that's almost a loud whisper.

In this round, Daly still grants $5 per non-affirmative "no," but the panelists take turns one question at a time this time. (I seem to remember the "One down, nine to go" part even being dropped from that round in the Bruner-Blyden years.)

Dorothy Kilgallen gets him to say he's in show business, while Steve Allen is able to confirm that he has been in movies. For Arlene Francis he confirms he's sometimes on the stage, and Bennett Cerf's question narrows it down to the fact that he's currently on stage. We later find out he's on Broadway and not "South of 42nd Street" as Cerf asked.

"I pass," Dorothy Kilgallen says surprisingly. "I punt!" Steve Allen quips to loud laughter and applause from the audience. (He was every bit a great ad-libber as his fellow Allen panelist, Fred.) Figuring out who he is, Arlene Francis asks if he's appearing in a play based on a Louis Nizer work, which he was. In fact, after the applause and the panelists removing their blindfolds, they discuss that play, "A Case of Libel." At one point, Bennett Cerf asks about some ongoing investigations in the news concerning "box office speculation" (perhaps the inspiration for the 1968 movie "The Producers," later itself a Broadway musical). Heflin ducks the question almost literally, by saying all of that happens at the front door and he goes in and out the back.

There's actually time for one more regular challenger, so Daly brings out Mrs. Joan Higgins of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Her line is, "Band Leader (All Girl Orchestra)." Daly says she's "self employed and deals in a service" reminds the panel they're running low on time. After a few questions (and Arlene's guess that she's an "adorable baton twirler"), Daly flips the cards and Joan Higgins stumps the panel. As the show winds down, the panelists say good night to one another one at a time, with Bennett Cerf quipping to Daly, "I'll bet you're headed to the Roosevelt Hotel!" His line becomes even funnier when a seriously awkward Daly lets it be known that it was Cerf and "not I who authored that thought," perhaps afraid to get in Dutch with his wife Virginia Warren or his father-in-law, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

John Charles Daly of What's My Line?

It was Daly who kept the show so formal, with the "Miss Francis" and "Mr. Cerf" salutations, and rejected efforts to jazz the show up for a younger crowd...perhaps what Cleveland Amory was picking on about the show. (Daly's possible "mid-Atlantic accent" could also have something to do with both his delivery and the show's mannerisms.) What's My Line? would leave CBS in September 1967--with Daly leaning back and forth between microphones as the show's final mystery guest, and Francis guessing he was actually both of the show's executive producers, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Daly and the panel, in fact, actually came back from summer hiatus long enough for one last show after CBS chose not to renew the series (coincidentally just days after ABC's The Fugitive did the same). The show, as I mentioned, returned in five-day-a-week syndication for seven more years beginning in 1968, with Francis returning as a full-time regular and Cerf as a semi-regular until his death in 1971. (And Wally Bruner called everyone by their first names.)

Garry Moore of I've Got a Secret

Considerably less formal, and with a format elastic enough to accommodate young viewers on occasion, was the second of these Goodson-Todman panel shows to premiere: I've Got a Secret, which kicked off in 1952. Garry Moore, a variety show host CBS loved for his ability to connect with the audience, was tapped this time as host. It wasn't unusual for the informal Moore to show up in the studio with a butt goin', even years after Winston Cigarettes dropped their sponsorship. The regular panel was usually game show host Bill Cullen, actress Betsy Palmer, Henry Morgan (the David Letterman of old time radio and a favorite of mine from that era), and former Miss America Bess Myerson.

Right: former Beatle Pete Best.

This format was a lot less formal: the panel had to guess a secret that was whispered into Moore's ear as the studio audience saw the super on the monitors and we saw it at home. During the era I was born, one of those secrets came from Pete Best, whose secret...was that he used to be a Beatle, having been replaced by Ringo just before the Fab Four hit it big.

This had the most straight-forward and least gimmicky premise of any of the three; you simply had to guess something about the person. The panelists had to ask yes or no questions, but didn't lose a turn with each "no," and there was none of that "Three down and seven to go" business on this show. There were no gimmicks (except for the "secret whispering) but there were stunts, demonstration segments, and times Moore would hold up pictures or maps or play a little film.

