To Tell the Truth: Difference between revisions
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Several people who would go on to fame appeared on the various incarnations of this show: |
Several people who would go on to fame appeared on the various incarnations of this show: |
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*[[Frank Abagnale, Jr.]] appeared on the show years after he had given up his con artistry. The |
*[[Frank Abagnale, Jr.]] appeared on the show years after he had given up his con artistry. The bio-pic based on his life, ''[[Catch Me If You Can]],'' opens with his appearance on the show, with actors ([[Leonardo DiCaprio]] playing Abagnale) taking the place of the contestants. Footage of panelist Carlisle and host Garagiola from the original ''To Tell the Truth'' is used. |
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* [[Kermit the Frog]], the [[Jim Henson]] [[Muppet]], was a panelist on some of the [[John O'Hurley]]-hosted editions. |
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* [[Kermit the Frog]] |
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* [[John Eleuthère du Pont|John E. DuPont]], the heir to the [[DuPont]] fortune, appeared on a 1966 broadcast. He was training in the sport of [[modern pentathlon]] and was hoping to make the 1968 Olympic team that was to compete in [[Mexico City]]. He later would gain infamy for murdering Olympic wrestling champion [[Dave Schultz (amateur wrestler)|Dave Schultz]]. |
* [[John Eleuthère du Pont|John E. DuPont]], the heir to the [[DuPont]] fortune, appeared on a 1966 broadcast. He was training in the sport of [[modern pentathlon]] and was hoping to make the 1968 Olympic team that was to compete in [[Mexico City]]. He later would gain infamy for murdering Olympic wrestling champion [[Dave Schultz (amateur wrestler)|Dave Schultz]]. |
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* [[Rock and Roll]] impresario and deejay [[Alan Freed]] was correctly guessed by two of the panelists, including [[Polly Bergen]], in a 1950s episode hosted by Bud Collyer. |
* [[Rock and Roll]] impresario and deejay [[Alan Freed]] was correctly guessed by two of the panelists, including [[Polly Bergen]], in a 1950s episode hosted by Bud Collyer. |
Revision as of 20:48, 2 March 2009
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To Tell the Truth | |
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File:Tttt.jpg Show logo used from 1973-1978. | |
Created by | Bob Stewart for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions |
Presented by | Bud Collyer (1956-1968) Garry Moore (1969-1977) Joe Garagiola (1977-1978) Robin Ward (1980-1981) Gordon Elliott (1990) Lynn Swann (1990-1991) Alex Trebek (1991) John O'Hurley (2000-2002) |
Starring | Numerous regular panelists (see article) |
Country of origin | ![]() |
Production | |
Running time | 30 minutes with commercials |
Original release | |
Network | CBS (1956-1968) NBC (1990-1991) Syndicated (1969-1978, 1980-1981, 2000-2002) |
Release | December 18, 1956 – March 15, 2002 |
To Tell the Truth is an American television game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has been aired intermittently in various forms since 1956, hosted by various television personalities. It is one of two game shows in the United States to have aired at least one version every decade for the past six decades. (The other is The Price Is Right, also originally created by Stewart for Goodson-Todman and currently American TV's longest running daily game.) To Tell the Truth has been seen first-run either on network television or in syndication a total of 25 seasons, just exceeding the 24 of What's My Line? and outpacing the 20 of I've Got a Secret.
The basic premise of the show consisted of a panel of four celebrities correctly identifying a contestant (a "central character") from a choice of three possibilities, members of a "team of challengers." One of the contestants normally held an unusual occupation (a premise similar to the show's sister, What's My Line?) or had done something noteworthy, and it was this person whom the panel had to attempt to identify. Two of the people will tell lies, while the real person has sworn "to tell the truth."
The show has been hosted by numerous game show hosts of various backgrounds, and has aired mostly in syndication after the Collyer years, with the lone exception being the 1990-91 version. Bud Collyer hosted during the original years, with various people subbing in for him in his absence, most notably Ralph Bellamy, Bert Convy, Merv Griffin and even producer Mark Goodson himself. The original show aired in daytime and primetime, with the daytime version outlasting the primetime version by one year. Garry Moore hosted in the 1970s for syndication, with Joe Garagiola taking over for the final season after Moore was diagnosed with throat cancer. Canadian comedian Robin Ward took over for the 1980s version, with Gordon Elliott, Lynn Swann and Alex Trebek all hosting in the 1990s version. John O'Hurley hosted the recent 2000 revival.
