Talk:What's My Line?/Archive 1

Mystery Guest List

I think if there is going to be a full listing of WML mystery guests, it should be on its own page. googuse 19:22, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Jimmy Carter

Does anyone remember when then-Governor Jimmy Carter was on as the Mystery Celebrity Guest? I had thought it was early in the 1976 campaign -- but that can't be right if the show went off the air in 1967.... --Michael K. Smith 16:16, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Maybe it was a syndicated version? Did they have those? Mike H 16:18, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Good question. I wonder if it ran in syndication, say, until 1975 or so. Somebody should check that Wikipedia site... maybe they have an article that says... Chowbok 16:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There is no need to be a smartass. Mike H 16:38, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

According to this site, the Jimmy Carter episode aired on 12/13/73. - 16:49, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)

Thanks ever so much. I'll leave a note on the man's talk page. Mike H 19:16, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. My error -- I read as far as "last show" and missed the note on later syndication. I used to be a fan of the show and wanted to add the relevant item to the Jimmy Carter article. (And I'm impressed by how quickly my question was replied to.) --Michael K. Smith 19:13, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Guest Panelists

Originally, the list of guest panelists in this article was for 'notable guest panelists'. In my reading, that should probably be reserved for those that did paneling duties several times and were regulars or known for it like Bishop, Randall, Carson, Gabel, etc.

If it's just going to be a list of everyone who ever guest-paneled, it should probably have it's own article, don't you think? (tv.com has pretty good records for WML including episode guides that usually include who's on the panel and includes descriptions of all the guests). But the list in the article is getting unwieldy. If the preface says 'notable guests include', the list should only be a few (perhaps 5 or so) notables as an example, such as the most common/popuplar guest panelists. An encyclopedia wouldn't list an incomplete 'example' list this long unless it was the complete list, which this isn't.

I wouldn't do this on my own volition, but I'd like to hear what other people think about it TheHYPO 13:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree unequivocally. Lambertman 14:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that a semi-reversion go on to your edit about the 70's logo. My implication wasn't that there were different logos, but that over the period of the series, the actual main logo on the wall there was recolored and remade, so this was just one of the main logos on the set. TheHYPO 07:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I see what you're saying - something like "one of the onstage representations of the logo" - and while I think that may be more detail than what is necessary, I won't revert it if you want to put it in. Lambertman 12:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I used a less wordy explaination as I could think of, but I'm not too worried about it simply because of the image float, and the menu float - the table of contents menu leaves plenty of space for the image and its caption that isn't being used (at least on the default wiki skin... I don't know if other skins alter this look). That's why I put the image below the intro paragraph, instead of at the top. I thought it would save space. Anyway, maybe some time later, I'll embark on a cutting down of the panelist list. Not today though. Thanks for your input TheHYPO 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes tv.com has wonderful records of the original version of What's My Line?, The editor of that show has Gil Fates original logs for the show, sometimes it's only resource seeing that many of it's episodes were distroyed by accident Woundedwindow (talk) 06:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Guest Panel-list

I've pulled this from the main article. Therea re just far too many panelists that appeared on the show, and listing them all in the article would be counter-productive. If someone wants to start a guest panelist article, I believe 95% or more of the episodes that have guest panelists have the panelists noted in the episode summaries and trivia on tv.com for WML. Here is the contents of that paragraph when I excised it:

Notable guest panelists included, in alphabetical order: Nick Adams, Woody Allen, Shelley Berman, Joey Bishop, Richard Boone, Victor Borge, Johnny Carson, Chuck Connors, Jane Fonda, Rita Gam, Dave Garroway, Merv Griffin, Hugh Hefner, Danny Kaye, Alan King, Ernie Kovacs, Steve Lawrence, Robert Q. Lewis, Art Linkletter, Groucho Marx, Dina Merrill, Barry Nelson, Phyllis Newman, Hugh O'Brian, Suzy Parker, Anthony Perkins, Jane Powell, Tony Randall, Debbie Reynolds, Cyril Ritchard, Dennis Weaver, Betty White, and Paul Winchell.

