I love Tony Randall's laugh! I love Bennett's puns! I love Arlene's innuendos! I love Dorothy's giggle! I love John's long-winded explanations! I Love "What's My Line?"!!
Really impressed with Tony Randall this week. Without looking like he's trying so hard, his questions are pertinent, well put and creative. No wonder he became more regular.
I once sang backup for Steve and Eydie in Vegas. Steve was the all serious one and Eydie was the casual, laid back one. She was one of the finest belters ever and he was a fine comic performer and dynamite impressionist. Together a lovely, lovely couple. Eydie died in 2013 following a brief illness and in 2019, 83-year-old Steve publicly announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
One month later, Steve Lawrence would hit #1 for 2 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 with his smash, "Go Away Little Girl." Two months later (Mar. 1963), Eydie would see her international hit, "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" hit #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
WOW, Arlene !!! You must have had a very elite and exalted evening this night !! Coming from - heading to ?? - a fabulous NYC holiday party ? Always a glamour doll, our Miss Francis.
iamintheburg Oh yeah, from about 1955 or so onwards I sussed that Arlene's a party girl. She knows everyone, loves everyone, schmoozes with everyone. And all of it sincere and not as 'luvvie' as some might be!!
The Postmaster General had a beautiful smile, and a wonderfully cheerful face and demeanor! With the humongous responsibility and amount of work he must do, his personality could help him survive the stress! 😀👏👍👍
The post office is IIRC the only uniformed non-military branch of government. Learned this when my late mother worked for the USPS. However, the uniformed part of the UDPS are the delivery people(letter carriers). My mom worked in the back sorting mail, and they didn't require uniforms. Also, WRT to law enforcement, there's not only mail fraud, but theft of mail and even damaging g mailboxes. Yes, those are federal crimes. I remembercwhen I was a teenager and somebody vandalized the mailbox on our front porch, we had serious men in stern suits out giving most of the neighborhood the third degree.
RE Tony’s rare mention of Dorothy’s morning radio show “Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick.”: It had been on the air since 1945, but was then (unknown to all) in its last days. When Dorothy went into hospital in February 1963 and then into secluded recovery, the radio station cancelled the program.
Wow. Eydie looked beautiful. She just had Michael their second son like seven months before this show. Steve was always such a gentleman and treated Eydie like a queen. Both very lovingly.
This is (at least) the second WML featuring an attractive female airplane saleswoman. The other episode featured one Mrs. Jackie Frankel. Not sure of the air date. It appeared to be from the early '60s as well. BTW, this is my first post re. WML. I am totally addicted to this show. I LOVE IT! Thank you for posting.
The episode with Jackie Frankel as an airplane saleslady is that of 21 August 1966. Mrs. Frankel is the second contestant in that episode. (The Mystery Guest is Walter Brennan.) The guest panelists on that show are Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. You can find it in Gary's 1966-1967 playlist.
This is one of the more charming episodes. The “hot flash” remark is a scream, there are tons of great tidbits. The smiling, deadpan Postmaster had them wonderfully stumped! Was almost sure Dorothy was going to do one of her brilliant plays and guess it at the end. “The worst spell of weather”… !! … I’m going to use that one!
Bennett managed to tell the "spell of weather" joke much more naturally than he usually did, and so he slid the pun into our ears very effectively. He also demonstrated his geographical memory -- it appears that he remembered the major industries, hotels, restaurants, department stores, in every place where he had lectured, in those days before American towns were homogenized by chains. Pretty impressive!
@@al4berry I was a child watching these shows and Steve Allen and Jack Paar with my parents. My father and uncle were such word lovers that they, too, were punsters and considered the important columns to read were those of Bennett Cerf and William Safire. Everyone groaned at puns even back then! A pun is often best kept to a single line a la Henny Youngman. Once it becomes a story a la Bob Hope, they are not as funny. I suspect that it always has been that the payoff is not worth the long journey to it. Nonetheless, word lovers have always loved a good pun while others groan at them. It's a form of wordplay and wordplay is crucial to language skills.
Neil Midkiff - Bennett was a very bright man and clearly had a good memory. However, as a good businessman, who was utterly committed to literature and all forms of language usage and the written word, he travelled to promote his books and reading and use of libraries (to whom he could sell books) in towns all over America. Now some of us who were children in those days watching with our parents were stunned to discover Bennett knew what we did about Mobile, AL, because we had just studied it in school. Back then we all thought we had just discovered TV, sex, the main industries near Mobile Bay, etc. I am sure Bennett researched the places he was visiting to be sure he was presenting them with possibilities pertinent to their locale and history. He would have promoted great literature anywhere to get folks to read O'Neill, Joyce and Hart. But, he knew there were certain sorts of things that would be more pertinent to a school of higher education even in an agricultural area vs. a mountainous region vs. an area like L.A. that was steeped in showbiz. He was smart that way - know your audience. And he loved learning and was a gregarious guy, so was thrilled to meet people and learn things about the work they do and what their business/life challenges were that he might be unaware of, being Manhattan born and bred and educated.
"I believe in relations - all the way." Boy, does Arlene Francis get away with a "naughty" line there! Of the four times that Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme each appeared as Mystery Guest on WML?, three of them were together, as husband and wife - in 1958, on this episode, and in 1964. (For those of you who have never seen Eydie Gorme's solo turn as Mystery Guest on the 29 September 1963 episode, by all means watch the episode. It's hilarious!!!!!) Believe it or not, at this point neither Steve Lawrence nor Eydie Gorme had ever appeared in a TV drama or comedy/sitcom show. But Steve Lawrence apparently had one "in the can" (or would do so in the near future); his TV drama debut was in an episode of "Saints and Sinners" which would air on Monday, 4 February 1963. Eydie's TV actress debut would come in 1969, co-starring with Steve Lawrence in "What It Was, Was Love" on "The Kraft Music Hall." The episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" in which Tony Randall was to appear (referred to by Arlene Francis in the "Good-bye"s at the end) was "Hangover," directed by Bernard Girard and written by Lou Rambeau (based on two short stories: one by John D. McDonald, the other by Charles M. Runyon). The principals in the cast were Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Robert P. Lieb, Myron Healey, Tyler McVey, James Maloney, June Gale, Dodie Heath, and William Phipps. It aired originally on Thursday, 6 December 1962 (four days after this episode. Plot blurb, courtesy of IMDB: "Remembering nothing of what happened the day before, a talented, alcoholic ad man painfully reconstructs the events of what proves to have been a very bad day indeed."
Peter Cook and Steve Lawrence were both major guest panelists of 1963. Cook appeared only in 1963; Lawrence appeared fairly regularly for several years. His appearance here is one of the smash hit appearances -- ever.
