TFTP's Monochrome March: "See It Now" w/ Edward R. Murrow on CBS (Mar. 9, 1954)

Posted to YouTube by user 'KD'
Length - 25:50

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

Edward R. Murrow is perhaps the most legendary newsman in radio and television history. And his attempt to report on and expose the malfeasance of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the mid-1950s is one of the things that made him legendary. This 1954 episode of Murrow's "See It Now" is where he did most of his work in exposing McCarthy--with a huge assist from McCarthy himself.

The bulk of the episode consists of film and audio clips of McCarthy making various statements about the supposed threat of communism in America, often juxtaposed with other clips where he contradicts himself. Murrow introduces the clips and provides framing statements at the beginning and end of the program, but for the most part he lets McCarthy's own words do him in. Murrow's statement at the end of the program has become famous for blaming the state of American politics for the problem of McCarthy, quoting Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar": "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves."

In the following weeks, McCarthy asked for and got a chance for rebuttal to Murrow's presentation in this episode, to which Murrow provided a further response. Ultimately, McCarthy's downfall was the result of his censure in the U.S. Senate in December of 1954, a result that this episode of "See It Now" probably helped to hasten.

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

Posted to YouTube by user 'What's My Line?'

"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.