One couple was flown to the show for a secret that they have a large number of children. But the secret was changed at the last minute: it turns out while the husband was watching a ballgame in New York that day, the wife was flown to Bermuda for lunch, and that was the secret that even the husband didn't know. Another time, Moore actually pulled a young man off the street, for his secret. ("Garry Moore just went outside and pulled me off the street"...yes, the show was that flexible.) A show with Lucille Ball as the guest panelist featured a 96 year old man who was the last known surviving member of the Ford's Theater audience the night President Abraham Lincoln got assassinated. He was a five year old boy who didn't see or hear the shooting, but actually saw assassin John Wilkes Booth grab the American flag and jump onto the stage, hurting himself, only a few feet away from where he was sitting. And a Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong had a secret that their son, Neil, had been selected to be in NASA's astronaut program that day. Moore actually asked the proud parents about the possibility their son might even be on the moon one day.

There wasn't a regular "mystery guest" segment either, but the final segment usually involved a celebrity with a secret of their own. It could be a personal one, but was usually a setup for a stunt. One night, for instance, Vivian Vance's secret was that she wanted to introduce a new game--a guessing game in which you had to guess a word with only the help of other, one-word clues. Sure enough, she was helping Goodson-Todman try out a prospective game show format that the television world would later know as Password. Another time, Harpo Marx showed up with a secret...that he wasn't even Harpo. It was actually his brother Chico dressed as Harpo, and the two looked alike otherwise. That one stumped the panel. (Their brother Groucho was supposedly nixed from being a guest on the show on another occasion, because sponsor Winston Cigarettes didn't want him showing up with his cigar.)

And despite the lack of a "mystery guest," there were instances where panelists had to wear blindfolds...and one such round was played during the show that aired the Monday night before I was born, January 13, 1964.

"Good evening, this is Carol Channing, and this is I've Got a Secret!" the venerable Broadway actress says to open the show. (I'm disappointed she didn't say "I'm Carol Channing and I've got a secret!"). Announcer John Cannon then says, "Live from New York here is I've Got a Secret, starring Garry Moore!" followed by a sponsor billboard for Toni hair and beauty products.

As Moore arrives on stage, he's carrying something and accompanying a production staff member, Judy Crichton. He references the previous week's guest, a man who was once paddled by his school teacher back in grade school. Only thing was, that teacher was now President Lyndon Johnson, who was watching that night and invited him to the White House. This follow-up moment shows a still of teacher and pupil being reunited in the Oval Office, a trip which Crichton made as well. So, if you're keeping track, that's now two Goodson-Todman panel shows that were appointment viewing for LBJ. I have no idea if he ever watched To Tell the Truth.


Bess Myerson of I've Got a Secret

Moore then introduces the "political bigwigs" on the panel: "budget director" Cullen, who hosts The Price is Right; guest panelist, comedienne Phyllis Diller, who Moore describes as "Speaker of the House," filling in for Palmer. Moore introduces Morgan as the show's "goodwill ambassador, I think his last assignment was Panama," getting an especially big laugh as does Morgan's follow-up, "We all make mistakes." (This is a reference to the Panama Canal "Martyr Riots" of 1964, which broke out just days earlier.) Lastly, Moore introduces Myerson as "the People's Choice."

Phyllis Diller guesting on I've Got a Secret

Moore's banter with Diller is a point for her to plug her book, "Phyllis Diller Tells All About Fang." "Is Fang your dog?" Moore asks, about a still-new joke that became a baby-boomer icon associated with the comedienne. "That's my husband, what else would you call a man with one tooth that's two inches long?" she explains to a big laugh. "We call him Kukla!" Moore responds.

Moore brings out the first contestant, William Willis, of New York, and his secret is what he was doing on his 70th birthday. "I sailed a raft across the Pacific Ocean, ALONE!" the on-screen super tells us as the heavily bearded man whispers in Moore's ear.

Bill Cullen starts his round of questioning with, "I know what you were not doing on your birthday, shaving!" (Cullen's ad-libbing ability is perhaps the most underrated in television history.) Cullen gets it out of the man that what he did was unusual for a 70th birthday, or unusual for anyone, and not more likely for a woman.