I recall it being a pretty hot topic, although not particularly controversial. There were concerns about getting people to use the new zip codes. Of course, there was also the matter of being able to find out the zip codes for people that you corresponded with who were not in your local area. At the same time, the postal service also standardized the two letter abbreviations for states, territories and military mail (only one has changed since then: Nebraska in 1969 from NB to NE at the request of Canada who wanted to use NB for New Brunswick in their postal system). I'm recalling that they had released advance info on the zip code assignments prior to Christmas so people could exchange that info with friends and family in their holiday card mailing. But this could be a Mandela effect memory. Of course it wasn't as big an adjustment for us who had lived in NYC because we had two digit postal codes for years. In fact those two digits were incorporated into the five digit zip codes as the final two numbers. Every twenty years in a year ending in a "3", the post office added an innovation to theoretically speed mail delivery. Two digit postal codes for metropolitan areas began in 1943, zip codes in 1963 and zip plus four in 1983. Zip plus four has not caught on as readily as it is much harder to look up the last four digits. I'd say that within 10 years, people including zip codes of the recipients of first class mail was almost universal. Yet 35 years after zip plus four, I have a mailing list of about 80 names of clients and I would estimate that I have the plus four info for less than one third of those names.
@@loissimmons6558 It's easy to look up Zip+4 codes at usps.com ... I do it frequently, and I'm impressed with their database of addresses. In residential neighborhoods, the +4 code identifies one block, one side of the street, such as all the even house numbers in the 500-598 range. The bar codes add the last two digits of the house number, so that ("delivery point") specifies just one house. In apartments and the like, the +4 code identifies one cluster of mailboxes, and the delivery point 2-digit code tells which box within the cluster. Going back to 1962, my memory is the same as yours that we got months of advance notice that Kansas City 16, Missouri would become 64116.
+Neil Midkiff Yes, these days it is easy to look up zip codes. I do it frequently as well. But in 1962, we didn't have anything resembling the Internet and it took a while till our friends found out their zip code and let us know (while they were also waiting to hear from us). Phone books started publishing them and in NYC or other cities with multiple zip codes hopefully you could find where a location fit into the map. And local maps issued by businesses would have the list of zip codes or overlaid. Like any system, there was an adjustment period before their usage became almost universal. As far as the +4 codes, I don't bother to look them up. I include them on the address label or envelope only if they are given to me. And I see no evidence that it speeds the mail. In fact, I would say that it seems like mail within the NYC metropolitan area takes longer now (with or without the +4) than it did 60 years ago (and that's with first class mail being nearly double what it was 60 years ago, but approaching half of what it was in the peak year, 2001.
The three other panelists play the show for fun, but Dorothy always took the game seriously. Maybe that is why she seemed to have the most correct times figuring out the line, or who the mystery guest was. Less than 3 years after this episode (Nov. 8, 1965), she would be gone at only 52. The original series, after 17 marvelous years, was canceled less than 2 years after her, in Sep. 1967. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #9 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.
Arlene Francis introduces Tony Randall as returning from Greece where he completed the film Not on Your Life. The title was changed to Island of Love for its 1963 release.
Until 1971, the postmaster general was the head of the Post Office Department (or simply "Post Office" until the 1820s) From 1829 to 1971, he was a member of the President's Cabinet.
The impersonation by Steve Lawrence of the Frank Fontaine character is simply extraordinary. Allan Sherman was good, but the Steve Lawrence performance far surpasses his.
Mr. Day was not President Kennedy's first choice to be Postmaster General. He offered the position in December 1960 to a Congressman from Illinois. JFK had won the election in part due to support from Black voters and he hoped to appoint the first Black Cabinet member. The individual he approached preferred to remain in Congress. Mr. Day was appointed in his stead and Kennedy had an all-White Cabinet. Lyndon Johnson was the first President to appoint an African-American Cabinet member.
Lyndon Johnson tortured dogs' ears, and also tortured the families of many Americans by sending their boys to their deaths in a pointless war that never resolved anything. If anybody had to be zapped, it should have been LBJ, who did so much to sow the seeds for the ongoing unraveling and destruction of the country.
I had tickets to see Steve and Eydie in Atlanta when the show was canceled because of Michael’s unexpected death! Only saw them one time years later! They have been the most adorable couple on the game show Tattletales which you can get on UA-cam 1983! Worth every minute of your time
Bennett has for years been identifying a guest's home town with a product and will always ask if the guest has something to do with that product. For instance, a guest may be from Shell Town, FL and he''ll say, "Oh, that's the place that has those wonderful seashells. Do you have anything to do with the seashell business?", and he's always wrong. But not today! He equated Wichita with airplanes and by golly, he was right for once.
Postmaster General J. Edward Day (1914-1996) was named by President Kennedy and was noted for stabilizing the postal deficit through rate increases and the introduction of the zip code system. He did not have great relations with the Kennedy administration, however, and resigned in August 1963 in order to practice law.
Dorothy's mood in this episode seemed to swing wildly at a couple of times when she seemed to go from being somewhat combative to being somewhat quiet and meek.
Vahan Nisanian The last nine words of what you say IS Dorothy Kilgallen as far as I'm concerned. She's an introvert but she is fiercely competitive as well as over-sensitive and edgy too. See how the way she THROWS IT OVER to Bennett when he mutters something about the treasury which exposes something she's not expert on. It passes in an instant and she'll smile again....but that's Dorothy!! Bless er! :)
The first challenger, Postmaster General J. Edward Day, had just (starting about 6 weeks prior) presided over the most famous American philatelic event of the latter half of the 20th century: the Dag Hammerskjold commemorative stamp error, also known as *Day's Folly*. I'm surprised it didn't get mentioned on the show as it generated controversy, acrimony, and lawsuits. I remember it well, but perhaps it was only important to hobbyists. Read about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld_invert
I love watching on Sundays, makes me feel like I'm seeing it "live." :-) I don't think I've seen the panel and John in such hysterics in quite a while as they were when Tony did his version of Frank Fontaine! By the way, just in case anyone hasn't seen it, John Daly makes a brief appearance near the beginning of Bye Bye Birdie (the movie). I happened to be watching it this weekend and thought I'd mention it, in case anyone wonders what he looked like in color. :-) The full movie is up on UA-cam (for a limited time, I assume).
Thanks for the heads up! The movie seems to be up since September 2013, so I suppose it won't be going anywhere. Would you recommend the movie though? For the most part I steer away from movies with a rating below a 7 in IMDb. Oh and for me, the absolutely hilarious episode with Groucho Marx as a panelist is by far my favorite.