I've left in three of the most frequent and popular guests, (Tony Randall, Buddy Hackett, and Joey Bishop). Perhaps this just invites people to keep adding again, but I will leave it until it becomes I problem I suppose? Hopefully someone will put up a listing article like they did for the mystery guests. TheHYPO 20:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I went and gave the guests their own article. I admit that so far it's not complete in the least, but hopefully now people will add names to THAT instead of the main article here. I wasn't sure of the best way to reference that list in the article (I thought it should be referenced in the article though instead of only at the very end in related articles), but the 'main' tag to say the 'main article on guest panelists' didn't seem appropriate since it's a list not a main article. Feel free to do what you will with it.TheHYPO 06:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The 'additional articles' CBS list appears to have disappeared; not sure what happened to it, but if there's no complaint, and no explaination to come, I plan to move the two existing list article links back to the sections they represent in the main article. TheHYPO 07:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Question mark

For what it's worth, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows gives the title as What's My Line, without the question mark. The 1970s sydication logo shown is obviously different from this. I know it's a quibble, but wasn't the network title absent the question mark? (In case you are wondering, Who's the Boss? and What About Joan? are entered under those titles, with question marks, so it's not a question of that work's format. Additionally, the deriviative, short-lived NBC show which premiered six weeks later, What Happened, is likewise entered without the question mark. Does anyone know with more certainty? Rlquall 22:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

There was never an episode produced that didn't include the question mark. Lambertman 23:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

What's My Line? with a question mark is pretty much a trademark and should not be removed. Woundedwindow (talk) 06:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Mystery Guest Rounds?

I don't know when all this got added, but I think it needs to be clarified. The section talks about celebrities and their families getting mad about trademarks, but it never says anywhere who was impersonating them. I've never seen an episode of WML in which a mystery guest disguised their voice by recognizably (at least to me) using another celebrities' voice. Is there a period in which this occurred? The section also goes on to talk (uncitedly) about how this led to the show being cancelled... so was this something that only happened near the end of the series? Was that the original network TV cancellation at the end of the 60s? It mentions radio - is this something that happened only on the original short-lived radio version? Either way - I suggest that the section be limited only to description of mystery guest play. If and why any version of the series was cancelled should be put in some completely different section about the show's production history. Opinions? TheHYPO 09:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Almost all images going to be deleted

If anyone wants to see images saved, almost all images on this page, and the pages for the Panelists and hosts are tagged for deletion. If anyone wants to help save them, They need a fair use rationale added to their pages. I don't have time to tag them all, so if anyone wants to help, you can check all the images in the articles, or check User talk:TheHYPO/Game Images for the warning tags. Please help the wiki game show (and WML specifically) community and fair use the images as appropriate. TheHYPO 03:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Good article?

Does anyone think this could be a good article candidate? FamicomJL 07:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I do. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 06:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I can tell you that it would never pass. Four sources barely even qualifies an article of this length as acceptable, let alone good. TheHYPO (talk) 06:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

New Years Day revisions

In my revisions I added the important chapter "Episode status." Wiki articles on several other classic TV shows from that era, including I've Got A Secret, include that. With What's My Line you have to explain how the staff's creation of that 1975 nostalgic retrospective for ABC caused them to destroy many old episodes without malice. They had to edit spools of film, which were not yet transferred to videocassettes. My summary of the destroyed material that featured Candice Bergen, F. Lee Bailey and Betty Grable is just that: a summary. I omitted the destruction of episodes that featured Dinah Shore (1956) and Jackie Gleason (1954). I chose to highlight Bergen, Bailey and Grable because they were all from the show's last of seventeen years, 1967, but they are gone forever.

I fixed a few details under the "U.S. radio" chapter. I said it's relatively easy for anyone to hear the radio episodes if they visit The Paley Center for Media, which used to be called the Museum of Radio and TV Broadcasting. Accessing stuff at the Library of Congress is much harder, even for What's My Line? fans who want to hear the audiotapes that are there.

Revised some of "Show trivia" stuff. Clarified paragraph about the studio audiences from the 1950s and 1960s. Yes, many were well-dressed, but that was more for nightclubs than Broadway theater. Anyone can tell you that most Broadway shows were dark on Sunday nights in the 1950s / 1960s. Line was always on Sunday night. Nightclubs remained popular for older folks who had visited them in the 1940s before television skyrocketed. Nightclubs, such as Latin Quarter where many Line mystery guests played, had an early show on Sunday evening that let you out in time to reach the TV studio for a 10:30 live broadcast. Then I relocated this "studio audience paragraph" to earlier in the "Show trivia" section so that the stuff about syndicated show appears after it.