Phyllis Diller is able to narrow his secret down to water, warm and not ice cold, and not freshwater; she was able to find out he didn't swim and didn't save a life except his own. Henry Morgan was able to rule out waterskiing, asking "Am I warm?" "Not on a night like this," Moore replies, referring to the blizzard conditions Johnny Carson also made fun of that week. "I have a slight case of pneumonia, I didn't know if I was going to die from smoking or this," Morgan replied. (By the way, I'm struck by the fact that this show airing live allowed so many topical references. The 2016 revival of To Tell the Truth was actually taped a full year before it aired...not that I'm disappointed at not hearing any gorilla-killing jokes or anything.)

Bess finally guesses that he was on a vessel, then narrows it down to a raft, but the buzzer at the end of her round beats her. Moore explains Willis sailed 7,500 miles across the Pacific Ocean, bringing himself ashore in Samoa only after his rudders failed. Moore explains Willis took his first ocean voyage from Germany, around Cape Horn, to America in 1908; jumped ship, and explored America. Moore shows his most recent voyage on a map, starting in Peru, on the raft "Age Unlimited. He says the toughest part is the solitude, and since he got word recently the rudders in Samoa have been repaired, he will soon head back there to resume and complete his journey...which he also did when he turned 60.

After a commercial break, we return to see an unusually blindfolded panel. Moore then welcomes "Miss X" (two young girls and a young boy) with their secret: "Our mother is Phyllis Diller."

After finding out they are not "wearing something odd," Morgan says "Oh boy!" He deduces whoever is speaking is using their (her, it's Phyllis' oldest daughter) actual voice, not speaking through anything but a harsh whisper, before the buzzer sounds. Myerson asks if the blindfolds imply these are recognizable people, and is told they might be, "by some on the panel." She also finds out they're not well known in show business, then asks, "Are you someone that we would know personally? Are we acquainted with you?" "Partly," she's told. After her 30 second turn ends and the buzzer sounds, Moore tells her she and Morgan can remove their blindfolds but don't say anything to the other panelists.

"Putting two and two together, I pass," says Cullen, not wanting to be the smartass who guesses it before Diller even has a chance. Then Diller comes up with a hilarious guess: "Is the secret the fact that in this blizzard you have no clothes on?" After a laugh and a "no," Diller then notices, "Her breath is so bad, I can hear her breath," in regard to the sound of her daughter's whisper, then asks, "Would I know you? Is it one of my kids?"

Specifically, it's son Harry, and daughters Stephanie and Sue Diller, three of her five children with the other two "tied up with projects." "They thought you might be a little nervous," Moore explains. Cullen then says the reason he passed is because he thought it might be either his own wife, "Fang" or the children. "I thought they were doing their paper routes," said Diller, but it turns out they came in from St. Louis "just before the storm."

Speaking of the storm, when the next segment begins, Carol Channing is back. She had just come straight from rehearsals for what would turn out to be her iconic, forthcoming Broadway role, "Hello Dolly," in which she plays a matchmaker. (I love these little bits of history.) But that apparently took some effort, and Moore says about a third of the audience couldn't make it to the live broadcast that night due to the snow conditions.

In honor of Channing's matchmaker role, she unveils a group of ladies sitting on bleachers, while their husbands are backstage. One will be blindfolded and will describe his wife, and the panel will try to see if they can spot her.

The first man is hilariously candid in a way that would portend yet another future game show, The Newlywed Game, in a couple of years. He describes his wife as having a "pudgy nose, that looks a little like a strawberry," an "Irish, mick-looking face" (yikes at the language), and says "When she smiles, it's wonderful," but says she doesn't smile much "except for payday or something like that." The audience roars and I cringe.

The guy wins $100 if Cullen correctly guesses, and it goes down when another panelist has to take a turn. But Cullen correctly guesses #18, saying "I'm looking for the one who looks madder than anyone else." Moore eggs it on: as the guy leaves for backstage, Moore says, "Wait right after the show, and your wife will come out and hit you right in the mouth."

The second guy describes his wife of 27 years as 5'7" 135 pounds, "130 she would say," then says "someone like Hedy Lamarr."

