Q:  Did Bill Cullen ever do a game in prime time other than The Price Is Right and as a panelist on I've Got a Secret?

A:  Yes he did. Bill was a regular during one of the early years on the panel of The Name's the Same and was also a panelist on Who's There? However, his emcee work at night included Place the Face, the original Name That Tune, Bank on the Stars, the classic word game Down You Go and Quick as a Flash. His last prime time network stint was as host for a four-week CBS revival of I've Got a Secret in 1976. That one bombed: it was opposite Happy Days at the peak of its popularity.

Q:  Why did Bud Collyer not do the syndicated To Tell the Truth, since it was produced the year after it went off the network?

A:  Probably Bud was not tapped because of age, a rather lame but true excuse. He was 60 when the show was revived for syndication and no doubt pressure existed to give the show a younger look, though Garry Moore was 54 when he took over. As for the panel in 1969, Bill Cullen was 49, Peggy Cass 45, Orson Bean 41 and Kitty Carlisle either 59 or 62, depending on the source you believe. Also, Mark Goodson long had a close relationship and, at times, business partnership with Garry and after their many years together with I've Got a Secret, Goodson felt Garry's identity was stronger in launching a new Truth. The ultimate irony is Bud died suddenly on the very week To Tell the Truth returned in the nation's biggest markets. He had done a mystery guest slot on What's My Line? just a few months earlier but developed a sudden circulatory ailment which proved fatal. Bud was one of the most decent men who ever stepped behind a microphone.

Q:  I seem to vaguely remember a show called Picture This many years ago that was something like Win, Lose or Draw but not exactly like it. I told this to somebody and they said I was crazy. Can you help?

A:  You are absolutely not crazy at all. Your friend is. Picture This aired in the summer of 1963 on CBS. Jack Benny owned the show and it was his summer replacement. Ben Joelson and Art Baer created the game. The similarity to Win, Lose or Draw is not a figment of your imagination. The game pitted two celebrity-contestant teams against each other (a la Password). The twist was one team member was told the subject and instructed his or her how to draw it. One example: a porcupine. Alan King told his partner, "Draw an oval on that board. Now, make some long pick-up sticks come out of it....." The only thing you couldn't do was say the name of the subject. The host was Jerry Van Dyke, one of the finest comedy talents ever in television and one of the most miscast emcees ever on a game show.

Every national crisis brings out the best and the worst in us. As one who toiled for nearly 20 years in television news, 11 of them in management, I saw firsthand the changing winds of audience emotions.

In 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded and killed its entire crew, NASA did not make a final declaration of the astronauts' deaths until after 5 p.m. At the time I was news director of WWAY in Wilmington, N.C. Stella Shelton and I were preparing to go on with our noon newscast when we saw Steve Bell of ABC News describe the frightening picture of that spacecraft disintegrating in mid-air.

ABC and the other networks immediately interrupted programming and stayed with the story for more than five hours until a NASA official finally announced what we all knew for hours---no one survived.

During most of those five hours, I imagined most of those in the home audience were in stunned shock with the rest of us, in deep sympathy for the families of the crew members. Christa McAuliffe was to be the first schoolteacher in space. Now, her entire class of students would have to deal head-on with the fact that life is not always convenient.

Yet, during that long afternoon, I observed some of the worst behavior I had ever seen in home viewers. We monitored more than 600 telephone calls in our newsroom between 12:30 and 5 that afternoon. Some of the most vitriolic, profane and even threatening verbiage came from people excoriating us because their daily diet of ABC soap operas were pre-empted for the news coverage.

I'll never forget the reaction of Barbara White. Barbara was my assignment editor, one fantastic newswoman and an absolute stalwart. Emotionally, she was a rock in the most difficult of times. Around 3:30, in the midst of when we ordinarily would be carrying General Hospital, Barbara put down another in the long line of angry calls and I saw something I never thought I would see. Barbara finally cracked. She could not hold back the tears. A woman directed language usually stereotyped for sailors at Barbara because she could not work an impossible miracle and produce a silly daytime drama. I'll not forget Barbara's words, unable to fight the tears: "People are dead! How can these people be so cruel because of soap operas???"

I saw a bit of that resurface Sept. 11, 2001, and in the days immediately afterward. Most people shared a sincere emotional devastation over the deadliest attack ever on our shores. Some did not.

Network television made a decision to suspend all entertainment programming and commercials for four days. Some cable networks, which had the resources or subsidiaries to make such a move feasible, did as well. Others proceeded with business with usual, including Game Show Network, which had no alternative programming available other than to go dark.

We made a similar decision to suspend regular coverage of what was then our daily TVgameshows.net. We did not resume reporting until the following Sunday evening. No game shows were on the air, aside from the GSN reruns and ESPN's airing of Willy Gibson's second straight 2 Minute Drill championship (though few people saw it). The NFL and college football canceled their schedules for one weekend. Our decision was based on what we felt was appropriate at the time.

Some who disagreed did so calmly, intelligently and philosophically. A few readers said they felt to stop publication denied people an outlet to take their minds off the national tragedy. Others suggested a mantra which was frequently heard: to stop our daily routines would be allowing the terrorists to win. We politely disagreed with that but most of those views were offered in a sincere and friendly spirit.

Yet, you also learned how the other half lives. We had at least a half-dozen readers whom I would describe as borderline-obsessed. Some of them were demanding virtual hourly updates on when programming would return. Could I get them updates on who won on Card Sharks or Wheel of Fortune episodes they couldn't see? One guy sent me eight e-mails demanding to know why CBS was so heartless (yes, he used that term, "heartless") as to deny him the opportunity to see The Price Is Right for that entire week. Another challenged my professionalism if I didn't write a heated column criticizing Les Moonves for shutting down his network that week. I'm no fan of Moonves but Les made the correct decision.

Then, you have those who are in a different dimension. As some of you well know, we've made enemies at TVgameshows.net just for being born and showing up regularly. I remember sharing with my good friend Stu Shostak of one e-mail which came from a now-deceased reader. Stu was outraged way beyond his usual blood pressure readings. I've never previously written about it but here is a quote from the last line of that e-mail of Sept. 8, 2001: "Steve Beverly, the only other bad thing about yesterday, other than the people who died at the World Trade Center, is that you weren't one of them."

I understood a lot more clearly about how Barbara White felt that day in our Wilmington newsroom 15 years earlier. Tragedies like Sept. 11, 2001, bring out the best and the worst in us.