That syndicated trivia now includes stuff I added about Gerald Ford becoming the first U.S. president who had ever appeared on What's My Line?. I put it at the end of the Lyndon Johnson paragraph to transition the reader from CBS to syndication. I added stuff about possibly offensive movies that Jimmy Carter promoted on the air to his paragraph.

Then I had to fix a lot of Wiki links, including one for the non - existent word "fraudster" in the last trivia item, which someone familiar with the U.K. version of Line added. I clarified it to show that the dishonest frogman appeared on the air first, then a viewer telephoned the police.

Does anyone find the whole thing too long now ? I say it's barely within normal limits for Wikipedia. Whatever you think, please say here what you plan to do before you do it. Thank you. I worked for four hours today, New Years Day, on this whole thing. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 06:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

With respect, four sources (cited only 9 places) in an article this large is not significant enough. There are still piles of uncited facts.

I already pared down the episode status section significantly to the relevant facts, and Now you have reupped it. I have a problem with that. First of all it's written with a fair POV. I tried to remove that. A randomly selected example of what was destroyed (candice bergan) is overly trivial, as is your mention of SNL which has nothign to do with this article at all. Other randomness includes your random mentioning of fred silverman, and your random example marian anderson. It is quite irrelevant to mention one person being a longtime fan. Many celebrities mentioned being longtime fans of the show during their appearances.

I've read tv.com's episode guides and while I don't think they are fairly citable since they are not edited proper sources, I beleive them when they say that many episodes were edited to lose the world "live" from the opening, for example, when they were re-aired at some point. Things like this are relevant to the episode status.

Secondly, There is a clear disparity between the annv. special and the episode status sections. I think they ought to be separated. I'm going to go through again and try to improve your edits.

Finally, every cite from the Fates book is the same page. Are all facts from that page, or have you simply noth bothered to change the page for each citation? If not, that needs to be done. TheHYPO (talk) 06:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, you do not explain the episode status. There was no conclusion on how much of the series was damages, how much of it exists, and what condition they are in

I can't possibly cite every episode that was damaged, either partially or totally. Many were. I made it clear that episodes from July 1952 or prior were lost at the hands of CBS officials who recovered the silver nitrate content of the kinescope film in order to resell it at profit. From July 1952 onward, Goodson Todman paid for every kinescope, and CBS gave it them. No one at the network or any other company can be blamed for damage to anything from 1952 to 1967. Stuff from those fifteen years got lost or messed up as late as 1975, when four Goodson Todman employees worked with reels of film to compile that retrospective at an expensive facility. They worked on deadline for ABC executives and for the owner of the facility. When their time was up, they had no choice but to leave a lot of unraveled film all over the floor, and the people who owned the facility chucked it all. That's New York for you. Of course, I never would put down New Yorkers in an actual Wikipedia article.

I will accept your deletion of Candice Bergen's youth and hot box office appeal in 1975, the same year Goodson Todman ruined her eight-year-old film without even putting it in the anniversary special. But the fact that her 1967 episode got trashed must go in there. It illustrates how the passing of time piled up hundreds of half - hour episodes in that editing facility, all of them on 16 millimeter film, and the more recent stuff met the same fate as the obviously old stuff from 25 years ago. That affects GSN viewers today, many of whom watch the chronological progression of the show, and they are stunned that they must skip weeks from as late as 1967.

Sorry about the static page number in the Gil Fates book. No, the footnotes don't all belong to that page. I can fix them by the end of Monday, January 7, 2008 when I will have a library copy of the book in front of me. Until then please have some trust in me that I made up absolutely nothing. Thanks Debbiesvoucher (talk) 06:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no belief that you made anything up. However, in my current mass updating of this article to meet wikipedia standards, I will also remove the page numbers from those cites, since obviously they can't all be from page 254 (and I have no idea which one actually is). I will use a general reference "name" marker for the book, and when you have page numbers, please replace the name marker with a specific page-numbered one (you can copy the general I will make with a proper citation template) - I'm using {{cite book}}, so if you're not familiar with the template, you can click this link for the instructions on what format they want for the fields of the template and all that, so if you get a copy of the book, try to fill in the rest of the fields that you can, and delete the ones that don't apply (eg: I'm not sure there we no co-authors, so I left that field, and not sure the book has an ISBN, so if it does, the ID field can go, or else the isbn field can go).

