|
|
What's My Line?: The Final Show  Conventional actors, critics and even some network executives probably missed the significance of that moment. But for the period when CBS and NBC were making megaprofits from The $64,000 Question and its offspring, game shows were classified in the executive suites in the same category as children with unruly behavior or pet snakes. They were a part of the family you never discussed. The explosion from the audience at CBS that Sunday night personnified the bond and the love that exists between the viewer and emcees. Game show hosts are the perpetual guests in the home on a daily basis who become as familiar as the next door neighbor. Within two months, one of those emcees (Ludden) would be out of a job in the same fashion as John Charles Daly and his panelists. Within two years, another (Collyer) would be gone altogether. Standing next to Daly that night was the ultimate corporate postcard. When announcer Johnny Olsen was called out, the family was virtually complete. Daly and Bennett Cerf would periodically engage in an exchange about the number of weeks remaining in their long calendar of Sunday nights together. No snide, sarcastic, or angry remarks targeted at CBS would be hurled here. "My mother knew life would be different on Sunday nights," said Arlene Francis' son, Dr. Peter Gabel, in an interview last year with TVgameshows.net, "but she looked on those closing weeks as a crescendo of one of life's most unforgettable experiences. She'd made great friends and had lasted longer in the same role than almost anyone in television." Only Ed Sullivan had survived longer in television than What's My Line? as a prime time entertainment offering. With such a rich history behind it, the big question remained as to what kind of sendoff Line would have. Executive producer Gil Fates, Goodson and Todman considered three options: (1) an all-clip show with highlights of the 17 and one-half years, (2) an onstage show with Daly, the panel and selected guests reminscing about the past, or (3) a conventional half-hour with game play and enough time for the panel to offer its farewells. In time, the decision was made to take the third option with a sprinkling of option one included. CBS nixed the possibility of a one-hour conclusion as the network was giving Candid Camera the same adios in its usual 10 p.m. slot on the same night. Goodson argued successfully that viewers would feel slighted if the last What's My Line? did not include at least one final occupation for the panel to negotiate. The final night was Sept. 3, 1967. Earlier in the day, Nguyen Van Thieu was elected President of South Vietnam under a new constitution. Driving on the right side of the road became legal in Sweden. Lyndon Johnson was a shade more than five months away from a dead heat challenge in the New Hampshire Primary from Eugene McCarthy. The Boston Red Sox were only four weeks from winning their first American League pennant since Cro-Magnon Man. Five nights earlier, the finale of The Fugitive became the most-watched single episode of a weekly television series in the history of the medium.  After the opening titles, What's My Line? diehards sensed a moment in time similar to losing a member of the family when the unmistakable voice of Johnny Olsen uttered, "And now........for the 876th and last time, let's meet our What's My Line? panel." First out: Martin Gabel, the actor/producer and husband of Arlene Francis, who was making a record 112th appearance as a guest panelist. Up next: Mrs. Gabel, the incomparable Arlene Francis, who defined class and elegance---as well as first-class gamesmanship---from the show's second week in 1950. On her left: Steve Allen, who set the tone for humor on the panel once the bombastic Hal Block was fired. Bringing up the rear: the master of puns and one of television's unlikeliest but most affable personalities, Random House CEO Bennett Cerf.Cerf once substituted as host for Daly in the late 1950s. GSN once ran the episode on its old Wide World of Games Saturday night montage as one of a quartet of shows with bad substitute hosts. The quiet charm and intense gamesmanship the publisher displayed in nearly two decades on the panel all but dissipated. Bennett was clearly miscast as an emcee. He was a bundle of nerves, tentative and even uncertain of camera cues. Panelist Bennett Cerf attracted a popular following and enjoyed meeting the people who liked him. His typical weeks between Line episodes found him traveling to at least two cities outside New York to sign copies of the Random House Dictionary. As executive producer Gil Fates wrote in 1978: "Bennett loved signing autographs and he loved the people who asked him." The audience was never shown during the 17 and one-half years of What's My Line? on CBS. When John Charles Daly entered