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What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States, between 1950 and 1967, on CBS, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent American revivals. The game uses celebrity panelists to question contestants in order to determine their occupation. The majority of the contestants were from the general public, but there was one weekly celebrity "mystery guest" for whom the panelists were blindfolded. It is on the list of longest-running American primetime network television game-shows. Originally moderated by John Charles Daly and most frequently with regular 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.
More than 700 episodes exist as kinescope recordings, filmed in 16mm, which was the only way moving pictures and sound from spontaneous, unscripted television shows could be preserved on a long-term basis prior to the emergence and subsequent widespread use of videotape. Many early episodes were lost because of economic decisions made by CBS executives between 1950 and 1952. All episodes from July 1952 to September 1967 were preserved in the archives of producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, but by 1975, some of the episodes had been lost.
After CBS cancelled the series in 1967, it returned the following year in a syndicated version for local television stations that committed to airing it five days a week. This syndicated version was broadcast until 1975 and was hosted by Wally Bruner and later by Larry Blyden. There have been a dozen international versions, radio versions, and a live stage version. Revivals in the United States have been proposed several times, but all failed to go past the planning stages. New episodes have not been created for American television since December 12, 1974.
In 2013, TV Guide ranked What's My Line? ninth on its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever and Time ranked it as one of the 100 "All-Time" TV shows ever.
Produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS, the show was initially called Occupation Unknown before deciding on the name What's My Line?. The original series, which was usually broadcast live, debuted on Thursday, February 2, 1950, at 8:00 p.m. ET. After airing alternate Wednesdays, then alternate Thursdays, finally on October 1, 1950, it had settled into its weekly Sunday 10:30 p.m. ET slot where it would remain until the end of its network run on September 3, 1967.
Starting in July 1959, and continuing until July 1967, the show would occasionally record episodes onto quadruplex videotape for playback at a future date. In July 1959, this was state-of-the-art technology. At that time, the immediate concern of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman was that John Daly, anchor of the ABC network's nightly newscasts, would be allowed to visit Moscow to cover, in that capacity, a breaking news story. While Daly moderated the first live episode after his return from Moscow, he praised his employers' use of videotape. In such instances, cast and crew worked on two episodes consecutively during the same Sunday night: the "taped" one, followed immediately by the "live" one. The cast and crew began taking "summer breaks" from the show in July 1961, through July 1967. The closing credits of each prerecorded episode included an acknowledgment of the prerecorded status by the offscreen announcer.
The host, then called the moderator, was veteran radio and television newsman John Charles Daly. Clifton Fadiman, Eamonn Andrews, and Random House co-founding publisher and panelist Bennett Cerf substituted on the four occasions when Daly was unavailable.
The show featured a panel of four celebrities who questioned the contestants. On the initial program of February 2, 1950, the panel comprised former New Jersey governor Harold Hoffman, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, poet Louis Untermeyer, and psychiatrist Richard Hoffmann. The panel varied somewhat in the following weeks, but after the first few broadcasts, during the show's earliest period the panel generally consisted of Kilgallen, actress Arlene Francis, Untermeyer and comedy writer Hal Block. Publisher Bennett Cerf replaced Untermeyer as a regular panelist in 1951, and comedian Steve Allen replaced Block in 1953. Allen left in 1954 to launch The Tonight Show, and he was replaced by comedian Fred Allen (no relation), who remained on the panel until his death in 1956.
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What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States, between 1950 and 1967, on CBS, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent American revivals. The game uses celebrity panelists to question contestants in order to determine their occupation. The majority of the contestants were from the general public, but there was one weekly celebrity "mystery guest" for whom the panelists were blindfolded. It is on the list of longest-running American primetime network television game-shows. Originally moderated by John Charles Daly and most frequently with regular 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.
More than 700 episodes exist as kinescope recordings, filmed in 16mm, which was the only way moving pictures and sound from spontaneous, unscripted television shows could be preserved on a long-term basis prior to the emergence and subsequent widespread use of videotape. Many early episodes were lost because of economic decisions made by CBS executives between 1950 and 1952. All episodes from July 1952 to September 1967 were preserved in the archives of producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, but by 1975, some of the episodes had been lost.
After CBS cancelled the series in 1967, it returned the following year in a syndicated version for local television stations that committed to airing it five days a week. This syndicated version was broadcast until 1975 and was hosted by Wally Bruner and later by Larry Blyden. There have been a dozen international versions, radio versions, and a live stage version. Revivals in the United States have been proposed several times, but all failed to go past the planning stages. New episodes have not been created for American television since December 12, 1974.
In 2013, TV Guide ranked What's My Line? ninth on its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever and Time ranked it as one of the 100 "All-Time" TV shows ever.
Produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS, the show was initially called Occupation Unknown before deciding on the name What's My Line?. The original series, which was usually broadcast live, debuted on Thursday, February 2, 1950, at 8:00 p.m. ET. After airing alternate Wednesdays, then alternate Thursdays, finally on October 1, 1950, it had settled into its weekly Sunday 10:30 p.m. ET slot where it would remain until the end of its network run on September 3, 1967.
Starting in July 1959, and continuing until July 1967, the show would occasionally record episodes onto quadruplex videotape for playback at a future date. In July 1959, this was state-of-the-art technology. At that time, the immediate concern of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman was that John Daly, anchor of the ABC network's nightly newscasts, would be allowed to visit Moscow to cover, in that capacity, a breaking news story. While Daly moderated the first live episode after his return from Moscow, he praised his employers' use of videotape. In such instances, cast and crew worked on two episodes consecutively during the same Sunday night: the "taped" one, followed immediately by the "live" one. The cast and crew began taking "summer breaks" from the show in July 1961, through July 1967. The closing credits of each prerecorded episode included an acknowledgment of the prerecorded status by the offscreen announcer.
The host, then called the moderator, was veteran radio and television newsman John Charles Daly. Clifton Fadiman, Eamonn Andrews, and Random House co-founding publisher and panelist Bennett Cerf substituted on the four occasions when Daly was unavailable.
The show featured a panel of four celebrities who questioned the contestants. On the initial program of February 2, 1950, the panel comprised former New Jersey governor Harold Hoffman, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, poet Louis Untermeyer, and psychiatrist Richard Hoffmann. The panel varied somewhat in the following weeks, but after the first few broadcasts, during the show's earliest period the panel generally consisted of Kilgallen, actress Arlene Francis, Untermeyer and comedy writer Hal Block. Publisher Bennett Cerf replaced Untermeyer as a regular panelist in 1951, and comedian Steve Allen replaced Block in 1953. Allen left in 1954 to launch The Tonight Show, and he was replaced by comedian Fred Allen (no relation), who remained on the panel until his death in 1956.