Corleone The Groucho episode. Yes, the Groucho episode. :) I've watched that one at least 25 times. Never stops making me laugh. Incidentally, just be aware that videos can be pulled down anytime by companies that suddenly want to assert copyrights they never bothered to enforce before, so it's always best to download UA-cam videos you're interested in if there's any question and you don't have time to watch now. I've had videos on another channel get pulled 8-9 months after they were initially posted, in once case with the explicit permission of the copyright holder, who then just "changed policies" and issued a copyright strike with no warning.
Corleone I don't know if I could recommend it on its own merits... As a fan of 60s culture I had a lot of fun watching it. It brings the era we're seeing in these WML episodes to life in glorious Technicolor, with a great cast including Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Ann-Margret, Paul Lynde. As a movie it's so-so, taking the play and kind of dumbing it down for a youth audience, with a lot of goofy gags. I guess it also depends on how you feel about musicals, since it's one of those. :)
This thread started four years ago, but for anyone just reading it now, I would recommend watching "Bye Bye Birdie" as an insight into the way the U.S. experienced the generation gap between the Baby Boomer generation and their parents. The movie was an adaptation of a Broadway play. Ann-Margret had not been in the Broadway version and some of the stars who were carried over complained that the decision was made to put too much emphasis on the young, talented and very attractive ingenue, ruining the story line and cutting out some of the best numbers of the other cast members. Janet Leigh as a brunette playing a person of Mediterranean background may have been miscast, but I would add the name of Maureen Stapleton to the list of the talented cast members. (She plays Dick Van Dyke's mother.) "The Telephone Hour" and "How Lovely to be a Woman" are cute vehicles for Ann-Margret and "Kids" shows Lynde as his trademark sarcastic best with Stapleton adding mother guilt trips on Van Dyke strategically interspersed. "Hymn for a Sunday Evening" is a paean to Ed Sullivan. And there are a number of other familiar and delightful numbers" "We Love You/Hate You Conrad" (which was turned into a song proclaiming love to the Beatles a few years later), "Put on a Happy Face" and "A Lot of Living to Do" among them. You can pick up a lot of the plot, a lot of the culture of the times and see the cute twist that occurs during :How Lovely to be a Woman": ua-cam.com/video/6tVPCLpc7Bs/v-deo.html
James Edward Day resigned from his work at The Postal Department in 1963, because "It was impossible to live on a salary of $25.000 a year", and went back to practice as a Lawyer. (An occupation we all know is very lucrative ;). In 1962 $25.000 would be nearly $200.000 in current value today, and I know one cannot compare J. E. Day's salary with John Daly's in 1962, but I assume that $25.000 a year those years were considered as "well-paid"? (I'm just curious. I don't know anything about a reasonable salary in US, neither then, or now.)
As you wrote, you can estimate today's dollars, roughly, by multiplying by TEN. $25,000 would have been considered a *very* high salary in 1963. There are people who *today* feed their entire families on $25k.
What's My Line? So was my thoughts also. Then Mr. Day did the right thing, when resigning. He would not be worthy to trust in any governal administrative position anyway.
***** Thank you for the tribute on this topic! It's interesting to hear about how an ordinary American family managed those days. But as you said, I'm sure "a lot of things werent quite right". ;) (There must have been many people to whom a payment of 50 dollars as being a contestant on this show, was a huge amount, and a great help regarding expenses for their families :).
In 1963 my sister bought her 4 bedroom 2 bath house for 19 thousand dollars. I was making about 1.10 an hour. Gas was about 23 cents a gallon. I believe the Post Master now makes more than the President of the United States.
Steve Lawrence is doing "Crazy Guggenheim" (also known as Frank Fontaine) who was a semi-regular on Jackie Gleason's variety show in the 60's. He too, like Steve was a fine singer. But I would think he is best remembered as the lovable lush, "Crazy". Actually I'm not sure if "Crazy Guggenheim" was supposed to play a drunk to Gleason's bartender, or a brain damaged person (which, sadly, as funny as it was would not be pc today). He always seemed to me to be playing a punch drunk ex fighter more than a drunkard. Crazy Guggenheim doing a Commercial for Malt-O-Meal
I'd always interpreted it as him playing a drunk, pure and simple. Though you may be onto something, because he did do that character much earlier, including on the Jack Benny radio series, and there was no reference to his being drunk in those shows (the character was called "John LC Siboney"). It's the exact same character, but in the Joe the Bartender sketches, Guggenheim was always drinking beer throughout, which may be why I always read the character as drunk. Nice article about him here: tralfaz.blogspot.com/2013/04/frank-fontaine-became-crazy.html I believe he sang in every single one of those Joe the Bartender sketches on the Gleason show. Magnificent singing voice.
I almost forgot about Frank Fontaine's singing at the end of the Joe the Bartender sketches. As I recall, the song would always be introduced with Joe (Gleason) telling the never seen, never voiced "Mr. Donahy" to put a dime in number seven (presumably in the juke box at the bar).
@@WhatsMyLine The world of song (his baritone voice) and comedy lost a major talent when Frank Fontaine shockingly died on Aug. 4, 1978, of a heart attack in Spokane, Wash. at only 58.
Steve and Eydie made a very cute couple. If I have my dates right, this was aired the same week Eydie recorded "Blame it on the Bossa Nova" with the Cookies.
+hcombs0104 Ironically during the previous week's episode, musician Paul Winter in his stint as a challenger mentioned bringing bossa nova music back from Brazil when he toured down there. I also remember two hit songs by The Cookies on their own in 1963: "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)" and "Chains". The latter song was later covered by The Beatles.