the studio for the final time, one had an imagination picture on a par with the days of radio. The sustained ovation ran more than 30 seconds and while the home audience could not see, those in the studio stood as one. Daly was clearly moved as he eventually looked into the camera with a restrained smile and said, "Thank you." At 53, this was a signature moment for Daly. With the exception of a return for the show's 25th anniversary special in a few years, this would be the end of his conventional network television career. He would return in the mid-1980s on PBS' Modern Maturity, a broadcast version of AARP's magazine. After the cancellation of Line, Daly agreed to take over as director of the Voice of America for the Johnson Administration. He would succeed John Chancellor, who returned to NBC News after a two-year stint at the helm of VOA. Nearly a quarter-century before Daly took the Voice reins, the service's director was Louis G. Cowan, eventual creator of The $64,000 Question. Over the decades, the job of VOA director was an unstable one. Most came and went in two years or less. Daly was no exception. He resigned in nine months in a dispute with the director of the United States Information Agency, VOA's parent, over personnel decisions. Daly joined the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, where he authored more than 50 books on issues ranging from term limits to inflation to national health insurance.  In the opening segment of the finale, the three occupational contestants from the show's premiere in February 1950 checked off their names on the chalkboard. Pat Finch, then a hat check girl at The Stork Club, was now an actress in commercials and in the chorus of several Broadway shows. Art Feinberg, in the original episode, was an executive with Cascade Diaper Club. Seymour Kolodny was still a veterinarian. In color, all three appeared to have aged well over 18 years.After the first break, a small monitor was rolled onstage and clips of each panelist's initial appearance on the game in the 1950s were featured. Miss Francis' hair was significantly darker and Allen's had substantially more tonic. Daly's face was distinctly thinner. The kinescope highlights would only be shown twice more until Game Show Network licensed the Goodson-Todman library at its launch in December 1994. The show needed at least one conventional game. For a lighthearted touch, a mid-level executive from the New York City Office of Unemployment tried his hand at stumping the panel. Daly and his foursome enjoyed the good-natured humor from the occupation. As 10:49 struck on the clock in the Eastern time zone, the major question for Line stalwarts was the identity of the final mystery guest. Fates related in his book several near-misses over the years: Judy Garland, in one of her neurotic moments, appeared to be in no condition to go on during a mid-1960s episode. Mark Goodson (sometimes with Bill Todman) was the perpetual stand-by guest. He was rushed into the wings when, 20 seconds until Daly's call to "enter and sign in please," Garland breezed through the curtain and gave the panel a tour de force. Producer Sam Spiegel unwittingly told two different panelists he was to be the mystery guest on an upcoming evening. One celebrity turned on his set to watch the show one Sunday and suddenly realized he was to be the mystery challenger. Undoubtedly, a Manhattan cab driver earned his pay that night. Fates insisted in his book that Daly had been considered as an emergency mystery guest in the past. Other staffers said in published reports that their only recollection of that possibility was in discussions for the tenth anniversary show. For the finale, Daly punched up his call for the mystery challenger to "sign in please." At first, the audience was a bit startled to see Daly rise from his seat. When he immediately crossed behind the curtain and signed on the chalkboard, the eruption was thunderous.  In order to maintain the decorum, Daly leaned over from his microphone to the contestant's to do his soprano responses. One sensed the gig may be up early when Cerf said, "I smell eight rats." Peter Gabel told TVgameshows.net last year, "My mother (Miss Francis) was almost certain it was going to be Mark Goodson and Bill Todman because it was their show and it would have been an obvious conclusion. But my father (Gabel) thought that was too obvious. He thought it may have been Johnny Olsen, the announcer, who had never been a mystery guest."Arlene nearly nailed the identity when she asked if the guest was "about to be in the same state of employment as the rest of us." Yet, she thought that was an assurance Goodson and Todman were in the seat. Cerf delivered the goods when he asked, "I wonder if Mr. Daly might be impersonating himself." With the final mystery uncovered, Goodson and