In addition, I just want to clarify, this is an encyclopedia entry, and not a newspaper article or replacement for the Fates book. As such, it is not really required or appopriate to give examples such as listing appearances that were destroyed (such as the Moss Hart, Earl Warren, Carment Miranda trilogy of examples for the 50-52 destructions. This would be interesting filler for a newspaper article, but in an encyclopedia it would appear as though the article is singling them out as more notable than any other guests. Many many notable and historical people's appearances were destroyed. The fact that most of 2 years of shows are gone should be sufficient for any reader to understand the implications.

I'm also still not sure what relevance it is to the encyclopedic facts where G-T's offices were in 1968, or that they were doing 5 episodes a day, or that they were busy producing the syndicated WML until christmas; while these might be interesting facts or even applicable elsewhere in the article, they have little or no bearing on the episode status, or the 25th anniversary special. As such, I'm taking that out. The only facts from that entire 5-sentence section that are relevant to the episode status are (arguably - this is only even barely relevant) what lead to the 25th annv. special - which was that syndication didn't come through and the show was cancelled. That's what I've left in.

Editorial comments like "expensive editing facility" were also taken out - there is no relevance to the cost of the facility, nor is there any way to measure what "expensive" means in this context. Other wordings like this have been taken out. Please do not revert them to the old way. If you would like clarification on why something was edited out, I would appreciate discussing it on the talk page so that consensus can be reached on the proper course of action.

If the Bergen episode is the ONLY one that was destroyed entirely, it can be mentioned in a context such as "One episode from April 1967, featuring Candice Bergen was lost entirely." I'm not clear because your wording doesn't explain whether most episodes were just damaged, with parts missing (for example) or were lost in entirety. A complete description of the episode with a listing of the other guests (completely trivial) and a praising of Bergen as a box office draw and guessing what could have been asked of her is highly inappropriate for wikipedia. Since the incident destroying the film occured in 1975, it is abundantly clear that GSN viewers would not see it, since GSN wasn't founded until 20 years later. There is no need to state this TheHYPO (talk) 09:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I removed speculation about what Candice Bergen might have discussed on-air, but I restored the "criminal defense attorney" to the brief reference to her episode. He/she could have been just as important, if not more important, than Bergen to many people in 1967, yet his/her name has been lost to history. The article specifies that this episode aired in April 1967 so the reader will know that F. Lee Bailey, who appeared in June 1967, was a different attorney. The article says elsewhere that no one, regardless of fame, could appear on What's My Line? more than once in a year. That is sourced in Gil Fates' book. I kept your reference to the June 1967 Grable / Bailey episode intact. All I did was make it a separate sentence.

In an earlier paragraph, I added the word "legally" to describe what CBS officials did to the silver nitrate kinescopes. It was a legal means by which TV network officials made extra money for the company in the very early days of television. Mark Goodson and Bill Todman needed two years to catch on to it. Producers of other shows, including Captain Video, never got it, so 90 percent of their stuff was destroyed, although of course that cannot be in the Line article. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 16:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The relevance of Goodson-Todman's busy schedule of 1968 to early 1975 to the destruction of kinescopes is that during the seven years they didn't have time to transfer the kinescope films to videocassette even though the cassette format (then called U-matic) was commonplace in the TV industry by 1975. Those four employees found themselves swamped with old film at the last minute before their deadline for the retrospective. This was a short time after they had disbanded their technical crew for the syndicated series, which was all on videotape. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 16:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the silver content was resold by network employees doing it independently. Relatively few people worked for the networks in 1950, so a small greedy group could get away with the practice. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 17:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to each of your points:

