My What's My Line Mystery Continues

[calliaume]

I was very, very young when I attended my first game show taping - either I had just turned eight years old or I wasn't quite there.  In any case, the only things I remember are:

- It was late 1970, in either November or December
- It was What's My Line? (we were also supposed to attend To Tell the Truth and Jeopardy, but those didn't come to pass)
- It was in the Ed Sullivan Theater - this was so long ago that the primary tenant of the theater was still Ed Sullivan
- Two of the panelists were Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf; I don't remember the other two, nor any of the Mystery Guests
- We sat in the upper deck for the first of the three tapings, and moved down to the main level for the second and third
- One of the other people in our group (a year or two older than me) got a dollar and a kiss from Johnny Olson (I did receive a big smile from him as he passed by my seat)

And that's it.  Amazingly, it took me until today to think "Hmmm, maybe there's an episode guide."  So I went to the Mark Goodson Wikia Site (http://markgoodson.wikia.com/wiki/What's_My_Line%3F_%281968%29/Episode_Guide), and pieced together that the only taping Bennett Cerf did in November or December of 1970 was November 5.  This is the listing:

Air dates:  2/8-12/1971
Tape date:  11/5/70
Panel:  Soupy Sales, Phyllis Newman, Bennett Cerf & Arlene Francis
Mystery Guests:  Mel Brooks, The Duke of Bedford, Roger Williams, Gordon MacRae & Muhammad Ali

Pause.  Did I see Muhammad Ali at this taping?  (Or, at the very least, Mel Brooks?)

Nope.  I Googled Muhammad Ali What's My Line, and his only color episode (he appeared as a Mystery Guest on the original as well) had Henry Morgan, Meredith MacRae, Gene Rayburn, and Arlene on the panel.  So in all likelihood the Mystery Guest lists are wrong.

Any additional information to fill in the gaps would be great.

[thomas_meighan]

Some of the panel and mystery guest listings for the Bruner seasons of WML? at the Mark Goodson wiki seem...problematic. For example, did Bill Cullen really appear as the mystery guest on four occasions, including twice within a month in 1968? And I've noticed that someone editing the celeb listings on that wiki has an unusual fondness for Kathy Garver, who has a way of turning up when celebrity guests are otherwise unknown. Gil Fates' book confirms that she was a mystery guest during the 12-11-1969 taping, but the Goodson wiki shows her sitting on the panel for several weeks, and Fates never lists her as a panelist.

For the record, the (more reliable) celebrity guide from matchgame.org shows Mel Brooks, The Duke of Bedford and Roger Williams as confirmed mystery guests for 11-5-1970:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030203055557/http://www.matchgame.org/episodeguides/wml/wml3.html

[calliaume]

For the record, the (more reliable) celebrity guide from matchgame.org shows Mel Brooks, The Duke of Bedford and Roger Williams as confirmed mystery guests for 11-5-1970:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030203055557/http://www.matchgame.org/episodeguides/wml/wml3.html

Which means I definitely got to see Roger Williams.  Be still, my beating heart.

Thanks for the update.

[snowpeck]

The Mel Brooks episode from that week circulates as a studio master.

[Matt Ottinger]

For example, did Bill Cullen really appear as the mystery guest on four occasions, including twice within a month in 1968?

No.

[calliaume]

The Mel Brooks episode posted here is likely to be one of the ones I saw, since Soupy notes that he's introducing Phyllis Newman for the fifth time.  The episodes were taped late in the day (although not into the evening).  I pulled a 1971 ticket off eBay that shows the taping time from 2:10 to 4:00 PM, which I would think means three shows.  (The doors opened at 1:25, closed at 1:55.)

I'd be curious as to how the performers' schedules influenced this.  I don't know what time Arlene Francis' show aired on WOR - she might have taken taping days off, used a pre-taped show, or maybe they worked around this somehow.  Larry Blyden obviously was doing Broadway shows while he hosted, so I don't see how they could have taped in the evening at that point.

Thanks, everybody.

[Matt Ottinger]

Doing a little further checking, it would appear this Mark Goodson Wiki is the origin for that god-awful Snap Judgment episode guide on IMDB we talked about last April. 

http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,27454

Presumably, the WML episode guide (and who knows how many others) was cobbled together the same way:  Accurate information when the author had it, complete fiction when the information wasn't available.  This shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but it does.

[calliaume]

Presumably, the WML episode guide (and who knows how many others) was cobbled together the same way:  Accurate information when the author had it, complete fiction when the information wasn't available.  This shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but it does.

Of course.  Some of this gets picked up by Wikipedia, and then it's gospel.

I'm curious as to the Match Game.org celebrity guide.  Fannie Flagg is listed as having been a celebrity guest on the original Match Game eight times between 1967 and 1969.  I don't doubt this (she has other listings during that period on IMDB as well), but what did she do at that point to earn her celebrity status?  She didn't have an acting credit until 1970's Five Easy Pieces.

[snowpeck]

I'm curious as to the Match Game.org celebrity guide.  Fannie Flagg is listed as having been a celebrity guest on the original Match Game eight times between 1967 and 1969.  I don't doubt this (she has other listings during that period on IMDB as well), but what did she do at that point to earn her celebrity status?  She didn't have an acting credit until 1970's Five Easy Pieces.

She apparently was on the standup circuit in New York in the late 60s (in addition to being on the writing staff of Candid Camera) and had a popular comedy album come out in 1967 called "Rally Round the Flagg".

[Eric Paddon]

She was also part of an ensemble in a comedy album about the LBJ White House where her Lady Bird Johnson imitation gave her some additional fame.     And she was also doing stand-up on Carson in this era too.

[Adam Nedeff]

Of note: Fannie Flagg was the other celebrity on the day of Bill Cullen's "Pickle" prank.

[Adam Nedeff]

I'd be curious as to how the performers' schedules influenced this.  I don't know what time Arlene Francis' show aired on WOR - she might have taken taping days off, used a pre-taped show, or maybe they worked around this somehow.  Larry Blyden obviously was doing Broadway shows while he hosted, so I don't see how they could have taped in the evening at that point.

Gil Fates' book makes mention of a single day when a bunch of things went wrong with a taping, chief among them, a panelist (I forget who and I'm not near my copy) overslept. Now granted, lots of people have long commutes into NYC, but I just took that to mean the syndicated WML? had a real early call time.

[chris319]

Thanks for reminding me what a dud Wally Bruner was.

[calliaume]

Gil Fates' book makes mention of a single day when a bunch of things went wrong with a taping, chief among them, a panelist (I forget who and I'm not near my copy) overslept. Now granted, lots of people have long commutes into NYC, but I just took that to mean the syndicated WML? had a real early call time.

Since I lie awake at night wondering if anal retentive is hyphenated:

"Shambles day.  Larry overslept, Gene Shalit got the flu and Melba was suddenly stricken stupid."

Another example of panelists who weren't available in the evening - Shalit was on both Today and WNBC's newscasts at the time, and Melba Tolliver was a reporter and anchor for WABC's Eyewitness News.  So all three, in all likelihood, were living in the city.

[calliaume]

Thanks for reminding me what a dud Wally Bruner was.

And I'm not exactly sure why they felt the need to cut off Mel Brooks in order to fit in "Honest Answers to Questions From the Studio Audience."  Mel Brooks is a lot of things, but he's not dull.