"Ooh, there's someone making brownie points for himself," Moore says. The guy further describes his wife's hair as "dark tinged with gray," and says she has a "pert nose."

Phyllis Diller says she missed most of that description because "Bill's been telling me a dirty joke," getting a huge laugh. She guesses "I think this gentleman is married to 12, 13 and 19, and maybe going out with 5," but misses it when she narrows it down to 19. (She's actually #13, in fact. Her humor, by the way, gives us a hint as to what this show would've looked like in a more raucous era, like the 1970s Match Game.) So the poor guy then describes her clothing, black dress, red, maroon and black striped jacket (which she's not wearing), "earrings that are rather pinkish" to Henry Morgan, who misses. They run out of time, for this segment, and just to emphasize that this is a live broadcast, Moore misses his cue as the curtain closes and a commercial break comes up.

Moore would leave both I've Got a Secret and The Garry Moore Show at the end of the 1963-64 season, and would be replaced on Secret by Mr. Breadbox himself, Steve Allen, for the final three years of the show's run.

I've Got a Secret was the simplest format of the three shows and relied to two things--the collective personality of its host and panel, and the truly great stories that came with the guests. If there was ever a non-news show in history that proved the old journalism school adage, "Everybody has a story," even if it's "Garry Moore just pulled me off the street," it would be this show.

From there we go to a much more involved panel show with more moving parts, and even an elevated stage. And it had three contestants at a time--one with a remarkable story, and two who just lied about it. To Tell the Truth was the last of the big three to premiere, and the only one of them to have a five-day-a-week network daytime version. It's also the show whose rounds began in the most dramatic fashion: with all three guests appearing first in silhouette, then identifying themselves all by the same name.

"One of these ladies is a housewife who recently made international headlines," begins announcer Johnny Olsen, as he then asks, "What is your name please?"

"My name is Jerri Mock," "My name is Jerri Mock," "My name is Jerri Mock," they each respond, one at a time.

"Only one of these ladies is the real Jerri Mock," Olsen continues. "The other two are imposters and will try to fool this panel, Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle, on To Tell the Truth with your host, Bud Collyer!"

The smiling, bow-tied Collyer walks over and takes his seat at his particular podium, welcomes everyone to the show, and holds up a jar (it came in jars back then) of that week's sponsor's product, Easy Off Oven Cleaner. The avuncular Clayton "Bud" Collyer started his career in radio soaps but had one of the most memorable roles in that era: the title role in the 15 minute daily serial of Superman. When he took a break from the show, the writers invented the idea that Superman was trapped under a steel door for days. Why? Because it turned out, Kryptonite, a material from his home planet, made him weak. That was actually worked into the canon of the comics and it still part of the Superman lore to this very day.

On television, we know Collyer, thanks to those GSN reruns, not only as the man who presides over seven different people at a time on To Tell the Truth, but the friendly and energetic man who worked, and ran all over the place, with the couples competing on the original version of Beat the Clock (another Goodson-Todman classic whose reruns got a new life on GSN).

Not one to be an air hog, Collyer quickly gets into the show, telling the panelists to open their envelopes as he reads out loud the affidavit contained inside.

"Recently I took a months vacation from my husband and children," he quotes the real Jerri Mock as saying as a camera pans over the contestants. "Alone in our eleven year old family airplane, I flew some 23,000 miles. In so doing, I become the first woman in history to fly an airplane completely around the world. Signed, Jerri Mock." The three women, who were standing on an elevated stage, walk downstairs to their three seats. They will be peppered with questions that are not restricted to "yes or no" answers by four panelists who are especially good at interrogating them, as if they're making sure their stories are straight. In fact that was the whole premise of the show, as if the three were "on the stand" in the courtroom. So the questioning was sharper and keeping up with them would be more skillful on both sides. (The celebrity panel and panel of contestants sat across from each other with Collyer between them, the only one of the three panel shows set up this way. On the other two, the host and single challenger directly faced the four-person panel.)