Todman emerged to offer heartfelt words to Daly, the panel and the loyalty of the viewers for nearly 18 years. Five months earlier, the game show moguls did not appear at the end of their second longest-running hit, I've Got a Secret. Betsy Palmer, who was on the panel for the final nine years, said last year on Stu Shostak's internet radio show said she never knew why the bosses did not show up onstage for the Secret finale other than the possibility of tension with CBS over the quick cancellation of Secret. Goodson persistently asked CBS programming chief Mike Dann to return Secret to its successful 8:00 slot at midseason in 1966-67 to no avail. When the decision was made to drop the ax after 15 years, Goodson was unceremoniously told CBS wanted to pull the plug three weeks after its 1967-68 fall lineup was announced. Indeed, the final edition of Secret was somewhat anticlimactic. Host Steve Allen said following the break after Lynn Redgrave's celebrity segment, "That's the end of another show and, in fact, that's the end of I've Got a Secret." The panel's goodbyes were significantly more terse than those from the Line quartet in September. With CBS cleaning house of three of its four Goodson-Todman mainstays before summer, the network obviously felt one farewell from the producers was sufficient to avoid the proverbial viewer backlash. Palmer said last year the end of Secret was not terribly emotional for her. "I loved Bill (Cullen) and I loved Bess (Myerson) and Garry (Moore) and Steve were great to work with," she said, "but I looked on it as one does any job you have in show business. At some point, it has to end and you just move on and do other things."  The goodnights from the Line panel were ever as elegant as their stage entrances. Miss Francis was the symbol of class as she addressed her remarks to the home audience: "Thank you for your loyalty, for your letters, and for your spending this time with us every week for so many years.....and much good luck to our replacement." Peter Gabel said he was not surprised at his mother's words. "I don't recall my mother being bitter at all," he told TVgameshows.net. "She was not that kind of person. Yes, there was sadness that she would not be with her friends every Sunday night as she was for so many years. This was a family. But I think there was a realization on everyone's part that this had to end at some point. She meant it when she wished the new show luck because she was never one to root for failure with anyone."The seconds ticked away as Daly said serenely, "Goodnight, everyone, and thanks for 17 and a half years of What's My Line?." "Rollercoaster" struck up for its last time. The art cards, now blue instead of traditional black and white, featured the grinning Line man---who strikingly resembled Cosmo Spacely on The Jetsons---below the credits In a matter of 28 and a half minutes, in a classy sendoff, a television era was over. Westerns would have another eight years before the last successful one would fizzle. Variety shows would limp along on the networks until Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters breathed their last on NBC in the early '80s, despite a last gasp big-budget bomb with Dolly Parton late in the decade. One week later, Mission: Impossible would be introducing Peter Graves as its new leader, Jim Phelps. By 10:50, when the mystery guest typically appeared, the IMF force was well on its way to solving another international mission. The ratings were better for Mission than in its first season on Saturday nights and by 1968-69, Mr. Phelps and his team finished 11th for the season. The following year, beset by angry defections from three-time Emmy-winner Barbara Bain and husband Martin Landau, Mission fell permanently out of the top 20 and was sent packing back to Saturday nights. The audience for three years was more youthful but foreign mystery and intrigue on CBS late Sunday nights, instead of Allen Funt and What's My Line?, seemed like guests in the wrong house. Landau was a master of disguise but something was missing sans those celebrity sopranos and basses attempting to fool the panel. The era of the game show was not over but the traditional panel guessing game show era was, at least on prime time network television. No more would network executives allow producers to seek the next generation of journalists, book publishers, politicians, or stage actresses in a quest for that ever-elusive quality: television chemistry. Not for four decades would a broadcast journalist again preside over a game show. What's My Line? lasted through four presidents, the fall of the New York Yankees to last place in the American League, wars in Korea and Vietnam, a Presidential assassination, the end of 78 RPM records and the advent of 8-track tapes, Elvis Presley and the Beatles (who never signed