TFTP's Monochrome Monday (Special On This Day Edition): "What's My Line? at 25" from ABC (May 28, 1975)

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Length - 1:26:57

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

We bring you this special edition of Monochrome Monday with a program that was partly in color, but was celebrating a show that was in classic black & white for the almost all of its 17 year run: "What's My Line?"

It Was 43 Years Ago Today: "What's My Line?" stands among the most important shows ever in the game show genre--the program, which aired on CBS from 1950-1967 and then in syndication until 1975, helped establish the popularity and venerability of the TV game show. Right as "WML" was going off the air in 1975, this program, "What's My Line? at 25"--originally airing 43 years ago today on May 28, 1975--appeared as a retrospective of its quarter-century history.

Airing as an installment of the ABC late-night umbrella series "Wide World of Entertainment" (after CBS passed on the special), "What's My Line? at 25" features the three individuals most responsible for the show's success: producer Mark Goodson, host John Charles Daly, and panelist Arlene Francis. Goodson, Daly, and Francis moderate the special by sharing some of their memories but also by introducing dozens of clips from over the years.

Celebrated in the special are the panelists who guessed contestants' jobs (including Fred Allen, Steve Allen, Woody Allen, and others not named Allen, such as Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf, and Francis herself); the many celebrity "mystery guests" and some of the shenanigans (such as fake voices) they used to trick the panel; some of the more interesting "lines" (or occupations) guessed by the panel; and a look back at the hairstyles worn on the show by Arlene Francis.

TFTP has featured "What's My Line?" a few times in the past, including the premiere episode from 1950 (which was also the premiere post for TFTP back in 2014), a commercial for longtime "WML" sponsor Remington-Rand (introduced by Daly), and early panelist Fred Allen's first appearance (with Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody as mystery guests!).

TFTP Game Shows: "What's My Line?" w/ debut of Fred Allen as panelist, from CBS (Aug. 15, 1954)

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"What's My Line?" was one of the most durable and popular prime-time game shows of the 1950s and 1960s (it ran from 1950-67, with a syndicated version then continuing until 1975). The four-person panel (which from early in the show's run included Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Bennett Cerf) guessed the profession/vocation of contestants, with one celebrity mystery guest (for which the panelists were blindfolded, so as not to recognize the person) thrown into each episode.

The show was thought to have hit its stride only around the time of this episode, the first with fourth panelist Fred Allen, the great radio comedian. Allen had a legendary wit that is evident in his exchanges here, and although he never really adapted well to television, his run as a "What's My Line?" panelist may be his TV high-point.

This episode's mystery guest, "Buffalo" Bob Smith, host of the iconic "Howdy Doody" kids show (that was in the heart of its 1947-60 TV run at this time), has some fun with Allen, too, at one point doing a Fred Allen impression as one of his voice-disguising gambits. (Mystery guests usually disguised their voices as well, so panelists wouldn't be able to ID them that way.) Overall, in addition to being a landmark episode with Allen's debut, it's a good example of a typical mid-1950s "What's My Line?" episode.

TFTP Will Be Back After This Message: UNIVAC Computer commercial from "What's My Line?" (Feb. 5, 1956)

The first post for TFTP a couple of weeks ago was the debut episode of the panel game show "What's My Line?". This first commercial to appear on TFTP is one from the run of "What's My Line?", which for a number of years had as a sponsor Remington Rand, maker of UNIVAC computers. This 1956 commercial for UNIVAC is fascinating for several reasons: it is lengthy (much longer than we've become used to in recent years); it has an explanatory quality that was once common in commercials as late as the 1980s; it features John Charles Daly, WML's host, providing an introduction to it in the program, also once a common practice that has long since (mostly) disappeared; and it provides a really interesting glimpse at 1950s era computers!

TFTP Game Shows: "What's My Line?" debut episode (Feb. 2, 1950)

As TFTP's inaugural post, here is the debut episode of the venerable and legendary CBS panel game show "What's My Line?" Airing on Sunday, February 2, 1950, this was the first of what would be 17 years of live episodes that anchored the last half-hour of CBS's Sunday-night prime-time schedule through all of the 1950s and most of the 1960s ("WML" would go on to air for another 8 years, until 1975, in syndication).

"What's My Line?", for those unfamiliar with it, was one of the earliest "panel" game shows, a sub genre that dominated TV game shows through the 1950s and much of the 1960s. Four celebrity panelists asked yes or no questions designed to give them clues for guessing a contestant's occupation (or "line"). The final contestant was the "mystery guest", a celebrity that the panelists would likely recognize on sight thus requiring them to wear blindfolds (and the mystery guests to use often humorous fake voices).

We see in this episode host John Charles Daly (who would host for "WML"'s entire 17-year run) and longtime panelist Dorothy Kilgallen (who stopped appearing only upon her death in 1965). Yet to appear at this point were the other longtime panelists Bennett Cerf and Arlene Francis, although both would soon join Daly and Kilgallen in guessing the lines of hundreds of contestants for the better part of two decades.