Kitty Carlisle of To Tell the Truth

Kitty Carlisle, an actress and singer, who did everything from a Marx Brothers movie to the Metropolitan Opera, stamped her character on the show as a regular panelist and appeared on every remake through her one-day appearance on the John O'Hurley version in 2000, and he treated her like visiting royalty. If things seemed proper and highly dignified on What's My Line? because of John Charles Daly, they seemed elegant and high class on To Tell the Truth mainly because of Kitty Carlisle.

"Now I know why I couldn't get Jerrie Mock for my daytime show!" Carlisle exclaims, as she begins her questioning. She gets #3 to say the trip took 29 days, #2 to say she wore dresses in flight, and #1 to say she stopped 21 times in 29 days, had a layover, and never ran out of fuel.

Tom Poston, comedian and former Steve Allen Show "Man on the Street" regular (who I will always think of as George the handyman from Newhart), asks #2 about another pilot who attempted to fly Amelia Earhardt's ill-fated route, and #3 about the most dangerous leg of the Earhardt flight. The show's resident encyclopedia, Peggy Cass--who appeared on all To Tell the Truth versions through the 1990 revival and was once one of Jack Paar's regulars on The Tonight Show--asks #2 what type of aircraft she flew, which is the first question I would have asked, actually. (It was a Cessna 180.) She got #1 to say the plane never broke down and #3 to say the layover in Bermuda had nothing to do with getting a suntan and everything to do with the weather being bad, in fact. She also discussed how long it took her to fly over the Pacific.

Orson Bean, a classmate of Peggy Cass and veteran character actor, asked about #2 "fighting off the sheiks" and others in Arabia, because they would be "only too anxious to get their hands on a nice American lady with her own plane." "They kept waiting for a man to get out of the plane," she replied. Bean asks #3 who cleaned and cooked while she was away, and it was her mother-in-law.

Tom Poston on To Tell the Truth

A bell ends each turn and a repeated bell means questioning for the entire round has ended. The panelists write down their votes, and the three split $250 for each incorrect vote.

Tom Poston has a weird explanation for voting for #2, saying he was just sorry that Kitty didn't get her turn, When reminded that she did (she actually started the questioning, in fact), he says, "Oh, I must've had another reason." (That sounds like something George Utley would've said.) Peggy Cass voted for #1 because of times she stopped in Pacific, saying it took her 29 days just to get across...in a boat (as Orson has her clarify). Orson Bean goes with #3, saying she has a "pretty All-American look, and when they make the film I think Doris Day will get the part." Kitty Carlisle goes with #3 because she says she stayed over in Bermuda for six days and has a suntan.

Now that the votes are in, Collyer asks the question that is one of television's most remembered and beloved catchphrases:"Will the real Jerri Mock please stand up?" After all three pretend to shift around as they're getting up, it's #3 who turns out to be the real Jerri Mock. However, she clarifies Kitty's last point, "But it did rain in Bermuda, I didn't get a bit of suntan there!"

The other two are Lynn Dikes, who works for the Yellow Pages, and Mildred Whitlock, director of hospital volunteers at a hospital in Carlisle's hometown of New Orleans.

The next contestant is perfect for an era when James Bond is starting to make himself known in the nation's movie theaters and just before spy shows become a "thing" on TV: spy thriller novelist David Cornwell a/k/a John Le Carre, a favorite of my dad's. Oh, and two imposters.

"I, David Cornwell, am a former England schoolmaster and a former member of the British foreign service," says Collyer, reading his affidavit. and goes on to say his third book is at the top of the best seller list and is being made into a movie, "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold." Seeing this described as if it were something new and current is a nostalgic treat for a pop culture history nerd like myself.

Peggy Cass of To Tell the Truth

Peggy Cass says she read the book, and "It's peachy, I was really crazy about it!" She asks #3 about George Smiley, the hero from Le Carre's first two novels who briefly appears in "Spy," and gets #2 to name the first two novels. She's able to get #3 to confirm the significance of June 4th, a celebration day in the English down of Eden where the novels are set. She asks the name of the hero of "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" and is told by #2 it's Alec Leamas. Orson Bean asks #1 about Dr. Morlock, a character in a Sherlock Holmes novel; when he asks #2 about Irving Winespar, gets a complete blank. He asks #3 about "Spy" "taking place in a war," to which #3 says "I take it you haven't read it, then."