in at the mystery guest chalkboard), a cheating scandal that threatened to throw anything resembling a game off television---guilty or not, the first orbital missions in space and the first deaths of American astronauts, the first Super Bowl and the importation of the Volkswagen Beetle and the Toyota Corona. Arlene Francis hosted Today on NBC in 1964 the morning after the Great East Coast Blackout that left hundreds of thousands, including those working in Rockefeller Plaza, without electricity. Only Gunsmoke and The Ed Sullivan Show endured longer as prime time entertainment shows on CBS. Only Sullivan produced more episodes. Never again would CBS build a hit evening show with the starting time of 10:30. A stab was made with The New Don Rickles Show in January 1972 on Friday nights to no avail. In the 1989-90 season, CBS gave a shot at a six-sitcom Monday night block with Designing Women and Newhart in the 10-11 slot as counterprogramming to Monday Night Football and NBC's movies. Ironically, both comedies topped the films while running respectably against the NFL games but the ploy was not successful enough for CBS to repeat. What's My Line?---along with Milton Berle, I Love Lucy and Dragnet---was one of television's earliest trendsetters. After Line's success, every network sought games of logic and deduction that pitted celebrities against people from everyday life. Phrases were crafted to enter into water cooler conversation. Some of Line's many copycats evaporated quickly because of their failure to find the one elusive element-----chemistry. Had William Conrad been hired to deliver the same ending he voiced five nights earlier on The Fugitive, he would have said: "Sunday, September 3, 1967----the end of the Line." Or so it seemed----until one year later. In his retrospective on 17 and a half years of CBS's What's My Line?, executive producer Gil Fates offered several theories as to why the end came in September 1967. Most revolved around the premise that he and his production staff allowed the show to become stale by not interjecting subtle changes over the years. "A dose of relaxant, an occasional injection of surprise, would have relieved the creative constipation from which the program suffered," Fates wrote. He suggested he and the producers should have been more forthright in standing up to John Daly, who vetoed any proposition of morphing a dose of freshness into the format. Whenever one of these (traditional) procedures was questioned, the standard reply was, 'That's the way we've always done it,' which of course is never a proper answer to anything," Fates added. After having the bulk of the last 14 years to re-examine the comprehensive library of Line episodes, thanks to Game Show Network (GSN), we offer our own commentary on why What's My Line? finally expired and whether any creative surgery could have prolonged its network life beyond 1967: FORMAT CHANGES: Fates suggests had, say, the CBS edition been tweaked to gradually resemble the later syndicated version, the game may have had added life. In our view, that is a possibility but the adjustments should have been introduced in 1963 at the point Line was on top with its highest season-ending finish (13th), rather than as a desperation move which rarely works. However, to do so would have required a far more relaxed dress code for the show from its traditional high formal wear. Somehow, seeing Arlene, Bennett, Martin Gabel and Kilgallen try out a water bed (as Arlene actually did with the rest of the syndicated panel) would not have worked in tuxedos and evening gowns. That also required a more youthful and sillier grade of panelist as Gene Rayburn, Soupy Sales and the young Alan Alda offered in the post-network edition. First and foremost, Fates was right. Daly would have stepped in and stopped any movement in this direction. He would probably have been right to do so if he were to continue as host. A more active, animated Line would have been aside his personal code of dignity. The other problem: I've Got a Secret was still on CBS. Having panelists try products or physical demonstrations offered would have made Line a borderline clone of its younger sibling.One can explore every hypothesis but, truth be told, What's My Line? died of that fatal disease that eventually claims all long-running television series: old age. Line probably should have been retired after the 1964-65 season after two consecutive years of Nielsen slippage. Fifteen years would have been a tremendous run. The show, owned outright by CBS, could have been rested for a year or so and brought back as a summer replacement, experimenting with a younger host and panel and a tweaked format that may or may not have worked. By 1966-67, likely none of the above surgery would have worked. What we saw with the fall of Line, Secret, Truth