Many famous celebrities have appeared on the show as guests, including Alan Freed, Orville Redenbacher, Ally Sheedy, Frank Abagnale, Douglas Corrigan, Catherine Bell (before finding fame as Sarah MacKenzie on the television series JAG), and Caroll Spinney.
Gameplay
To start the game, as the panelists read silently, the host reads aloud an affidavit signed by the central character. Each of the three contestants claimed to be this person, and was interrogated in turn by the panel. After the questioning was complete, each member of the panel then voted for the challenger they believed to be the central character. However, any celebrity on the panel who actually knew or could recognize the central character would recuse himself or herself and abstain from voting, which (for the purposes of awarding money to the challengers) would be counted as a wrong vote for the panel.
Once the votes had been cast, the host would ask, "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?" The central character would stand, often after some brief playful feinting and false starts among all three challengers, and the two impostors would then reveal their real names and their actual occupations. Prize money was awarded to the contestants based on how many wrong votes the impostors drew.
History
First edition (1956–1968, CBS)
To Tell The Truth premiered on Tuesday, December 18, 1956, on CBS in prime time as Nothing But The Truth, but the program title was changed to To Tell The Truth the following week. A daytime five-day-per-week edition was introduced on Monday, June 18, 1962, running at 3 p.m. Eastern, and 2 p.m. Central.
Bud Collyer was the host of this version; recurring panelists by the 1960s included Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, and Kitty Carlisle. Earlier regular panelists had included Johnny Carson, Polly Bergen, Jayne Meadows, Don Ameche, columnist Hy Gardner, Dick Van Dyke, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze, and Ralph Bellamy. Betsy Palmer, who became a regular panelist years later, made her first appearance on two consecutive episodes in December 1957.
The daytime show featured a separate panel its first three years with actress Phyllis Newman as the only regular. However, the evening panel took over the afternoon show in 1965, and in early 1968, Bert Convy replaced Poston in the first chair. In the prime time version, three panel games were played per show. Because at the time, CBS ran a five-minute newscast, or "newsbreak" towards the half-hour mark, the producers reduced it to two games on the daytime version. Each wrong vote from the panel paid the challengers $250 on the prime-time run, for a possible $1,000. But if the entire panel correctly identified the central character and the impostors failed to fool any of the panelists, the challengers would split $150. A design element in the set of this series was that the challengers were introduced from an upper-level stage directly above and behind the host's desk, and then traveled down a curved staircase to the main stage level.
On the CBS daytime run, each wrong vote paid the team $100. During the show's final year and a half, the studio audience also voted, with the majority vote counting equally with that of each of the celebrity panelists. If two or all three challengers tied for highest vote from the audience, that counted as a wrong vote and a guaranteed $100 for the contestants. (This was actually done in the show's original pilot, which was hosted by future newsman Mike Wallace; he also appeared as a panelist in one the first shows of the series)
Bern Bennett, Collyer's announcer on Beat the Clock, was the lead voice of To Tell The Truth in the 1950s. Upon Bennett's transfer to CBS's Los Angeles studios, Johnny Olson joined the show in 1960 and remained through the end of its CBS runs. Other CBS staff announcers filled in as the show's voices during various times.[citation needed]
On May 25, 1967 and May 26, 1967, during one of Collyer's absences from the show, the guest host was producer Mark Goodson himself.[1] Robert Q. Lewis, a comedian and game show host as well, also hosted in place of Collyer, often in the 1960s being the one asked to sub-host in the place of Bud when Bud was ill or on vacation.[2][3] Lewis substituted during Collyer's extended illness from May through July 1967, beginning with the episode following the two that Mark Goodson himself had hosted. One episode during this stretch, from the nighttime edition, is one of the few from the CBS run preserved on color videotape. This was as opposed to kinescope, which at the time was still being used to record television shows. Other game show hosts who took over for Collyer during the show included Bert Convy, Merv Griffin, and Orson Bean.[citation needed]
Second edition (1969–1978, syndicated)
This first version of the show was cancelled on September 6, 1968, but returned only a year later, in autumn of 1969, in first-run syndication. During the early years of its run, the syndicated Truth would become a highly rated component of stations' early-evening schedules after the Federal Communications Commission imposed the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971,[4] opening up at least a half hour (a full hour, usually, on Eastern Time Zone stations) to fill with non-network fare between either the local or network evening newscast and the start of the network's primetime schedule for the evening.[4] Still other stations found success running the program in place of a daytime network game or soap opera, or in the afternoon "fringe" time period between the end of network daytime programming at 4:30/3:30 Central and the evening newscasts.
