Now that I'm getting my first look since 1967 at the final CBS season of "What's My Line?" and finding so far that the shows were NOT saved in color (unless a few non-live, prerecorded eps from that season may be around on color tape), it's really kind of depressing to hear all that talk from John Daly and others on the first show about how exciting it is that the show finally went to color, but today only being treated to various shades of gray when Arlene, Phyllis and the occasional female contestant or Mystery Guest comes out in what looks to be something rainbow-hued or a solid bright single color. The same holds true for the art cards during the end credits and the post-sponsor tag display of the show's name (the three-paneled flip after the gunshot, missing from the syndie version), which shows each word in a different color as indicated by the various shades of gray as we see them now. (I know one of them was bright green, but don't recall which one).
Actually, our family *did* have a color set that season and we did see the show occasionally on it, but the memories of certain color details are faded, aside from the obvious blue set with wood desks.
I wonder if anyone who worked on the set or art that year is still alive today? Maybe they'd know what was used where. That WML? book by Gil Fates ought to be rereleased with a color insert showing all the credit and title cards as viewers saw them in color if the cards still exist somewhere, and color photos from the set in that last season if any exist.
But the real favor someone needs to do is to take advantage of the advancements in colorization (I heard about this on my local news recently during an announcement that a new DVD of The Three Stooges was going to be released with the shorts in both B/W and the "improved" colorization) and give that treatment to ONLY the final-season WML?'s since they were originally broadcast that way with lighting and other details to match. It's not the same as adding color to something that was B/W in the first place. Yes, yes, I know...they aren't going to do it for a few GS addicts and others still think it'd be a sacrilege.