Yes, Eydie Gormé has bona fide rock and roll credentials because of that record made with Brill Building girl group The Cookies, the tune composed by the Aldon Music songwriting team of husband and wife Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Gormé admitted later in an interview she despised the song and had deliberately botched its singing and even sang one off-pitch note towards the end of the recording, hoping her label (Columbia Records) would think her performance so bad it would never consider releasing her recording of the tune as a single. But Gormé's stunt failed, as not only did the record hit #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it was also her final solo Top 40 hit, although she had other hits later with her husband and partner Steve Lawrence. One lineup of The Cookies was also The Raelettes, who sang backup vocals for Atlantic Records rhythm and blues singer Ray Charles on some of Charles' biggest hits, among them "Lonely Avenue" (1956), "Night Time Is the Right Time" (1958), "What'd I Say" (1959) and "Hit the Road Jack" (1961). The original lineup of The Cookies was Dorothy Jones, Darlene McCrea and Dorothy's cousin, Beulah Robertson. In 1956, Robertson was replaced by Margie Hendricks (later changed to "Hendrix"). This group was introduced to Ray Charles through their session work for Atlantic Records. The Raelettes had many changes over the years, at various points including Minnie Riperton, Merry Clayton, Clydie King (of the Blackberries), Edna Wright (of Honey Cone), and Susaye Greene (of a latter-day incarnation of The Supremes). But the group always featured four or five five singers. Perhaps the most famous lineup of The Raelettes was its second, with Margie Hendrix, Patricia Lyles, Gwen Berry, and Darlene McCrea, and Hendrix the most prominent singer, also having had many affairs with Ray Charles, but later fired from the group due to alcohol and drug abuse. Pat Lyles was a Raelette, but never a Cookie Then the second incarnation of The Cookies, with the overlap of Dorothy Jones (after the rest of The Cookie left to form The Raelettes) from the original lineup plus Earl-Jean McCrea, younger sister of Darlene McCrea from the original lineup, recorded for Dimension Records and were also associated with another pair of married Brill Building tunesmiths, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, where they recorded their hits "Chains" and "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)," as well provided backups on such hits as "Halfway to Paradise" and "Bless You" by Tony Orlando, 1961; "The Loco-Motion" and "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" by Little Eva, 1962; "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" and "Next Door to an Angel" by Neil Sedaka (a distant relative of Gormé's on her mother's side, both Sephardic Jews), 1962; "Blame It on the Bossa Nova" by Eydie Gormé, and "I Want to Stay Here" by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, both in 1963, and "Swinging on a Star" by Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva, also in 1963. Earl Jean McCrea departed The Cookies in 1965 after having recorded a few solo hits, one (by Goffin-King ) of which, "I'm Into Something Good," charted at #38 in the U.S. Billboard Top 40 in 1964, with a cover version by Herman's Hermits reaching the Top 20 (at #13), also in 1964.
@@gymnastix I'm pretty much an expert on the music business, particularly back then, and even I didn't know all of that. Thanks for the history lesson. Minnie Riperton & Merry Clayton were Raelettes. Who knew.
13:15 Bennett: "Does your work in any way involve the aircraft industry?" Contestant: "Yes, it does." Bennett: "...Do you have anything to do with Beech aircraft?" Contestant: "Yes". Bennett: "Well now, what do I have to find out...?" Bennett seems to do this a lot, i.e., find the general area of a contestant's line or the product with which he's involved and then think that he should be finished with the game.
There was one way that Bennett's questioning was unusual. He mentions both Beech and Cessna as being in the Wichita area. What would have been more typical was for him to ask "Do you have anything to do with Beech or Cessna?" Getting a yes, he would then pick one of the two and would unerringly pick the wrong one. But he still would narrow it down for the next person on the panel. In this case (pun intended), Bennett cuts out the middleman and asks if she has anything to do with Beech. He later spoke glowingly of Beech's facilities which apparently he had toured. Does this make him a Beech nut? Then somehow, they never figure out that Mrs. Case was in sales. Her yes answers to going up in the air and being involved in the hangar likely led them down the wrong path.
dorothy looks the best ever -- hair, dress, --- she should keep this look -- but they change it every episode and she often looks frumpy due to hair and dress in other episodes
lotusbuds2000 I hope not because she looks terrible. Even if not on the same screen as drop dead gorgeous Arlene, Dorothy’s many excellent qualities do not include looking good.
Did Dorothy's quick, choppy introduction of Bennett seem and look a little like her strange, mini stroke/drunk/about to sneeze episode a few shows earlier?
Galileocan g I've seen her do this 5-10 times now. Some of them are stronger than others. I'd love to know what causes them. I would think she is either drunk (but she generally doesn't act like this again during any of the shows - only the introductions) or it's a reaction to her being initially introduced to the bright lights on the stage. Sunlight can make people sneeze and I'm wondering if bright stage lights could have the same effect on some.
I suspect she's not drunk, but that she's suffering from alcohol withdrawal. Given typical patterns of consumption, the symptoms are worst in the evening, and can include episodes of thought disturbance, inattention and incoherent speech. These possibly result from a mild seizure, which can resemble a TIA or mini-stroke. Sadly, I've been there myself - but hope never to go there again.
![What's My Line? - Bobby Darin; Alan King [panel] (Dec 9, 1962) [W/ COMMERCIALS!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/104_sjcDtoo/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Bobby Darin; Alan King [panel] (Dec 9, 1962) [W/ COMMERCIALS!]](/img/tr.png)
![What's My Line? - Tony Martin; Peter Ustinov [panel] (Oct 28, 1962)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QjwOdtjohYI/mqdefault.jpg)
I love Tony Randall's laugh!
I love Bennett's puns!
I love Arlene's innuendos!
I love Dorothy's giggle!
I love John's long-winded explanations!
I Love "What's My Line?"!!
Yes, Tony R has done well for just filling in.
Really impressed with Tony Randall this week. Without looking like he's trying so hard, his questions are pertinent, well put and creative. No wonder he became more regular.
Wonderful show. Wonderful guests.Wonderful panelists.
Tony Randall was such a charming, entertaining and witty panelist. He was always a joy to watch.
I once sang backup for Steve and Eydie in Vegas. Steve was the all serious one and Eydie was the casual, laid back one. She was one of the finest belters ever and he was a fine comic performer and dynamite impressionist. Together a lovely, lovely couple. Eydie died in 2013 following a brief illness and in 2019, 83-year-old Steve publicly announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Lucky you! Two of my favorites.
One month later, Steve Lawrence would hit #1 for 2 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 with his smash, "Go Away Little Girl." Two months later (Mar. 1963), Eydie would see her international hit, "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" hit #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Much better than the over the top glossy shows with uninteresting people, they have today.
WOW, Arlene !!! You must have had a very elite and exalted evening this night !! Coming from - heading to ?? - a fabulous NYC holiday party ? Always a glamour doll, our Miss Francis.
@@blex5579 Your anti-Semitic tropes are most unwelcome.
preppy socks Eh?
iamintheburg Oh yeah, from about 1955 or so onwards I sussed that Arlene's a party girl. She knows everyone, loves everyone, schmoozes with everyone. And all of it sincere and not as 'luvvie' as some might be!!
What a wonderful show!
The Postmaster General had a beautiful smile, and a wonderfully cheerful face and demeanor! With the humongous responsibility and amount of work he must do, his personality could help him survive the stress!
😀👏👍👍
The post office is IIRC the only uniformed non-military branch of government. Learned this when my late mother worked for the USPS. However, the uniformed part of the UDPS are the delivery people(letter carriers). My mom worked in the back sorting mail, and they didn't require uniforms.