Based again in New York, To Tell The Truth was videotaped at CBS-TV Studio 50 (later known as the Ed Sullivan Theater), until 1971, when it moved to NBC Studio 6-A in Rockefeller Center. To Tell The Truth had moved to Studio 50 late in its CBS network run after having been based at CBS-TV Studio 52, later known as disco Studio 54, now a legitimate Broadway theatre.
Garry Moore, formerly host of Truth's sister show I've Got a Secret, hosted until 1977.[5] Regular panelists included Orson Bean during the first year, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle and Bill Cullen, who substituted for Moore when needed. In fact, Garry Moore often took vacations in the middle of a few of the seasons. Bill Cullen was always the person in charge of substituting for Moore.
Many of the earlier regulars appeared, including Tom Poston and Bert Convy. Other quiz-show hosts, including Tom Kennedy, Kennedy's brother Jack Narz, Hugh Downs, Allen Ludden, Gene Wood, Joe Garagiola, and Goodson-Todman stalwarts Larry Blyden and Gene Rayburn appeared as occasional guest panelists. Cullen, Rayburn, and Garagiola were all interviewer or presenters on the NBC radio show Monitor at the time, and Downs was on The Today Show. During one week in 1971, Durward Kirby, who was Mr. Moore's announcer-sidekick when the latter had both a daytime and primetime variety show on CBS in the 1950s, was a guest panelist.
Each wrong vote in this version was worth $50 to the challengers. Fooling the entire panel won the challengers a total of $500.
In late 1976, Moore was diagnosed with throat cancer.[5] His place was taken originally by Bill Cullen. However, Mark Goodson noted how Bill Cullen being the host and not a panelist hurt the chemistry he had with Cass and Carlisle. Joe Garagiola was then hired and took over on an interim basis, stating that he was "pinch-hitting" for Moore. At the beginning of the 1977–1978 season, Moore appeared for one final time to explain his sudden absence, banter with the panel after the first game and to formally hand the show over permanently to Garagiola. Moore's introduction that day prompted a loud applause and standing ovation.[6] After this episode, Garagiola hosted the program for the remaining season of its run.
While there were two panel games per episode, fans and critics widely praised the 1969-1978 version for two reasons: the use of a live demonstration or video to illustrate the story after many of the games (much like I've Got A Secret), and for the warm panel banter during and after games.
Johnny Olson, the show's lead announcer in the 1960s CBS run, stayed with To Tell The Truth when it moved to syndication. He left in 1972, when Mark Goodson and Bill Todman appointed him announcer of the revivals of The Price Is Right and I've Got a Secret, which were both shot in Los Angeles. NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell replaced Olson from 1972 until 1977, with Alan Kalter taking over during the final season.
To Tell The Truth used three distinctive sets throughout its nine-year syndicated run. The first set, which was designed by Theodore Cooper, dubbed by some as the "psychedelic" set, recycling the one man on the door, was used from 1969 to 1971; a toned-down set was used from 1971 through early 1973, with two additional men added on that door. The longest-lived set — a blue-hued, gold-accented, block-motif set sporting the show's name in large block letters — was used for the remainder of the run.
A total of 1,715 episodes of this version had been produced by the time the show's final syndicated season ended in September 1978. Because this version of the show was syndicated, markets that added the series after its 1969 release often opted to carry the show for another season or two in order to catch up on the episodes that had not aired in their viewing area. This meant Truth was seen on some smaller stations up until the end of the decade, a fact that may have influenced Goodson, who by now was working without Todman, to revive it again.