• There is absolutely zero reason to mention the attorney. He is of no importance to the history of What's My Line. I don't care if his name was lost to history, his name was never important to history in the first place, just because he was a WML guest. He is one of thousands. "He/she could have been just as important, if not more important, than Bergen to many people in 1967" It is completely outside our jurisdiction to decide they they could have been important, since noone knows who the person is, they aren't notable. This person has no significance, and no reader would read this and go "aw, it's too bad I won't get to see the episode with an unnamed criminal attorney". It's completely useless.
• The reference to the Grable episode was not mine. I was under the impression that YOU added it.
• If you are saying that the network was behind it (and not employees of their own volition) then you have to write the section properly, which I will do. You don't have to re-explain what happened, I get it; it's clear. You just have to be clear as to who was doing the destruction.
• Additionally, you have explained that the Obit mentions several DuMont series. This does not, however, stand up as a citation that this occured on "all networks", as you have written. Dumont and CBS are only two of the networks, and there is no source that all of the networks did this.
• You don't have anything to cite that proves they would have transfered the film to tape if they had not been busy working on the syndicated show. The disbanding and deadline is still in the article, but the superfluous info is not needed. Again, this article isn't supposed to be a compressed form of Fates' book. In addition, since the 25th special was, according to you, their own pitch to the network, They must have known that they were going to have to go through all that film.
• Your blanket revert is inappropriate; As I've tried to make clear, wikilinks should not be added to multiple instances of the same term in an article; especially linking "WML" in its own article. Your revert added back several of these. It also added back poor grammar and unclear writings, along with the other info which is we are currently debating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheHYPO (talk • contribs) 18:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

If the criminal attorney "has no significance," then why does Candice Bergen have any in 1967 ? She only had two major movie credits at the time: The Group (film) and The Sand Pebbles (film). In the first she was part of a large ensemble cast, and the movie was not a big hit. (It's in black and white.) In the latter she is only onscreen for a minority of the total running time. It's a military - oriented movie dominated by male actors.

Alright, the article need not say that "all networks" recovered the silver. But we know that CBS and the DuMont Television Network did.

I can't prove that seven years of producing a daily game show in color has nothing to do with the time needed to remove old black & white films from a vault and transfer each one to cassette ? Producing a five-day-a-week game show was a difficult ordeal in the early 1970s. The guests included acrobats, one of whom set himself on fire while audience members screamed. There are many similar stories in Gil Fates' book. He would have been pretty stupid to make up the stories since he easily could have been challenged by people who asked to see videotape.

Yes, the idea for the retrospective was Goodson - Todman's and they took the initiative to pitch it to two networks, but that doesn't mean they were prepared for what they got into. Fates' book says none of the four busy employees, including himself, had ever worked on such a retrospective before. They found themselves in a pinch in that editing facility. People sometimes bite off more than they can chew. Such is often the case during a transitional era, and the 1970s transitioned many entertainment workers into the new nostalgic "greatest hits" projects, including That's Entertainment!. There was no TV Land channel at the time. Learning how to summarize a dead TV show that lasted 17 years was tough going. Today anyone can do digital editing or put something on Youtube. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 22:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia was not written for 1967. It is written for today. Why do we mention where people were born in their articles? They certainly weren't famous when they were born so that information would be unnotable at the time they were born right? Wrong. Wikipedia is written in 2008 (and counting). If Bergen is notable now, this does not make only her current whereabouts notable, and ignoree her entire past. An early appearance in her career is easily more notable than the apperance of one of a thousand contestants who otherwise has never been publically famous.

The fact is you have no reason to believe that this was any more than a common lawyer; We do not put stuff IN wikipedia just in case it was notable; we leave it out until it is shown to be notable. The fact that a now-famous and well known actress's early appearance on TV was lost is somewhat notable (though not of epic notability). Certainly more than the loss of an unknown lawyer's only public appearance (for all we know). Besides, I didn't add the Bergen quote; I'm merely compromising in allowing the mentioned appearance in the lost episode to remain in the article because I think it's debatably notable who was in the episode. I would say that to a majority of readers, most episodes can be easily defined as "the one where Sean Connery was mystery guest" and not "the one with the beer tester as a contestant". The notability of the celebrities is what makes it worth mentioning that she was in the episode; I wouldn't have a problem simply saying "an April 196x episode was lost" without specifying Bergen either, but at least she has some notability in being included.

I agree re: silver- that's why I changed the article to reflect what we actually know.

