Classic TV: What's My Line? (1950)

It was the simplest of games. A panel of four celebrities tries to discern the occupations of ordinary folks, leading up to a mystery guest who, more often than not, is just as famous as the panel, or soon would be.

What's My Line? was a CBS staple for 17 seasons (1950-67), airing in primetime. The series' original host, newsman John Daly, read the news during the week for rival ABC, and later moved to NBC to work on Today, which in and of itself was at the time unprecedented. In addition to Daly, the three regular panelists were, for most of those 17 years, journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, and Arlene Francis, with the fourth chair left open for a revolving door of guest panelists.

When I first watched the series, it had been revived as a weekday entry in syndication, coupled with To Tell The Truth in some places. After a year away, Line returned for 7 more seasons (1968-75), and went through two hosts. Wally Bruner was Daly's immediate successor, and piloted the series for three seasons before departing, spun off into a weekend series, Wally's Workshop, which, sorry to say, isn't available on YouTube, and presumably has been lost to the mists of time. I should note that Workshop was a rare bird in that longtime Goodson-Todman staff announcer Johnny Olsen worked as the announcer, continuing his association with Bruner, even though Workshop was not a G-T production. Aside from his own variety show, the only other non-G-T series that Olsen worked on that I know of was The Jackie Gleason Show, when Gleason moved his base to Miami in the 60's. I digress.

Actor-turned-game show host Larry Blyden (ex-Personality) took over for Bruner, and was the last host of What's My Line? for the series' final 4 seasons. He was set to move on to another G-T game show, Showoffs, before perishing in an accident while on vacation in 1975. The memories I have of Line come from the Bruner-Blyden era, and thus, the sample I pulled, uploaded by MatchGameProductions, comes from the 1969-70 season, I have to assume, since Brenda Vaccaro ("Midnight Cowboy") is on the panel, along with Gene Rayburn, whose original Match Game may have ended by this point. Future President Gerald Ford is the mystery guest, and this episode is culled from a GSN print from a tribute to Ford, who passed away in 2006.



Rating: A-.