In the twenty-five plus years in which What's My Line graced the waves, it proved to be the true doyen of television game shows and remains historically one of the longest running. This Mark Goodson and Bill Todman series was originally titled Occupation Unknown, its host John Charles Daly was an award-winning journalist who cut his teeth as a radio reporter for NBC before his famous stint as a White House correspondent. The show consisted of a four person panel - its mainstays were columnist Dorothy Kilgallen who remained so until her untimely death in 1965, a death that has been shrouded in mystery. And then there was the ebullient Arlene Francis, who Newsweek magazine dubbed the 'First Lady of Television 'and from the literary world came one of the founders of Random House Publishers and worldly wordsmith (who once moved mountains to help author James Joyce) Bennett Cerf. The fourth panelist was ever changing the most consistent in the beginning of the series was Steve Allen and Fred Allen who would take over Steve's vacated chair. Others would rotate in that coveted fourth chair in a weekly variation with some strange bedfellow names ranging from Louis Untermeyer and Peter Ustinov to Groucho Marx (who had an affinity of taking over the helm of any such show he made an appearance on).
The scrutinizing panelists each had eyes that were not so easy to the pull the wool over and given the contestants who were in their own ways testament to the admonition of never telling a book by its cover, it would still make for an arduous task - albeit the collective panel was never shirking in the prescience department. The show's wide array of guests, each boasted vocations that indeed defied their appearances. A woman who thoroughly convinces as a cheesecake pinup model - in all actuality jobbed as a butcher. An everyman, average Joe wasn't a local plumber in Scranton after all, why he was the real mayor of San Diego and a septuagenarian spinster with poor posture, would ya believe it - draped glamorpuss chorus gals.
This contestant fellar's building the suspense |
Through the years many a game show would come and go; some with similar premises to What's My Line - particularly the Robert Q. Lewis (who was also a fairly regular What's My Line participant) hosted The Name's The Same (1952). Although the show did unquestionably have its moments, it wasn't exactly the worthiest of opponents. Even with seniority bragging rights of thirty-five years on the air - The Price Is Right, could never reach the Olympia heights that were What's My Line.
Is it bigger than a phonebooth? |
The last segments of each episode of Whats My Line were the veritable money-makers, time for the ritualistic donning of masks - as the mystery challenger applied their respective John Hancocks to the trusted blackboard and would make their way to be seated to the side of Mr Daly. The mystery challengers were very often celebrities of the stage and screen and in one memorable episode - in fact the coda episode of 1967 when it was emcee John Daly himself doing the old double-act as the mystery guest - absolutely hoodwinking those players four. The sporting celebrities who appeared often used accents and vocal pitches that were a far cry from their natural ones; one standout episode that featured Bette Davis, who was so ambiguously over the top, it invoked Bennett's investigation on whether Davis was of the male of female persuasion. Many of the mystery guest's voices were naturally so distinct that they were sussed out nearly instantaneously, a prime example was Jack Benny's right hand man Eddie "Rochester"Anderson - it took but a few moments before Miss Kilgallen affectionately asks' was this comedy partner of yours someone who is thirty-nine?' (one of comedian Jack Benny's ol' familiar catchphrases).
Cerf's up - Bennett in his natural habitat. |
Another unusual aspect of this series was the affectionate pleasantries the panelists and host seemed all too happy to exchange, and there was no denying their sincerity; every soul affiliated with the series was a creative heavyweight in one way or another, yet there was nary a clash of the egos. In fact with the exception of Groucho Marx, (who was a part-time martinet) there was always a welcoming air - a most gregarious group - and charms as these people possessed, are in this day forgotten. After all, now it is attitude that sells! And for any of those who watched any given episode of Endemol's ludicrously long running reality game show series Big Brother (2000- present), you will understand that it is no irony that despite the raging racists, self-aggrandizing egoists and other such rapscallions who all vie for a half a million dollar prize during CBS' most sordid summer series - that it would religiously top the Nielsen charts week after week. While high histrionics seemeth to be the call of the day and today's televisual hard sell it is clear that What's My Line could not be more of its time, an era sadly gone - it was a time innocuous and innocent, where clever mild-mannered mensches with less of the hubris and more of the humility, actually made for good television.