Also, WRT to law enforcement, there's not only mail fraud, but theft of mail and even damaging g mailboxes. Yes, those are federal crimes. I remembercwhen I was a teenager and somebody vandalized the mailbox on our front porch, we had serious men in stern suits out giving most of the neighborhood the third degree.
RE Tony’s rare mention of Dorothy’s morning radio show “Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick.”: It had been on the air since 1945, but was then (unknown to all) in its last days. When Dorothy went into hospital in February 1963 and then into secluded recovery, the radio station cancelled the program.
Wow. Eydie looked beautiful. She just had Michael their second son like seven months before this show. Steve was always such a gentleman and treated Eydie like a queen. Both very lovingly.
Steve Lawrence needs to receive the Kennedy Center Award
This is (at least) the second WML featuring an attractive female airplane saleswoman. The other episode featured one Mrs. Jackie Frankel. Not sure of the air date. It appeared to be from the early '60s as well.
BTW, this is my first post re. WML. I am totally addicted to this show. I LOVE IT! Thank you for posting.
The episode with Jackie Frankel as an airplane saleslady is that of 21 August 1966. Mrs. Frankel is the second contestant in that episode. (The Mystery Guest is Walter Brennan.) The guest panelists on that show are Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. You can find it in Gary's 1966-1967 playlist.
This is one of the more charming episodes. The “hot flash” remark is a scream, there are tons of great tidbits. The smiling, deadpan Postmaster had them wonderfully stumped! Was almost sure Dorothy was going to do one of her brilliant plays and guess it at the end. “The worst spell of weather”… !! … I’m going to use that one!
A Bennett pun that was actually funny!
Bennett managed to tell the "spell of weather" joke much more naturally than he usually did, and so he slid the pun into our ears very effectively. He also demonstrated his geographical memory -- it appears that he remembered the major industries, hotels, restaurants, department stores, in every place where he had lectured, in those days before American towns were homogenized by chains. Pretty impressive!
But I'm glad that puns are not popular now, like they were back then. It's funny to watch their reactions when he makes one of his outrageous puns.
@@al4berry I was a child watching these shows and Steve Allen and Jack Paar with my parents. My father and uncle were such word lovers that they, too, were punsters and considered the important columns to read were those of Bennett Cerf and William Safire. Everyone groaned at puns even back then! A pun is often best kept to a single line a la Henny Youngman. Once it becomes a story a la Bob Hope, they are not as funny. I suspect that it always has been that the payoff is not worth the long journey to it. Nonetheless, word lovers have always loved a good pun while others groan at them. It's a form of wordplay and wordplay is crucial to language skills.
Neil Midkiff - Bennett was a very bright man and clearly had a good memory. However, as a good businessman, who was utterly committed to literature and all forms of language usage and the written word, he travelled to promote his books and reading and use of libraries (to whom he could sell books) in towns all over America. Now some of us who were children in those days watching with our parents were stunned to discover Bennett knew what we did about Mobile, AL, because we had just studied it in school. Back then we all thought we had just discovered TV, sex, the main industries near Mobile Bay, etc. I am sure Bennett researched the places he was visiting to be sure he was presenting them with possibilities pertinent to their locale and history. He would have promoted great literature anywhere to get folks to read O'Neill, Joyce and Hart. But, he knew there were certain sorts of things that would be more pertinent to a school of higher education even in an agricultural area vs. a mountainous region vs. an area like L.A. that was steeped in showbiz. He was smart that way - know your audience. And he loved learning and was a gregarious guy, so was thrilled to meet people and learn things about the work they do and what their business/life challenges were that he might be unaware of, being Manhattan born and bred and educated.
"I believe in relations - all the way." Boy, does Arlene Francis get away with a "naughty" line there!
Of the four times that Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme each appeared as Mystery Guest on WML?, three of them were together, as husband and wife - in 1958, on this episode, and in 1964. (For those of you who have never seen Eydie Gorme's solo turn as Mystery Guest on the 29 September 1963 episode, by all means watch the episode. It's hilarious!!!!!)
Believe it or not, at this point neither Steve Lawrence nor Eydie Gorme had ever appeared in a TV drama or comedy/sitcom show. But Steve Lawrence apparently had one "in the can" (or would do so in the near future); his TV drama debut was in an episode of "Saints and Sinners" which would air on Monday, 4 February 1963. Eydie's TV actress debut would come in 1969, co-starring with Steve Lawrence in "What It Was, Was Love" on "The Kraft Music Hall."
The episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" in which Tony Randall was to appear (referred to by Arlene Francis in the "Good-bye"s at the end) was "Hangover," directed by Bernard Girard and written by Lou Rambeau (based on two short stories: one by John D. McDonald, the other by Charles M. Runyon). The principals in the cast were Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Robert P. Lieb, Myron Healey, Tyler McVey, James Maloney, June Gale, Dodie Heath, and William Phipps. It aired originally on Thursday, 6 December 1962 (four days after this episode. Plot blurb, courtesy of IMDB: "Remembering nothing of what happened the day before, a talented, alcoholic ad man painfully reconstructs the events of what proves to have been a very bad day indeed."
This is my favorite panel lineup
Joyce Case is on TTTT in 1960 (Jan or Feb). Just finished watching her.
Peter Cook and Steve Lawrence were both major guest panelists of 1963. Cook appeared only in 1963; Lawrence appeared fairly regularly for several years. His appearance here is one of the smash hit appearances -- ever.
Wow! This episode was aired on Dec 02, 1962, and they're talking about the introduction of zip codes! Very interesting!
Yes, that was a neat reference to hear, implying it was an item of major discussion back then.
Ashley DeGroot The Post Office Department had ZIP-codes in official use from July 1, 1963.
I recall it being a pretty hot topic, although not particularly controversial. There were concerns about getting people to use the new zip codes. Of course, there was also the matter of being able to find out the zip codes for people that you corresponded with who were not in your local area. At the same time, the postal service also standardized the two letter abbreviations for states, territories and military mail (only one has changed since then: Nebraska in 1969 from NB to NE at the request of Canada who wanted to use NB for New Brunswick in their postal system).
I'm recalling that they had released advance info on the zip code assignments prior to Christmas so people could exchange that info with friends and family in their holiday card mailing. But this could be a Mandela effect memory.
Of course it wasn't as big an adjustment for us who had lived in NYC because we had two digit postal codes for years. In fact those two digits were incorporated into the five digit zip codes as the final two numbers.
