Steve Allen or Fred Allen?

[Nerdocrumbesian]

I think most people agree that Bennett, Arlene, and Dorothy are the core panelists in the history of the original What's My Line?.

I'm curious, though, as to the consensus on who the best "4th panelist" is? When I first saw the Steve Allen shows, I thought, "This is the definitive panel!" However, I quickly warmed to Fred Allen after he took over that seat. I appreciate both of them for their different styles of humor.

So what is your "Definitive" WML panel? I don't mean to limit this to the Allens either. If you want to make a good case for Ernie Kovacs, Louis Untermeyer, Hal Block, or even Martin Gabel... feel free.

Thoughts please.

[The Ol' Guy]

I'll give it a try. I have one of the What's My Line radio shows with Fred on the panel. On that, he sounds great. Watching him on television, he often looked ill-fitted with the rest of the suave, upper-tier panelists. Kinda like the brown shoes with the tuxedo. George Burns wrote that on the radio, Fred sounded like a cranky old guy, but with a twinkle in his eye. On tv, he looked like a sour old man. He probably felt out of his element and not in control, as he was on his own show. Steve was more sophisticated and telegenic, but I think Fred's unique humor was more sophisticated than his appearance.

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'Nerdocrumbesian\' post=\'203680\' date=\'Dec 16 2008, 01:47 AM\']
If you want to make a good case for......Hal Block... feel free.
Thoughts please.
[/quote]
My thought is that Hal Block is the definitive ass of the first water.
Now to your question, I have to go with Steve. The show is a high A when Fred's on, but when Steve's on, for me it's an A+ show. He was so good at playing it straight and not letting on when a serious question or a funny was forthcoming, it's just such a treat to see him in action.

[DrBear]

OK, given the options...I'd pick Steve over "his father" but I'd sort of like to do a write in vote for Martin Gabel. He did a nice job of sparring with Daly and I think the husband-wife teasing provided some additional chuckles.

My main complaint about Fred Allen was that he occasionally fell into the trap - although he was the funniest about it - of saying "well, why don't you tell us what you do?"

And Steve deserves the nod if only for the bread box standard of measurement.

[Nerdocrumbesian]

Good responses, all. I guess I have to give the final nod to Steve, because you all make good points about him "fitting in" better with the other panelists. Fred did seem a bit ill at ease... he only reluctantly got into television towards the very end of his career. I have some appearances he did on Tallulah Bankhead's "The Big Show" from (I think) 1950 and everybody was making disparaging jokes about the medium of television.
 Fred may have actually been funnier than Steve, once you got used to his style of humor, but Steve had that quick wit and smoothness that made him a TV Star (with a capital "S").

I never knew that any episodes of the radio version existed. Those aren't really in wide circulation, I guess. How was the audience informed of the contestant's "line"? A sort of whispered-voice, as in, "The password is..."?

Martin Gabel was fun to have on the show, mainly because Arlene had another area of comedy to mine. Being able to watch these shows every night, most of them for the first time, you are reminded just how funny she was. How astonishingly quick witted and classy these people (all of the main panelists*) were. A while ago they showed an episode with Arlene, Martin, Dick (Kollmar), and Dorothy which had a fun, family dynamic.

*(Except for Hal Block)

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Nerdocrumbesian\' post=\'203970\' date=\'Dec 17 2008, 08:53 PM\']
I never knew that any episodes of the radio version existed. Those aren't really in wide circulation, I guess. How was the audience informed of the contestant's "line"? A sort of whispered-voice, as in, "The password is..."?[/quote]

About the only way you could do it.

On "Truth or Consequences," if there was something onstage out of view of the contestant that Ralph Edwards could not readily explain on the air, you heard announcer Harlow Wilcox's voice saying "This is Harlow Wilcox backstage where I can't be heard--what (contestant) doesn't know is..."  Occasionally, if on the TV version they wanted to keep the audience in the dark on a stunt twist until it happened, instead of Barker doing a setup before bringing on the contestants Charlie Lyon would whisper a "what they don't know is..."

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Nerdocrumbesian\' post=\'203970\' date=\'Dec 17 2008, 09:53 PM\']I never knew that any episodes of the radio version existed. Those aren't really in wide circulation, I guess. How was the audience informed of the contestant's "line"? A sort of whispered-voice, as in, "The password is..."?[/quote]
I only know of one true radio episode that exists.  In addition to that one, there are a few Armed Services Radio programs that are just audio from TV episodes.  In both, yes, a hushed voice identifies the occupations and the Mystery Guests.  The ones from the TV broadcasts are clearly dubbed in after the fact.  The actual radio episode is much more obviously designed for radio, including Dorothy Kilgallen offering the radio audience a description of the regular contestants.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'204029\' date=\'Dec 18 2008, 03:08 PM\']
[quote name=\'Nerdocrumbesian\' post=\'203970\' date=\'Dec 17 2008, 09:53 PM\']I never knew that any episodes of the radio version existed. Those aren't really in wide circulation, I guess. How was the audience informed of the contestant's "line"? A sort of whispered-voice, as in, "The password is..."?[/quote]
I only know of one true radio episode that exists.  In addition to that one, there are a few Armed Services Radio programs that are just audio from TV episodes.  In both, yes, a hushed voice identifies the occupations and the Mystery Guests.  The ones from the TV broadcasts are clearly dubbed in after the fact.  The actual radio episode is much more obviously designed for radio, including Dorothy Kilgallen offering the radio audience a description of the regular contestants.
[/quote]

When I first got a shortwave radio, I listened to "Twenty Questions," the grandaddy of all deductive reasoning parlor games, on the BBC World Service--the subjects were read by a celebrity "Mystery Voice" that the host said was sitting in another studio out of sight of the panel--and when the "Mystery Voice" was the subject of a round, they said their name while the audience was cued to applaud and they held up a card with the name to the audience.  I don't remember if the Mystery Voice was piped into the main studio once the round was done to chat with the panel.