During the final season with Garagiola, fancy wipes were used for the open, close and commercial bumpers, as well as canned applause and a music cue called "Brioche" (which would later be used as a prize cue on The Price is Right). The microphones in the audience were turned on so that the viewers at home could hear the audience chattering over which challenger they thought was the central character.
The show was first released to local stations on September 8, 1969, a date with a sad coincidence: original host Bud Collyer died that day at the age of 61 from complications of a circulatory disorder.
Third edition (1980–1981, syndicated)
The Moore/Garagiola episodes were still running in smaller markets when Bill Todman died. To Tell the Truth with new episodes returned for a one-year run, from September 8, 1980 to September 11, 1981, with Canadian game show host Robin Ward emceeing. Each wrong vote paid the challengers $100, and $500 was awarded if all the votes were wrong.
In addition to the two regular panel rounds, a minigame called "One On One" was added to the program. In the "One On One" segment, the four impostors from the previous two games returned. One fact about one of the original impostors was purposely withheld from the panel in their previous introductions. After revealing that information, each of the panelists questioned the impostor seated directly across from him or her. After 20 seconds, the panelist was asked if that person was the one to whom the fact applied. As in the regular panel rounds, each wrong vote was worth $100 and a full stump was worth $500 to be split among the four people participating in the segment.
This version was also known for its "disco-like" set and music. It had no regular panel, though Cullen, Cass, Carlisle, Soupy Sales, Dick Clark, and others showed up occasionally. Alan Kalter, who was the off-camera voice of the show late in the Moore-Garagiola run, returned to announce this revival. Recorded at Studio 6A of NBC's Rockefeller Center, this version of To Tell The Truth (along with the concurrent The $50,000 Pyramid) was the last New York City-based game show to air on broadcast television, as opposed to cable, until Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 1999 on ABC-TV.
Negative factors such as the decreased interaction among the panelists, the absence of fixtures like Carlisle, Cass, and Cullen on most episodes, and a host unknown previously to American audiences (Ward) inhibited the show from getting many stations, and To Tell The Truth disappeared quietly after one season, not to return again for nearly a decade.
Fourth edition (1990–1991, NBC)
To Tell The Truth returned on September 3, 1990 to May 31, 1991. Despite only running for ten months, it had no less than five hosts in that time span: Richard Kline, Gordon Elliott, Lynn Swann, Alex Trebek and Mark Goodson.
On the first day of the show's run, NBC inadvertently aired the pilot episode of the show which was hosted by Kline in the East Coast feed only. Kline was ultimately passed up in favor of Elliot (who was starting his U.S. TV career after leaving his home of Australia) to permanently host the show. Elliot, however, had to leave the show eight weeks into his run because of a contract dispute with his former employers. Because of this dispute, Elliott could not appear on television for some time, which ended when he hosted a talk show almost four years later. The third host, Swann, was a former football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers; he had formerly been a panelist and took over as host in the interim. After 14 weeks as emcee, owing to scheduling conflicts with his job as an ABC Sports commentator, Swann was replaced by the producers with Trebek.[7] Trebek, at the time, was already hosting Classic Concentration on NBC and Jeopardy! in syndication; adding To Tell The Truth made Trebek the first and, to date, the only person to host three national American game shows simultaneously. However, there was yet another hosting change to come: before a May 1991 taping, Trebek's wife went into labor, prompting 76-year-old producer Mark Goodson to step in as host for two episodes. [8] This would be Goodson's final appearance on the show before his death in 1992.
The celebrity panelists for To Tell The Truth during this period included Carlisle and other stalwarts. Also serving were Mary Ann Mobley, Cindy Adams, Ron Masak, Betty White, David Niven Jr. (son of David Niven), Polly Bergen, Gloria Allred, Sarah Purcell and Tom Villard. The panelists were introduced in twos with the male panelists escorting the female panelists down the staircase, followed by the host.