Every twenty years in a year ending in a "3", the post office added an innovation to theoretically speed mail delivery. Two digit postal codes for metropolitan areas began in 1943, zip codes in 1963 and zip plus four in 1983. Zip plus four has not caught on as readily as it is much harder to look up the last four digits. I'd say that within 10 years, people including zip codes of the recipients of first class mail was almost universal. Yet 35 years after zip plus four, I have a mailing list of about 80 names of clients and I would estimate that I have the plus four info for less than one third of those names.
@@loissimmons6558 It's easy to look up Zip+4 codes at usps.com ... I do it frequently, and I'm impressed with their database of addresses. In residential neighborhoods, the +4 code identifies one block, one side of the street, such as all the even house numbers in the 500-598 range. The bar codes add the last two digits of the house number, so that ("delivery point") specifies just one house. In apartments and the like, the +4 code identifies one cluster of mailboxes, and the delivery point 2-digit code tells which box within the cluster. Going back to 1962, my memory is the same as yours that we got months of advance notice that Kansas City 16, Missouri would become 64116.
+Neil Midkiff
Yes, these days it is easy to look up zip codes. I do it frequently as well. But in 1962, we didn't have anything resembling the Internet and it took a while till our friends found out their zip code and let us know (while they were also waiting to hear from us). Phone books started publishing them and in NYC or other cities with multiple zip codes hopefully you could find where a location fit into the map. And local maps issued by businesses would have the list of zip codes or overlaid. Like any system, there was an adjustment period before their usage became almost universal.
As far as the +4 codes, I don't bother to look them up. I include them on the address label or envelope only if they are given to me. And I see no evidence that it speeds the mail. In fact, I would say that it seems like mail within the NYC metropolitan area takes longer now (with or without the +4) than it did 60 years ago (and that's with first class mail being nearly double what it was 60 years ago, but approaching half of what it was in the peak year, 2001.
The three other panelists play the show for fun, but Dorothy always took the game seriously. Maybe that is why she seemed to have the most correct times figuring out the line, or who the mystery guest was. Less than 3 years after this episode (Nov. 8, 1965), she would be gone at only 52. The original series, after 17 marvelous years, was canceled less than 2 years after her, in Sep. 1967. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #9 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.
Hell of an episode plus the sight of such an incredible natural beauty named Eydie
Arlene Francis introduces Tony Randall as returning from Greece where he completed the film Not on Your Life. The title was changed to Island of Love for its 1963 release.
Did he reflect on the pompatus of it, or proclaim that he was the genius of it?
Im watching these chronologically and I cant remember the panel playing hot potato and passing on so much as with the first guest. 😂
Wow, a First Class stamp going from 4 cents to 5 cents! Those were the days!
And the shiny new zip codes really adding some zippy speed to the mail delivery. Imagine that.
is that a 25% increase?
ZIP codes and five-cent stamps; how funny!
When I was a kid in the '50s, postage was 3 cents. I remember the uproar when it increased to 4 cents.
Hey that's a great opening gag, Bennett...and he told it really well.
What a talented couple!
Until 1971, the postmaster general was the head of the Post Office Department (or simply "Post Office" until the 1820s) From 1829 to 1971, he was a member of the President's Cabinet.
The impersonation by Steve Lawrence of the Frank Fontaine character is simply extraordinary. Allan Sherman was good, but the Steve Lawrence performance far surpasses his.
I’ve never seen Tony laugh so much, it sad that he’s died.. I would have loved to have seen him appear as a panellist in the syndicated version..
Mr. Day was not President Kennedy's first choice to be Postmaster General. He offered the position in December 1960 to a Congressman from Illinois. JFK had won the election in part due to support from Black voters and he hoped to appoint the first Black Cabinet member. The individual he approached preferred to remain in Congress. Mr. Day was appointed in his stead and Kennedy had an all-White Cabinet. Lyndon Johnson was the first President to appoint an African-American Cabinet member.
Lyndon Johnson tortured dogs' ears, and also tortured the families of many Americans by sending their boys to their deaths in a pointless war that never resolved anything. If anybody had to be zapped, it should have been LBJ, who did so much to sow the seeds for the ongoing unraveling and destruction of the country.
Alas, the new child that Steve and Eydie are discussing wouldn't live to see twenty-four.
I had tickets to see Steve and Eydie in Atlanta when the show was canceled because of Michael’s unexpected death! Only saw them one time years later! They have been the most adorable couple on the game show Tattletales which you can get on UA-cam 1983! Worth every minute of your time
@@Delsing45 Do you mean the one from 1982? I been trying to find the one from 1983 and 1984 when they were on?
Bennett has for years been identifying a guest's home town with a product and will always ask if the guest has something to do with that product. For instance, a guest may be from Shell Town, FL and he''ll say, "Oh, that's the place that has those wonderful seashells. Do you have anything to do with the seashell business?", and he's always wrong. But not today! He equated Wichita with airplanes and by golly, he was right for once.
I love how honestly stunt but how close they were to guessing the postmaster
Joyce Case, now Joyce Case James, lives in Horseshoe Bay, Texas. She completely quit flying after retiring and became a golfer.
Arlene looks gooooorgeous
Postmaster General J. Edward Day (1914-1996) was named by President Kennedy and was noted for stabilizing the postal deficit through rate increases and the introduction of the zip code system. He did not have great relations with the Kennedy administration, however, and resigned in August 1963 in order to practice law.
Five cent stamps and the zip code was just coming into use: 1962 Americana thanks to WML.
Television was a young medium!
Dorothy's mood in this episode seemed to swing wildly at a couple of times when she seemed to go from being somewhat combative to being somewhat quiet and meek.
Vahan Nisanian The last nine words of what you say IS Dorothy Kilgallen as far as I'm concerned. She's an introvert but she is fiercely competitive as well as over-sensitive and edgy too. See how the way she THROWS IT OVER to Bennett when he mutters something about the treasury which exposes something she's not expert on. It passes in an instant and she'll smile again....but that's Dorothy!! Bless er! :)
@@davidsanderson5918 No, the commenter is correct. Her behavior in this episode definitely deviates somewhat from the usual.
The first challenger, Postmaster General J. Edward Day, had just (starting about 6 weeks prior) presided over the most famous American philatelic event of the latter half of the 20th century: the Dag Hammerskjold commemorative stamp error, also known as *Day's Folly*. I'm surprised it didn't get mentioned on the show as it generated controversy, acrimony, and lawsuits. I remember it well, but perhaps it was only important to hobbyists. Read about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld_invert
Day should have been summarily fired for ordering that error reprint. Disgraceful.
Even the intro was clever and this was long before computers were used for cartoons.
5 cent stamp. Where had time gone.