Everything you've said is original research - "It makes sense that doing a 5 day a week should there'd be no time to transfer film". Well that's your opinion, and on wikipedia, that isn't enough to make an assumption. Do you really think Goodson would have himself gone to the vault, picked up films, gone to a place and personally transfered the tapes? If he wanted to, he could have hired an appropriate person to do it for him, which I have to assume he ultimately did - I can't believe he personally sat down and transfered each film. Either way, I don't it as a fact. Long story short, the FACT (known) that they were still only on film is quite sufficient in explaining the damage to episodes. A lengthy explaination excusing why the film was the only copy (which doesn't actually explain, it just excuses) doesn't add to the facts of what happened. Fact: Some films were destroyed for the silver content. Fact: The film was still the only copy in 1975. Fact: in editing the film for a 25th anniversary special, they damaged or lost episodes. Those are the primary relevant facts to what happened to the episodes, and adding more just bloats the article. The only reason the story about ABC buying the special is even relevant is because the section also covers the 25th annv. special; if it didn't, all that stuff about why he decided to do a special (not enough syndicated buyers) wouldn't even be directly relevant to the loss of the film (only relevant as a secondary cause by causing the special, which was a cause of the loss).

Please remember that this is an encyclopedia. The fact that they were up against a deadline is sufficient fact to explain their rush and damage of the episodes. A long sob story about how they'd never done this before and were in over their heads doesn't add anything except "color" which would be nice in an editorial or a book, but not in an encyclopedia article. TheHYPO (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Basically, there isn't a need to mention Candice Bergen or the criminal attorney. That part of the article goes into way too much detail and needs to pared out, similar to the trivial details such as Dorothy Kilgallen having to miss work because (wow) she had a baby. The simple matter is that this excessive inclusion of minutia is distracting and really isn't encyclopedic. An article should touch briefly on the major highlights of a subject, not delve into its fine details. As TheHYPO said, this isn't the place for a Reader's Digest condensed version of Fate's book. Another issue is that, once again, you're writing the article based on one source, which is highly discouraged by Wikipedia. As you know, this has been an issue on other articles. Corroborating references are necessary. Instead of embarking upon an essay about transitional eras, how often people bite off more than they can chew or asides about YouTube and compilations, you should be focusing on specifics. Finally, please read again what TheHYPO is asking for in regard to citations. No one said Fate was making anything up, but if you want to say that the production of the show interfered with transferring the episodes to a more stable medium, then you are going to have to come up with a specific citation to support that. This is nothing new, it's the same problems inherent in other places that we've discussed in the past. I agree completely with TheHYPO's points regarding the wordiness and inclusion of essentially irrelevant material in the article. One needs to find a way to present material more succinctly. WP policy says to avoid instructional material, which parts of this are (i.e., the whole discussion about scrapping episodes for silver nitrate and making a profit "legally." It's just not necessary. There really is no need to include copious amounts of text when what is being asked for is a source. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll go along with everything here, but just to correct "The HYPO" Mark Goodson did not have to transfer each film to video in 1975. Nobody expected him to. Four of his employees eventually transferred some of the films after first scouring them for good stuff. I named them in a previous edit: Gil Fates, Bob Bach, Pamela Usdan and Lloyd Gross. Maybe they don't belong in the article after all.

Curiously, when they started their project they overlooked mystery guests such as Gisele Mackenzie and Denise Darcel who were old news by 1975. They had the best chance of surviving intact on film until the company painstakingly transferred all 800 films to video years after the retrospective. No one cared about them, so no one messed them up under deadline pressure. The mystery guests who got destroyed were some of the legends: Jackie Gleason, Betty Grable and a few others. Marian Anderson's film survived after being scrambled. Within the last 18 months GSN has repeated the Anderson segment, and the viewer sees it in a mixed up chronological order. She walks on, then her scorecard shows she has answered five questions, then she's at the blackboard signing in, then she has answered two questions, etc. Today's digital editing would make it easy for Fremantle Media, which licenses the old shows to GSN, to fix Anderson, but the company has not done it. The television business can be strange.

Both of you are right about the extraneous trivia. My bad. Debbiesvoucher (talk) 00:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Cancelled?

