Posted on 02/28/2014 8:52:43 PM PST by NYer
From Wikipedia
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasks celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations. It is the longest-running U.S. primetime network television game-show (51st show). Moderated by John Charles Daly and with panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, and Bennett Cerf, What's My Line? won three Emmy Awards for "Best Quiz or Audience Participation Show" in 1952, 1953, and 1958 and the Golden Globe for Best TV Show in 1962.
What’s My Line? was a guessing game in which four panelists attempted to determine the line (occupation), or in the case of a famous "mystery guest," the identity, of the contestant. Panelists were required to probe by asking only questions which could be answered "yes" or "no". A typical episode featured two standard rounds (sometimes a third, and very rarely a fourth) plus one mystery guest round. On the occasions on which there were two mystery guests, the first would usually appear as the first contestant.
The final round of an episode involved blindfolding the panel for a celebrity "mystery guest" (originally called "mystery challengers" by Daly) whom the panel had to identify by name, rather than occupation. Mystery guests would usually attempt to conceal their identities with disguised voices, much to the amusement of the studio audience. You can read more specifics on the program format, here.
On October 21, 1956, the Mystery Guest was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. You can watch that particular program HERE.
Enjoy!
I wonder if the bishop used Helene Curtis makeup? He looked MAAAValous.
The best years of the series were when Fred Allen was a regular panelist. He had a certain down-to-earth and acerbic nature, akin to a small-town wiseacre, that welcomingly contrasted with the sort of hoity-toity urbanity of the proceedings. Gave the show a real spark. Reruns used to air on the Game Show Network.
Just spent the past two hours watching reruns on YouTube. Fred Allen was, as you so well noted, a veritable asset to the panel. It is refreshing to revisit these programs and look back at a period in our history when men and women dressed properly, showed deference and respect for each other and spoke proper English. I doubt any of the panelists, with the exception, perhaps, of Bennet Cerf, had a college education. We have regressed as a society.
I believe you may have caught the program where Liberace was the mystery guest.
Back in the old days of TV you had to cake up to look human.
i was confirmed by Bishop Sheen
WOW!
The grandfather of my best friend was converted by Bishop Sheen. He was a great Catholic.
that was fun! thank you..
I had flipped past nudity etc. and didn't give it a second thought, but seeing those cigarettes really grabbed my attention. Just goes to show, I guess.
I’ve watched a lot of his tv show videos on line. Classics..
I believe Ronald Reagan was also a mystery guest once. I liked the way that Dorothy Kilgallen knew the proper protocol for greeting a Bishop.
I wish there was somebody like him now. He’s needed more than ever.
I taped probably 50 or more episodes of “What’s My Line,” back when the Game Show Channel was airing the reruns of the old kinescopes.
The network also ran a number of other early-1950s quiz shows (legitimate ones, not the rigged, scandal-ridden ones from later in the decade). What was fascinating was watching the contestents pulled from the audience and given a broad range of questions. Simple plumbers, carpenters, and housewives... all usually from somewhere out in mid-america, but visiting NY on a business trip or vacation. Yet their knowledge of things ranging from history to geography to current affairs was hugely impressive. Such a jaw-dropping comparison to the sheer idiocy you find in the average man-on-the-street nowadays.
What a window on America’s cultural degeneration.
You might say your soul has a Sheen to it.
Well, “a pig is an animal with dirt on his face” and now I know he weighs less than 100 pounds thanks to you. (:^).
Seriously, Archbp Sheen has long been one of my favorite religious persons and I have several of his books. I especially need and cherish “The Life of Christ”.
Thank you for posting this.
What a wonderful blessing for you.
I picked up on that too!
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