Innocuous Question - Bert's Tattletales Tardiness

[JTFriends1]

Ridiculous question forthcoming, but if there's a place to ask it... ha.

I've been in a bit of a Tattletales binge lately (a MUCH better show than I used to gave it credit for), and I came across an episode where Bert is legitimately late. The producers pull Donald Ross from "across the hall" to start the show. Bert arrives about 7 minutes in, and says, "when i tell you the real story of why I'm late, which I can't do on the air - maybe you'll read about it..." Intriguing for sure. Anyone know the scoop?

Here's the episode:

[Matt Ottinger]

That is fascinating for a lot of reasons, and I'm surprised I've never seen it before.

The thing that makes the least sense to me is that Bert shows up only seven minutes in, wearing a suit he almost certainly did not arrive to the studio wearing, and presumably made up for TV. That seems to suggest he's already in the building when they start.  So why not wait a few more minutes?  Did they really think they were on THAT tight of a schedule?

[Adam Nedeff]

The thing that makes the least sense to me is that Bert shows up only seven minutes in, wearing a suit he almost certainly did not arrive to the studio wearing, and presumably made up for TV. That seems to suggest he's already in the building when they start.  So why not wait a few more minutes?  Did they really think they were on THAT tight of a schedule?

There's a weird air of fakery about it to me for that reason. The only possibility that crosses my mind--and it's out there because Donald Ross wasn't really an established TV personality and didn't have "the look"--do you suppose that somebody at Goodson/Todman saw something in him and just wanted to give him seven minutes as a game show host to see how he performed?

[Mr. Matté]

With Adam's theory, this is also around the same time CNR and Gary Burghoff were "late" for their eps on Match Game, though the reasons given were due to "getting his hair nailed on" and daylight savings respectively. Maybe it was a thing Goodson wanted to try out on his shows? The only difference is that instead of new talent tryouts, they were replaced by MG himself and Johnny O.

[JTFriends1]

The only explanation I could think of - assuming, of course, Donald's subbing was on the up and up - was that it was one of those "we don't know how long Bert is going to take with X" situations: he get a phone call and doesn't know if his next 6 minutes or 60 are going to be in disarray... we've all been there. And Bert was apparently sharing the story during the commercial breaks with the audience, as he alluded to throughout the episode. He's behavior makes it seem legitimate to me at least - ha.

(And yes, I'm well aware of the ridiculousness of this speculation, but whatever... it's fun. Ha.)

[Bob Zager]

Barbara Stuart was right.  I always thought Donald Ross sounded like Groucho Marx.