Fooling the whole panel won the challengers $3,000. Three wrong votes won $1,500, while any less than that awarded $1,000.[citation needed]
Two games were played followed by a reworked "One On One" feature. In this version of the game, one additional contestant presented two stories, of which only one was correct. Each panelist asked one question of the person on each story. After this was completed, a selected member of the audience, introduced by Richardson or O'Donnell, tried to guess which story was true. If they were correct they won $500, otherwise the contestant received $1,000 for stumping that audience member.[citation needed] Occasionally, celebrities whose faces were not well known would attempt to stump the audience during this part of the game. For example, Hank Ketcham, creator of Dennis The Menace, tried during one episode to convince an audience member that he was really the songwriter to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but was unsuccessful in doing so.[9]
Carlisle appeared on this version more often than anyone else, and old regulars Bean, Bergen, Cass and others made frequent appearances. By the end of the run, Masak and Bean alternated at the downstage end of the panel desk, with Carlisle regularly in the upstage seat. Additionally, the show's theme music was an orchestral remix of the 1969–78 theme (minus the lyrics), and the show utilized the block-letter logo from 1973–78.
To Tell The Truth, after spending many years originating from New York, originated for the first time from NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Burton Richardson was its main announcer; however, Charlie O'Donnell also sub-announced for Richardson on occasion.
It was one of the last game shows to air on NBC's daytime schedule before the network stopped airing daytime game shows in 1994.
Fifth edition (2000–2002, syndicated)
The show then had a two-year run in syndication starting in 2000 with John O'Hurley as the host, and Burton Richardson returning as the announcer.
Actor Meshach Taylor was the only regular to appear on every episode of this edition, while Paula Poundstone was a regular during the first season. Following Poundstone's departure, several actors sat in Poundstone's former chair, including Kim Coles, Jackée Harry, Mother Love, Liz Torres, and Hattie Winston. At the time, the To Tell the Truth website touted Coles and Brooke Burns as regulars for season two, though neither panelist was featured in every show that year. The series was produced in Burbank at the NBC Studios.
Notable guest panelists on this version include Dave Coulier during season one, Brad Sherwood for season two, Cindy Margolis, Brooke Burns, Melody Thomas Scott, Patrick Duffy, Kermit the Frog, Krista Allen, Richard Kind, Greg Proops, Eva LaRue (O'Hurley's ex-wife), and for one episode, Kitty Carlisle, who had appeared on the show in six consecutive decades.[citation needed]
As on the 1967-68 CBS run, the studio audience voted. Each wrong vote awarded the challengers $1,000 meaning that $5,000 could be split by the challengers for fooling the panel. In the first few weeks of the series, stumping the entire panel, including the audience, won the challengers $10,000. Reasons for the change are unknown.
According to Steve Beverly's tvgameshows.net, this edition of Truth never received a rating higher than 1.8 (roughly the same as the ratings for the current version of Family Feud). It was cancelled in late 2001, only 65 episodes into its second season. However, repeats continued to air through March 15, 2002. Repeats currently air on GSN.
Theme music and set
Metropole Orchestra leader Dolf van der Linden composed the original series theme, "Peter Pan," used from 1956–1961. From 1961–1967, the show switched to a Bob Cobert-penned theme, with a beat similar to "Peter Pan," then to a Score Productions anthem during its final CBS daytime season. For the 1969, 1980, and 1990 versions, the music was again composed by Score Productions. Gary Stockdale supplied the score for the 2000 edition.
The 1969 version is known by many for its original psychedelic set, which was designed by Theodore Cooper, and its lyrical theme song, written and composed by Score Productions chief Robert A. Israel and To Tell The Truth producer Paul Alter, along with veteran theme composer Charles Fox; the psychedelia was toned down somewhat in 1971, and replaced altogether with a more conservative, but decidedly modernistic, blue-toned block-motif set, also designed by Theodore Cooper, in early 1973. However, the lyrics — much in the style of British Invasion bands of the day — remained throughout the run. The 1990 score was an orchestral rendition of the 1969 theme without the lyrics.
Famous contestants
![]() | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (May 2008) |
Several people who would go on to fame appeared on the various incarnations of this show:
- Frank Abagnale, Jr. appeared on the show years after he had given up his con artistry. The bio-pic based on his life, Catch Me If You Can, opens with his appearance on the show, with actors (Leonardo DiCaprio playing Abagnale) taking the place of the contestants. Footage of panelist Carlisle and host Garagiola from the original To Tell the Truth is used.
- Kermit the Frog, the Jim Henson Muppet, was a panelist on some of the John O'Hurley-hosted editions.