Is there any information on why after 18 years, the series ended? Were the ratings declining or what? It almost immediately moved to the syndicated form, so they must have thought there was some promise in the series... TheHYPO (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep. If tv.com is to be trusted, it was rated in the 70s or 80s when it got cancelled. Remember. Only 3 networks then. :) --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 17:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The host, John Charles Daly, took a new job, so they took the opportunity to cancel rather than find a new host.EagleFan (talk) 22:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

His new job (president of Voice of America) was only announced on the air after it was also announced on the air that the upcoming shows would be the last. Are you implying he had gotten this job much earlier than was mentioned on air? I don't buy that reasoning either way; WML was a few-hour, on a Sunday commitment for him. I'm sure he did other stuff during the week already, and could have taken the time to host WML while doing his VoA duties during the regular work week. Is this just a guess or do you have any evidence of that theory? TheHYPO (talk) 07:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Johns positon had nothing what so ever to do with the cancellation. Goodson and Toddson, decided that, the market had changed too much, and cancelled 3 of it's longest running shows including "line".Woundedwindow (talk) 07:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Belated reply that this answer too is obviously baloney, since G-T brought WML back only a year later in syndication. Bennett Cerf's interview which I found out about after my question indicates that the network cancelled all of those game shows after deciding game shows were no longer profitable. TheHYPO (talk) 05:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Public Domain?

The archive.org link says the episode is public domain, and someone else suggested that the episodes on the Alpha DVD are also public domain. Under what premise are the episodes public domain? Does that mean that screenshots are also public domain? TheHYPO (talk) 01:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Radio Asides

The article states "It is unknown how the radio show's staff let the audience know what the contestants' occupations were." I happened across some MP3s of some of these radio broadcasts, and there are mentions of public access in the "New Years Day revisions" section above. From what I can tell, the recording shifted to an announcer telling the audience the occupations/Mystery Guests -- the audience response is still audible although much quieter. It seems reasonable to correct the article because the "how" can now be determined, but how should it be phrased and properly cited? HalJor (talk) 23:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Question about dates

Either the dates for Steve Allen are incorrect or the dates given for Bennet Cerf are incorrect.

Bennet Cerf was a regular panelist (1951 – 1967) Steve Allen was a regular Panelist (1954 - 1956)

Both came back periodically after they were regular panelists.

Are the dates to show when they were regular panelists on the program or to show all of the years that they may have appeared on the show? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.95.113.231 (talk) 10:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Cerf guested for a couple episodes in 1950/51 before becoming a regular in 1951 and continuing as a regular until the series ended 1967 (he returned periodically as a guest on the 1968 syndicated show, which may be what had you confused? He never guested on the original after he became a regular). Steve Allen was a regular for just over a year (which happened to span 1954-56) and then returned as a guest often when Cerf or Fred Allen were away, or after his Fred died. I don't see where the conflict is. Neither date is incorrect. TheHYPO (talk) 05:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Should article include discontinuation of reruns?

GSN has announced that March 30, 2009 will be the last day it repeats What's My Line?. As of now, the article doesn't say anything about any network repeating the old shows for nostalgia. The article's timeline stops after the 25th anniversary special in 1975. I think something should be said about the fact that GSN repeated hundreds and hundreds of black and white kinescopes between December 1994 (when the network was launched) and October 2000, then again from January 2001 to March 2009. I remember there were no black and white reruns for those three months from October 2000 to January 2001. You can source that with old TV listings in the Los Angeles Times.

Any ideas? If I don't hear back, then I will draft one or two sentences as a proposal for the article, sharing my proposal here first. Remember, come March 31 the classic show will be a memory just as it was for the 19 years between 1975 and 1994. Unless you know someone who has saved an episode on Tivo, a DVR or an MP4 player, then the show will exist in your imagination only (come March 31). Gsnviewer (talk) 00:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Where did you get this news from? I've looked at the GSN site, as well as Google, and can't find any reference to any discontinuation. The only thing GSN mentions is, as of a few months ago, expanding the showing of WML to 7 nights a week. 74.225.242.109 (talk) 10:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if true, this isn't a GSN article. It's a WML article. You are right, that the article ought to mention current airing of the program, which I'm going to add. Until there is an official news to link to, cancellation should not be referred. TheHYPO (talk) 23:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)