Steve and Edie were so charming.
Eydie is so charming :)
I love watching on Sundays, makes me feel like I'm seeing it "live." :-)
I don't think I've seen the panel and John in such hysterics in quite a while as they were when Tony did his version of Frank Fontaine!
By the way, just in case anyone hasn't seen it, John Daly makes a brief appearance near the beginning of Bye Bye Birdie (the movie). I happened to be watching it this weekend and thought I'd mention it, in case anyone wonders what he looked like in color. :-) The full movie is up on UA-cam (for a limited time, I assume).
Thanks for the heads up! The movie seems to be up since September 2013, so I suppose it won't be going anywhere. Would you recommend the movie though? For the most part I steer away from movies with a rating below a 7 in IMDb.
Oh and for me, the absolutely hilarious episode with Groucho Marx as a panelist is by far my favorite.
Corleone The Groucho episode. Yes, the Groucho episode. :) I've watched that one at least 25 times. Never stops making me laugh.
Incidentally, just be aware that videos can be pulled down anytime by companies that suddenly want to assert copyrights they never bothered to enforce before, so it's always best to download UA-cam videos you're interested in if there's any question and you don't have time to watch now. I've had videos on another channel get pulled 8-9 months after they were initially posted, in once case with the explicit permission of the copyright holder, who then just "changed policies" and issued a copyright strike with no warning.
Corleone I don't know if I could recommend it on its own merits... As a fan of 60s culture I had a lot of fun watching it. It brings the era we're seeing in these WML episodes to life in glorious Technicolor, with a great cast including Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Ann-Margret, Paul Lynde.
As a movie it's so-so, taking the play and kind of dumbing it down for a youth audience, with a lot of goofy gags.
I guess it also depends on how you feel about musicals, since it's one of those. :)
This thread started four years ago, but for anyone just reading it now, I would recommend watching "Bye Bye Birdie" as an insight into the way the U.S. experienced the generation gap between the Baby Boomer generation and their parents. The movie was an adaptation of a Broadway play. Ann-Margret had not been in the Broadway version and some of the stars who were carried over complained that the decision was made to put too much emphasis on the young, talented and very attractive ingenue, ruining the story line and cutting out some of the best numbers of the other cast members. Janet Leigh as a brunette playing a person of Mediterranean background may have been miscast, but I would add the name of Maureen Stapleton to the list of the talented cast members. (She plays Dick Van Dyke's mother.)
"The Telephone Hour" and "How Lovely to be a Woman" are cute vehicles for Ann-Margret and "Kids" shows Lynde as his trademark sarcastic best with Stapleton adding mother guilt trips on Van Dyke strategically interspersed. "Hymn for a Sunday Evening" is a paean to Ed Sullivan. And there are a number of other familiar and delightful numbers" "We Love You/Hate You Conrad" (which was turned into a song proclaiming love to the Beatles a few years later), "Put on a Happy Face" and "A Lot of Living to Do" among them.
You can pick up a lot of the plot, a lot of the culture of the times and see the cute twist that occurs during :How Lovely to be a Woman":
ua-cam.com/video/6tVPCLpc7Bs/v-deo.html
Edyie writes so beautifully....
Five cent stamps! Wow! Little did they know what the price would be now!
Back then, they didn't waste millions of dollars in pointless tv commercials, necessitating yearly rate hikes.
@@kentetalman9008 They also didn't have the competition they have today with this high tech world.
James Edward Day resigned from his work at The Postal Department in 1963, because "It was impossible to live on a salary of $25.000 a year", and went back to practice as a Lawyer. (An occupation we all know is very lucrative ;). In 1962 $25.000 would be nearly $200.000 in current value today, and I know one cannot compare J. E. Day's salary with John Daly's in 1962, but I assume that $25.000 a year those years were considered as "well-paid"? (I'm just curious. I don't know anything about a reasonable salary in US, neither then, or now.)
As you wrote, you can estimate today's dollars, roughly, by multiplying by TEN. $25,000 would have been considered a *very* high salary in 1963. There are people who *today* feed their entire families on $25k.
What's My Line? So was my thoughts also. Then Mr. Day did the right thing, when resigning. He would not be worthy to trust in any governal administrative position anyway.
***** Thank you for the tribute on this topic! It's interesting to hear about how an ordinary American family managed those days. But as you said, I'm sure "a lot of things werent quite right". ;) (There must have been many people to whom a payment of 50 dollars as being a contestant on this show, was a huge amount, and a great help regarding expenses for their families :).
In 1963 my sister bought her 4 bedroom 2 bath house for 19 thousand dollars. I was making about 1.10 an hour. Gas was about 23 cents a gallon. I believe the Post Master now makes more than the President of the United States.
SuperWinterborn perhaps it is because he lived in Washington DC???? I have heard it has always cost more to live there than most places in the USA.
Steve Lawrence is doing "Crazy Guggenheim" (also known as Frank Fontaine) who was a semi-regular on Jackie Gleason's variety show in the 60's. He too, like Steve was a fine singer. But I would think he is best remembered as the lovable lush, "Crazy". Actually I'm not sure if "Crazy Guggenheim" was supposed to play a drunk to Gleason's bartender, or a brain damaged person (which, sadly, as funny as it was would not be pc today). He always seemed to me to be playing a punch drunk ex fighter more than a drunkard. Crazy Guggenheim doing a Commercial for Malt-O-Meal
I'd always interpreted it as him playing a drunk, pure and simple. Though you may be onto something, because he did do that character much earlier, including on the Jack Benny radio series, and there was no reference to his being drunk in those shows (the character was called "John LC Siboney"). It's the exact same character, but in the Joe the Bartender sketches, Guggenheim was always drinking beer throughout, which may be why I always read the character as drunk.
Nice article about him here:
tralfaz.blogspot.com/2013/04/frank-fontaine-became-crazy.html
I believe he sang in every single one of those Joe the Bartender sketches on the Gleason show. Magnificent singing voice.
Died young in 1978 at 58 :>(
I almost forgot about Frank Fontaine's singing at the end of the Joe the Bartender sketches. As I recall, the song would always be introduced with Joe (Gleason) telling the never seen, never voiced "Mr. Donahy" to put a dime in number seven (presumably in the juke box at the bar).
@@WhatsMyLine The world of song (his baritone voice) and comedy lost a major talent when Frank Fontaine shockingly died on Aug. 4, 1978, of a heart attack in Spokane, Wash. at only 58.
Steve and Eydie made a very cute couple. If I have my dates right, this was aired the same week Eydie recorded "Blame it on the Bossa Nova" with the Cookies.