- John E. DuPont, the heir to the DuPont fortune, appeared on a 1966 broadcast. He was training in the sport of modern pentathlon and was hoping to make the 1968 Olympic team that was to compete in Mexico City. He later would gain infamy for murdering Olympic wrestling champion Dave Schultz.
- Rock and Roll impresario and deejay Alan Freed was correctly guessed by two of the panelists, including Polly Bergen, in a 1950s episode hosted by Bud Collyer.
- Famed ice hockey player Jean Beliveau appeared in a Collyer episode on November 19, 1957.[10]
- A British prizefighter named Eamonn Andrews made two appearances in 1957; his first was as a subject. Shortly therefater, he appeared again as a guest panelist. He went on to become the host of the British version of the show, as well as one of the hosts of the British version of What's My Line?.
- Miss World 1958 (winners listed here), Penelope Anne 'Penny' Coelen appeared as a contestant on November 25, 1958.[11]
- Bud Collyer's son, Michael, appeared as an impostor, along with the daughter of baseball great Phil Rizzuto.
- American popcorn promoter and guru Orville Redenbacher was first seen on national T.V. in 1973, long before his signature commercial appearances as himself promoting his gourmet kernels. Redenbacher appeared on an episode of the show and he stumped the panelists: Kitty Carlisle, Bill Cullen, Joe Garagiola, and Peggy Cass, all of whom were shown eating and enjoying samples of Redenbacher's then "new" novelty popcorn flavors including "chili," and "bar-b-que."
- West Virginia governor Cecil Underwood was To Tell The Truth's first "Truth Teller" in 1956. He was the youngest person ever elected governor in West Virginia. He would go on to be not only the oldest person elected governor in West Virginia in 1997, but also the oldest person ever to be elected governor of any state in US history.
- Caroll Spinney, better known as the man in Big Bird ever since the beginning of Sesame Street, appeared in a Moore episode from 1971.
- Actress Alexandra Elizabeth "Ally" Sheedy appeared in a Moore episode from 1975 when she was twelve years old, in a story about a book that she wrote. The book, titled She Was Nice to Mice, later became a bestseller. This was well before she became famous as an actress. Later on, Sheedy even became a panelist for a few episodes.[12]
- Famed aviator Douglas Corrigan appeared in a Collyer episode from 1957, one day shy of 19 years after his famous flight "the wrong way" (to California) via Ireland.[13]
- Rosa Parks appeared in an episode of the Robin Ward version in 1980 and stumped two of the three panelists; however, Nipsey Russell, the fourth panelist, knew who she was and disqualified himself.[14]
- Some celebrities have dressed up as impostors. Soupy Sales, Bill Todman, Tom Poston, Henry Morgan, Christopher Hewett[15] and Rip Taylor[16] all dressed up in costumes.
- Famous cartoonists Chuck Jones, William Hanna, and Garry Trudeau appeared with other impostors in episodes from 1980, 1975, and 1971 respectively. In the episode with William Hanna, a person in a Yogi Bear costume picked out Hanna, and Daws Butler provided the voice of Yogi Bear as Yogi introduced the panel in a cartoon.
- Mad Magazine publisher William M. Gaines appeared in a 1970 episode, thanks to Dick DeBartolo, a writer for both Goodson-Todman Productions and Mad who persuaded Gaines to go on the show. In part because the famously casual Gaines appeared without a necktie, all four celebrities voted for a more stylishly dressed impostor. Years later, DeBartolo remembered Kitty Carlisle telling him after the taping, "I never figured it was him. I mean look at the way he's dressed. I was looking for someone who ran a very successful magazine, so I thought it couldn't be him!"
- Stan Lee, who was the creator and writer of many famous Marvel Comics, including Spider-Man, X-Men and The Avengers, as well as the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, appeared twice. He first appeared in an episode in 1970, and in an episode in 2002. In the episode from 2002, Lee and the other impostors all wore disguises, lest the panel recognize him.
- American author Hunter S. Thompson appeared on the show shortly after writing his book Hells Angels.
- Mikki Padilla, who later became the card dealer on Catch 21, appeared on the John O'Hurley version. 2 of the 4 celebrities and the audience identified her.