Kitty Carlisle asks #1 about the studio producing the movie (he says Paramount), and asks #2 who will play the lead in the film (he says Burt Lancaster; obviously we now know it was Richard Burton). She asks #2 about his pen name and gets an amusing answer, that it "has connotation in English of being square which I find amusing." Tom Poston asks #2, "Which side of the river is Eden on?" and is told it's on the right, facing downstream.

After the panelists mark their ballots, they all go with the same person, something Collyer says they haven't done in awhile. Poston says he went with #3 because #2 was wrong about the location of Eden on the river, and the other two "knew too much." Cass chose #3 because he "gave his answers tersely like they were in the secret service." Orson Bean's explanation is great: "Number two didn't know who Irving Winespar is, and number one didn't have that twinkle in his eyes that most writers have, number three looks like the kind of guy who can sit in the den, and yell at his wife to keep her out all day." He said #3 looked like a writer. (And I have no clue who the hell Irving Winespar is, I even Googled that name and still couldn't find out.) Kitty Carlisle had a great explanation as well, saying, "When he told Orson he hadn't read his book, he spoke with the authority of authors whose books haven't been read."


The real John Le Carre, standing up

They were all wrong. David Cornwell was #1, and like true secret agents, he and one of the imposters stumped the panel. The others were James Marshall, who ran an auto leasing firm and Peter Hodgkins (the one who got everyone's votes and commented on Bean not reading the book, one of the best pieces of game show bluffing I've ever seen), who ran something that sounded in the audio like "American Islands Seal Company." The spy author who came in from the cold and his imposters each got $1,000 plus a fine package of Easy Off products.

There's a third game in this show, and this time it's "Killer" Joe Piro, dance instructor to the upper class who taught ballroom dancing to a half million pupils, including Shirley Booth, Arthur Schlesinger, Margot Fonteyn, Eva Gabor, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He's credited with introducing the mamba and the pachanga, to America, and is described in the affidavit as an expert on the watusi, surf, hitchhike, wobble, mashed potato, chicken back, and the frug. (Man I picked a great show to watch for this article.)

Tom Poston says "Only he would have the nerve to teach dancing to Dame Margot Fonteyn!" Then he disqualifies himself because he thinks he knows him. His disqualification will count as an "incorrect" vote. Peggy Cass asks #3 if the mashed potato is hard to do and is told no, then asks #2, "Is the chicken back anything like the Madison?" "No, it's a little busier," she's told. "The Madison is busy enough for me!" she responds. She asks #2 about the frug, "Can you do it alone?" and is told you can or with a partner. She's told by #3 you should stand away from your partner if you're doing the surf as opposed to touching your partner.

Orson Bean of To Tell the Truth

Orson Bean asks #1 if "frug" is pronounced with a short "u" or long "u". "Carefully pronounced either way," he's told, to a nice audience chuckle. He asks #2 the difference between the chicken back and frug. The answer he gets is that in the chicken back, "you're shaking your behind a little bit...more or less stationary." He asks #1 about whether the hully gully is a line dance and asks the same of #2 about the Madison. He asks #3, perhaps rhetorically, "Why is it you always see two girls dancing together but you never see two guys? (audience laugh) I mean you know, if I wanted to ask Tom out tonight..." Poston is heard saying, "Because you always want to lead!"

Kitty Carlisle asks #3, which dance do you look "like you have a wooden leg," and is told the merengue. She gets #2 to say Arthur Schlesinger is 5'5", and tells #3 he taught Margot Fonteyn the twist and several others to take back, saying after "one lesson and she knew them all." Number two tells her if she wants to learn one quickly, the easiest is the frug.

Poston, who disqualified himself, just plugs the show's producers by writing "G/T" on the card. Cass chooses #3, saying "just sitting there I can tell he's got a natural set of rhythm." Bean also goes with 3, saying he "reminds me of George Raft, who was a great ballroom dancer, and someone once told me, when George Raft gets all dressed up he looks like a stolen car." (Wow, that was pretty good.) Kitty Carlisle follows her fellow panelists, saying "I think they're all marvelous," but #3 looks like he'd be called "Killer Joe" and "I think I'd like a dance with him."