+hcombs0104
Ironically during the previous week's episode, musician Paul Winter in his stint as a challenger mentioned bringing bossa nova music back from Brazil when he toured down there.
I also remember two hit songs by The Cookies on their own in 1963: "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)" and "Chains". The latter song was later covered by The Beatles.
Yes, Eydie Gormé has bona fide rock and roll credentials because of that record made with Brill Building girl group The Cookies, the tune composed by the Aldon Music songwriting team of husband and wife Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Gormé admitted later in an interview she despised the song and had deliberately botched its singing and even sang one off-pitch note towards the end of the recording, hoping her label (Columbia Records) would think her performance so bad it would never consider releasing her recording of the tune as a single. But Gormé's stunt failed, as not only did the record hit #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it was also her final solo Top 40 hit, although she had other hits later with her husband and partner Steve Lawrence.
One lineup of The Cookies was also The Raelettes, who sang backup vocals for Atlantic Records rhythm and blues singer Ray Charles on some of Charles' biggest hits, among them "Lonely Avenue" (1956), "Night Time Is the Right Time" (1958), "What'd I Say" (1959) and "Hit the Road Jack" (1961). The original lineup of The Cookies was Dorothy Jones, Darlene McCrea and Dorothy's cousin, Beulah Robertson. In 1956, Robertson was replaced by Margie Hendricks (later changed to "Hendrix"). This group was introduced to Ray Charles through their session work for Atlantic Records.
The Raelettes had many changes over the years, at various points including Minnie Riperton, Merry Clayton, Clydie King (of the Blackberries), Edna Wright (of Honey Cone), and Susaye Greene (of a latter-day incarnation of The Supremes). But the group always featured four or five five singers. Perhaps the most famous lineup of The Raelettes was its second, with Margie Hendrix, Patricia Lyles, Gwen Berry, and Darlene McCrea, and Hendrix the most prominent singer, also having had many affairs with Ray Charles, but later fired from the group due to alcohol and drug abuse. Pat Lyles was a Raelette, but never a Cookie
Then the second incarnation of The Cookies, with the overlap of Dorothy Jones (after the rest of The Cookie left to form The Raelettes) from the original lineup plus Earl-Jean McCrea, younger sister of Darlene McCrea from the original lineup, recorded for Dimension Records and were also associated with another pair of married Brill Building tunesmiths, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, where they recorded their hits "Chains" and "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)," as well provided backups on such hits as "Halfway to Paradise" and "Bless You" by Tony Orlando, 1961; "The Loco-Motion" and "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" by Little Eva, 1962; "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" and "Next Door to an Angel" by Neil Sedaka (a distant relative of Gormé's on her mother's side, both Sephardic Jews), 1962; "Blame It on the Bossa Nova" by Eydie Gormé, and "I Want to Stay Here" by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, both in 1963, and "Swinging on a Star" by Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva, also in 1963. Earl Jean McCrea departed The Cookies in 1965 after having recorded a few solo hits, one (by Goffin-King ) of which, "I'm Into Something Good," charted at #38 in the U.S. Billboard Top 40 in 1964, with a cover version by Herman's Hermits reaching the Top 20 (at #13), also in 1964.
@@gymnastix I'm pretty much an expert on the music business, particularly back then, and even I didn't know all of that. Thanks for the history lesson. Minnie Riperton & Merry Clayton were Raelettes. Who knew.
Arlene "believes in relations all the way". She was so good and beautiful and funny!
I have never seen thepanel so flummoxed as they were on the first guest.
As of Sept. 2, 2020 , Steve Lawerence is still alive .
Still around October 2023
We loss the great the Steve Lawrence on March 7, 2024.
13:15 Bennett: "Does your work in any way involve the aircraft industry?" Contestant: "Yes, it does." Bennett: "...Do you have anything to do with Beech aircraft?" Contestant: "Yes". Bennett: "Well now, what do I have to find out...?" Bennett seems to do this a lot, i.e., find the general area of a contestant's line or the product with which he's involved and then think that he should be finished with the game.
There was one way that Bennett's questioning was unusual. He mentions both Beech and Cessna as being in the Wichita area. What would have been more typical was for him to ask "Do you have anything to do with Beech or Cessna?" Getting a yes, he would then pick one of the two and would unerringly pick the wrong one. But he still would narrow it down for the next person on the panel.
In this case (pun intended), Bennett cuts out the middleman and asks if she has anything to do with Beech. He later spoke glowingly of Beech's facilities which apparently he had toured. Does this make him a Beech nut?
Then somehow, they never figure out that Mrs. Case was in sales. Her yes answers to going up in the air and being involved in the hangar likely led them down the wrong path.
I suspect that both Dorothy and Bennett knew who was in town, since they always studied the gossip columns before the show.
Let me ask them.
RIP Steve Lawrence.
dorothy looks the best ever -- hair, dress, --- she should keep this look -- but they change it every episode and she often looks frumpy due to hair and dress in other episodes
lotusbuds2000 I hope not because she looks terrible. Even if not on the same screen as drop dead gorgeous Arlene, Dorothy’s many excellent qualities do not include looking good.
I marvel about charming Bennett's hair color...
Is it natural?
No, it was really grey in the early episodes.
Pause 0:29. Check out those ingredients! 3. what the heck is mid night rider1 ? or 7. Totally Misunde' ?
Bennett was so smart.
*_U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL_*
*_SELLS AIRPLANES_*
18:58 now reunited together
Did Dorothy's quick, choppy introduction of Bennett seem and look a little like her strange, mini stroke/drunk/about to sneeze episode a few shows earlier?
I noticed both, too.
Galileocan g I've seen her do this 5-10 times now. Some of them are stronger than others. I'd love to know what causes them. I would think she is either drunk (but she generally doesn't act like this again during any of the shows - only the introductions) or it's a reaction to her being initially introduced to the bright lights on the stage. Sunlight can make people sneeze and I'm wondering if bright stage lights could have the same effect on some.
I suspect she's not drunk, but that she's suffering from alcohol withdrawal. Given typical patterns of consumption, the symptoms are worst in the evening, and can include episodes of thought disturbance, inattention and incoherent speech. These possibly result from a mild seizure, which can resemble a TIA or mini-stroke. Sadly, I've been there myself - but hope never to go there again.
At 6:10 I noticed an incoherent moment. Arlene had to ask Dorothy for a repeat.
Yes
0:28 blank
Eddy Goyme
Dorothy has one of the strangest mask. It looks like a bra. I wonder if those mask are still in some museum somewhere?
Or in someones underwear drawer.
Glad the pun has gone out of style now!
People today wouldn't get it anyway. People today aren't very bright.