A close second, which may or may not exist: Gene Wood introducing "Bill White and Betty Cullen" on Password Plus. When NBC aired it, there was a definite cut in the tape, after which Gene reads the names correctly, but you can see a couple of people in the background (I would say Bill and Betty themselves, but did Bill walk to the podium for P+, or did he start the show there?) literally falling over themselves laughing (the only way you know what happened was, the host (I can't remember if it was Allen or someone else) mentioned it later in the show); however, since GSN has episodes with scenes that never aired, there's a (slim) chance they could have this intact.
Although I'm not saying that it never happened, I would have to say that I do have my doubts. Chris C. could probably give a bit more insight on this as well. My thought is that if something went wrong at the very top of the episode, especially at the opening moments and introductions, wouldn't they have been more likely to have simply cut tape and started over from the top rather than created a noticeable clumsy edit when it wasn't really necessary to do so?
Maybe I'm just misreading this, but I thought Don was saying that it did happen, as evidenced by it being referred to later in the show, but he's not sure there's any existing footage of it.
But when Don said "When NBC aired it, there was a definite cut in the tape", my thinking is that they would not have aired an opening with a noticeable edit in the very first seconds of the episode. Sure, I can easily believe that Gene Wood innocently blooped their names but I can't believe that they wouldn't have simply stopped tape and restarted it all from the top so that there would be NO noticeable edit in the opening. In fact, since it was an episode featuring Bill Cullen as a celebrity guest, both he and Betty would have already been seated at the desk during the opening so a complete reshoot from the top would have been rather easy, wouldn't it? In Don's account, it would have looked and sounded incredibly sloppy and unprofessional since the music would almost certainly jump from one spot to another due to the edit along with whatever visual edit would have been made.
If the issue is whether the actual mistake footage exists, I would seriously doubt it since it was edited out before the original airing. My issue is that I'm saying that I kinda have doubts about the alleged edited opening because it seems very unlikely, which then in turn makes me possibly question the entire recollection. I'm not suggesting in any way, form or fashion that Don is misleading anyone but instead is possibly just having a fuzzy memory. I apologize in advance if I am wrong.
Chris C., any thoughts about a situation like this?
JakeT
