| "AND NOW LET'S ALL PLAY..." WHAT'S MY LINE? A Mark Goodson/Bill Todman Production air dates: 2/2/50 on CBS primetime, syndicated 9/9/68-9/75 by CBS Films ('68-'71) and Viacom ('71-'75) hosts: John Daly (CBS), Wally Bruner ('68-'72), Larry Blyden ('72-'75) announcers: Lee Vines, Johnny Olson, and Chet Gould among others HOW TO PLAY: Four panelists took turns asking questions in an attempt to guess a person's occupation, service, or what (s)he makes a living selling. Each game began with the challenger signing in on a chalkboard onstage. The challenger's occupation, product, or service was shown to the home audience. Each panelist in turn may only ask yes/no questions. The panelist continued inquiring until a "no" answer was given, which paid the challenger $5 and passed control over to the next panelist. This process continued until the challenger's line was guessed or until the challenger won $50. If nobody guessed the challenger's line after a certain period of time (s)he automatically took home $50. Early in the original run, each panelist was allowed one wild guess before the questioning process began. On each show, a celebrity "mystery guest" would drop by. The panel was blindfolded during this part. Each panelist asked one question at a time. This continued until the guest was identified or until time was up. OTHER TIDBITS: The only regular panelist to appear on both versions was the late Arlene Francis. Other regulars from the CBS run included columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf, and Steve Allen, the latter of whom popularized the query, "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" Soupy Sales was another regular from the syndicated version. In '75, shortly after WML? was ditched, Larry Blyden died 5 days after a car accident while on vacation in Morocco. He had hosted the pilot for ABC's Showoffs. That job eventually went to Bobby Van. On 5/28/75, John Daly, Arlene Francis, and Mark Goodson celebrated the 25th anniversary of the longest-running game show in primetime with a What's My Line? at 25 special on ABC. Back to my game show joint or my homepage. |