- Berry Gordy, Jr., founder of the Motown Records label, appeared on an episode of the Bud Collyer version of To Tell The Truth in 1965--and was able to fool the entire celebrity panel. The Supremes were there as well. [17]
- Zack Hample, a collector of Major League Baseballs and author of the book How To Snag Major League Baseballs, appeared on an episode of the John O'Hurley version, where he managed to stump two of the four celebrities, and the audience as well. [18]
Legacy
To Tell the Truth is the most enduring of the panel-based Goodson-Todman game shows—the type also exemplified by What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret—having been in active production at least once in every decade since the 1950s, a total of six decades. The only other game show that can claim this distinction is The Price Is Right. [19]
Episode status
Only a handful of shows remain from the CBS daytime series's first three years because of a then-common practice known as wiping videotapes and reusing them to save money and storage space. Many daytime episodes (including some in color) from 1966 to 1968 exist, including the color finale. One particular episode was described in many newspaper obituaries in 1965 because it contained a rare appearance by Dorothy Kilgallen, best known as a regular panelist on What's My Line?. It was broadcast on the East Coast on a Monday afternoon as news of her sudden death was circulated by wire services, which prompted CBS newscaster Douglas Edwards to announce her death immediately after To Tell The Truth ended. She had videotaped it six days earlier, according to the New York Herald Tribune. The best description of how Kilgallen appeared on the air (as a contestant pretending to be Joan Crawford) was reported by a columnist for the Washington Star who watched the show. Although the episode could interest a large audience today, it is gone as far as anyone has determined. Most of the nighttime run of the Collyer series exists, along with a few color kinescope episodes.[20]
The bulk of the Moore/Garagiola version is intact. However, the current status of the first season is unknown, and is presumed to be lost to wiping. A check into the Goodson-Todman catalogues by a fan yielded no episodes from the first season.[citation needed]
All episodes of the Robin Ward version, the 1990-1991 version with Gordon Elliott, Lynn Swann, and Alex Trebek, and the 2000-2002 version with John O'Hurley exist in their entirety and have been seen on GSN. The network currently airs the O'Hurley version and early in the original Collyer primetime CBS version. GSN has also played other versions on special occasions, most recently during GSN Live in the afternoon of December 12, 2008.
References
- ^
"To Tell the Truth". 1967. CBS.
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"To Tell the Truth". 1965. CBS.
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(help) - ^ According to kinescopes.com/TTTT_pm.html, Robert subbed on 11 February 1960, and from 24 February to 2 March 1964, from 25 January to 2/15 February 1965, and from 4 February to 18 February 1966.
- ^ a b "Prime Time Access Rule" Retrieved 24 September 2007.
- ^ a b "Garry Moore, 78, the Cheery Host Of Long-Running TV Series, Dies". New York Times. 1993-11-29. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
- ^
"To Tell the Truth". 1977. Syndication.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1991-02. NBC.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1991-05. NBC.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1990-12-25. NBC.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1957-11-19. CBS.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1958-11-25. CBS.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1975-06-19. Syndication.
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(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1957-07-16. CBS.
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(help) - ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ0B-AyDJUQ
- ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1990-12-25. NBC.
{{cite episode}}
: Missing or empty|series=
(help) - ^ "To Tell the Truth". 1990-12-25. NBC.
{{cite episode}}
: Missing or empty|series=
(help) - ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb9TKdsPQnI
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeSBG9qK-SQ
- ^ Both Price and Truth launched in 1956; Truth ended its latest run in 2002. Eight other game shows have been in production in five consecutive decades while two others have aired in five nonconsecutive decades.
- ^ "The G-T Big 4: To Tell the Truth (CBS Nighttime)" Retrieved 3 July 2007.
External links
- Wikipedia articles needing rewrite from March 2009
- Articles with trivia sections from May 2008
- American game shows
- Goodson-Todman game shows
- Panel games
- First-run syndicated television programs in the United States
- NBC network shows
- CBS network shows
- Television series by FremantleMedia
- Television series by CBS Paramount Television
- 1956 television series debuts
- 1981 television series endings
- 1990 television series debuts
- 1991 television series endings
- 2000 television series debuts
- 2002 television series endings
- 1950s American television series
- 1960s American television series
- 1970s American television series
- 1980s American television series
- 1990s American television series
- 2000s American television series
- Television series with missing episodes