"Killer Joe" is in fact, #3 (Carlisle passes on her chance to dance with him, saying she needs more lessons) and by request, he stands between the panels, under a spotlight, and demonstrates some of his dance moves. We hear the song "Having a Party," which mentions a bunch of those dances in the lyrics, and I don't know who's singing it but it doesn't sound like Sam Cooke's version. As for the other two, one is Bobby Lloyd, TV announcer for WHEZ-TV in Rochester, New York, and the other is Jules Field, co-owner of the Gas Light Clubs.

This prime time edition of To Tell the Truth would meet its demise, just like the other two, at the end of the 1966-67 season, but still outlasted the other two because its CBS daytime version didn't leave the air until 1968. It's the only one of the three that has any episodes from its CBS run preserved on videotape (as opposed to kinescope) and has any color episodes that exist.

By the end of 1969, however, Line? and Truth would be revived in syndicated, five day a week formats, just in time for the FCC to order the networks to give a half hour in early evening back to their affiliates. As a result, both of these revivals were immediately successful, especially the Moore-hosted Truth which was a runaway hit.

Having now seen all of these back to back to back, here are some takeaways:

1. New York is a big part of each show. The Broadway scene flavors the personality of all three and not only brings a certain level of guest but a certain level of arts awareness. I wonder how it would have played out in the eras of Andrew Lloyd Weber, Disney or "Hamilton."

A Hollywood version of What's My Line? still wouldn't be a total disaster on that one quality alone...but it still might be a different show. But then again, why? ABC's 2016 revivals of Match Game and Pyramid were actually shot in New York. It's not like it just can't be done anymore.

2. There's a reason these panelists have to be such eggheads. We get to play along at home with To Tell the Truth, trying to guess along with the panelists, but on the other two shows, the secret/line is revealed unless you want to slap your hand over your face at the right time. And you still can't do that with the mystery guest on What's My Line?

And precisely because you can't (necessarily) play along at home, the fun is pretty much watching other people play the game. And if you're doing that, no one wants to hear a celebrity ask one stupid question after another and desperately fall back on their one-liners and loud "personality" to try to cover for it. These are learned people--Cerf was a publisher, Carlisle and Francis actually had interview shows, Kilgallen was a relentless journalist and didn't leave those skills by the stage door, and Bean, Cass and Cullen were just eggheads who knew a little about a lot of things. And they all had sharp wit, which goes out the window with some reality show star trying too hard. Perhaps all of this is a holdover from the days of Information Please.

Bill Cullen on I've Got a Secret

3. We've come to expect certain formats with these games...but even back in the day, the producers were never satisfied and always tinkering. The earliest years of What's My Line? included a "free guess" round to see if the panelists could guess an occupation on looks alone, but that was later dropped. The 1970s version had a physical "Who's Who?" round in which the panelists scurried around to match four people standing on the stage with signs describing their occupations. (The 1970s version also ladled in the demonstration segments from I've Got a Secret.) The Nothing But the Truth pilot included an audience vote that counted as a fifth vote for the contestants. That was dropped when the renamed To Tell the Truth made it to air, but in the later CBS years, a non-binding audience poll was brought back, technology now having allowed that to be more easily processed.

Still, just as ABC gave us the exact 2016 Match Game most people have come to expect (based on the 1970s version; the 1960s version is still so unrecognizable by today's audiences it would probably have to be called something else if that format were ever revived), we've come to at least expect a certain outline of all three games, and we usually get it, give or take a few tweaks. For all the weird ornaments hung on the 2016 revival of To Tell the Truth, they actually brought back the elevated stage of the Collyer years, and the audience yelling out who they think is the real person appears to be borrowed from the late 1960s audience polling. Even the way the "real" contestant stands up as the others pretend to get up, is now done to more dramatic effect, even with music. (And I still agree, guessing which of the two remaining imposters is associated with another story isn't a bad innovation.)

4. The panels, of course, were unfortunately not very diverse (give or take a few guest panelists). But the shows, Line? especially, at least gets points for having diverse guests when it probably wasn't very "fashionable." Mystery guests ranged from Marian Anderson to Muhammad Ali (more than once).