and Password as evening entities was actually a foreshadowing of what happened to network television in 1970 and 1971. During the 1969-70 season, won by CBS only with a miraculous stretch run of specials and programming stunts, NBC and the advertising community summarily declared the bulk audience Nielsens were no longer important. The numbers in that magical 18-49 age category in predominantly urban areas were more important to corporations who spent the money to fund network programming. That led to the shocking cancellation of Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton (with Skelton still number seven), along with Petticoat Junction, in 1970 and the massive 17-show massacre in 1971, which saw Mayberry R.F.D., The Jim Nabors Hour and Hee Haw---all top 30 shows---and the aging Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Lassie, Hogan's Heroes and the venerable Ed Sullivan axed. Eleven of television's 16 variety shows, including the inimitable Lawrence Welk's, were sent to the gallows for the sin of aging and smaller-town audiences. At 79th place for the 1966-67 season and no plans for a chiropractic adjustment, What's My Line? had lost its leverage even for a new time slot. A last personal note: I never saw the original What's My Line? in color. On its last night, my parents were away on a business trip and my grandmother was staying with me in Georgia. My father had just completed converting our garage into a large den where a seven-year-old, 19-inch black-and-white Truetone television set rested on a cart. Earlier that evening, I saw a woman win a Cadillac Eldorado worth $8,400 in the final Big Deal on that summer's run of Let's Make a Deal. The Candid Camera episode at 10 was an encore of the final season-ender which originally aired in June. Not until the first time GSN aired the final Line in 1996 did I ever see John Daly rise from his seat and cross behind the curtain to sign in. I had developed a habit of blindfolding myself and attempting to guess the identity of the mystery guest along with the panel. Just as Arlene Francis assumed, I was certain Mark Goodson and Bill Todman would make the final stride onto the set. I never gave a minute's thought to Daly masquerading as himself. When Bennett nailed it, I was furious. Mad because I had not watched Daly's facial expressions and his pure delight at the panel's struggle to uncover him. When The $64,000 Question, Dotto and Twenty One were summarily dismissed from television in the fashion of a teacher punishing an unruly child, I was heartbroken. At the tender age of four, I was yet to comprehend the meaning of the words cheating and scandal. All I knew was they, meaning the networks, had taken my shows away. In September 1967, I understood life on Sunday nights as I had known it from a child would never be the same. CBS was taking another of my lifelong traditions away because not enough of us were left to make What's My Line? appointment TV. At 11:05, I was a bit wistful and just the least bit mad. I'll let you in on a secret: I was not nearly so gracious as was Miss Francis toward her replacement. I refused to watch Mission: Impossible as long as it was on Sunday nights at 10. Part 2: What's My Line? Takes Off Part 3: The Rest of the Fifties Part 4: Candid Camera and What's My Line? Part 5: Daly & Dorothy....The Stalwart & The Tragedy Part 6: End of the Line: the Nielsen Nosedive  For legal reasons, TVgameshows.net and its webmaster cannot examine or listen to any personal proposals or portfolios for new game shows of any kind. Creators or developers are encouraged to seek out entertainment agents in New York, Los Angeles or Nashville to consider their ideas. Producers or distributors will not look at proposals without agency representation. Unsolicited pitches will usually be returned unopened, for legal reasons. TVgameshows.net cannot be responsible for providing information or recommendations on specific agents or agencies for legal and journalistic reasons, based on the professional advice of an entertainment attorney. You must do such research on your own. TVgameshows.net is a non-incorporated news website. The material used is the creation of the webmaster, unless otherwise noted. Use of stillframes from broadcasts is part of fair use news arrangements. Any reproduction or other use of the accounts published here without the expressed written consent of TVgameshows.net is strictly prohibited. At no time has TVgameshows.net ever been offered for public sale, such as in a stock offering or any financial transaction. Any attempt to engage in such practice without the written consent of the website owner is illegal and strictly forbidden.   Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller ? Copyright 2007 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
 to TVgameshows.net |