Henry Morgan of I've Got a Secret

5. These shows apparently vary wildly in whether you can bring them back in a new era. Two of these shows have come back repeatedly.

I've Got a Secret came back, Steve Allen and all, for a weekly syndicated version in the 1972-73 season, then for a four-episode summer revival promoting Bill Cullen to host in 1976. (I thought it was telling that the 1972 version looked like it picked up where the CBS version left off, while the 1976 version had a blinking neon sign of a logo denoting the 1950s nostalgia of the Happy Days era. Just three or four years could be a near eternity between game shows of that period.) Stephanie Miller hosted a revival on the Oxygen network in 2000, notable for scrapping all the panels and desks in favor of an apartment living room-type set, while Bil Dwyer hosted an especially well-received version on GSN in 2006 featuring an all-openly-gay panel. Secret always had the least detailed and most adaptable format of any of the "Big Three" so like all great game shows, it was suitable for a comeback.

To Tell the Truth, with its rather exciting format and great stories behind each game, had even more comebacks. First there was the five-a-week version hosted by Garry Moore (and later, Joe Garogiola) from 1969 to 1978, then a 1980-81 syndicated revival. NBC brought the show to its daytime lineup in 1990 (making it the only one of the three not only to air in network daytime but to come back in that setting), and another syndicated version airing in 2000-2001. The most recent version aired on ABC for six shows in the summer of 2016.

But as for What's My Line? After the version that introduced me to the game that ran five days a week in syndication from 1968 to 1975, there have been multiple, unaired, unsold pilots that were produced from 1981 to 2014. So, those of us fans have been disappointed, waiting impatiently for an on-air revival since the administration of President Gerald Ford (himself a one-time WML? guest, as were his two successors, Jimmy Carter and Reagan, all before they became president).

It seems fitting that the remake that did take off, with the heavy Broadway influence and vision on the original CBS show, was, itself, a stage version, premiering in Los Angeles in 2004 and moving to New York in 2008. Real mystery guests like George Wendt and Lisa Loeb played, as did a few from the original series.

And perhaps it's the seeming, out of date politeness and high-class gamesmanship, in a world populated by younger generations who are offended if they aren't offended, that makes it harder to bring that particular show back. If you want something, you want it to work and you want it to be right. It's not that a sillier, more raucous panel would be "sacrilege." Bennett Cerfs don't come around every day, you know. (They didn't even back then.) They just need to know how to play the game and be committed to it, competitive like Dorothy Kilgallen but with the charm and humility of Arlene Francis. Once upon a time, before the swooshing lights and dramatic music and big prizes that became the norm briefly in the late 1990s and early 2000s and still inform the way new game show sets are built in the LED era, a simple parlor game was all we needed, and it was entertaining as hell. There's no reason it can't happen again...correctly.

Availability: The three I reviewed for this blog all came from YouTube. All known extant episodes of What's My Line? are there, courtesy the What's My Line? YouTube channel, including a long lost but now rediscovered October 1950 episode exclusive to that channel. A number of To Tell the Truth episodes are also on YouTube, including more than 200 courtesy the To Tell The Truth YouTube channel, and a number of I've Got a Secret shows can be found on the site as well from various users. Plus, reruns of some episodes of all three shows appear on the Buzzr classic game show channel.
Next time on this channel: The Hollywood Palace.

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http://classic-tv-blog-assoc.blogspot.com/

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Tim LonesJanuary 5, 2014 at 11:49 PM
"Ben Casey" would spawn a long running parody on WJW-TV 8 Cleveland's Friday/Saturday night horror movie/skit franchise Hoolihan and Big Chuck and later Big Chuck and Lil John known as "Ben Crazy", which started in the 1970's and was doing new skits well beyond the 1990's, long after many younger people had forgotten, or never knew, that the skits were based on a long ago television series. Movie host/producer Chuck Schodowski played Ben Crazy..
Rays profileFebruary 3, 2014 at 6:02 PM
I remember spending a night in Chicago in 1979 - I remember it was then because it was about a year after a near-fatal auto crash - when I was up at 1 a.m. and saw one of the Chicago stations running "Ben Casey."

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TV When I was Born

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