To Tell the Truth
- To Tell the Truth is also the title of Charles Robert Jenkins' autobiography.
| To Tell the Truth | |
|---|---|
| File:Tttt.jpg Show logo, 1973-78 | |
| Created by | Bob Stewart |
| Starring | Bud Collyer (host, 1956-68) Garry Moore (host, 1969-77) Joe Garagiola (host, 1977-78) Robin Ward (host, 1980-81) Gordon Elliott (host, 1990) Lynn Swann (host, 1990-91) Alex Trebek (host, 1991) John O'Hurley (host, 2000-02) Numerous regular panelists (see article) |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes with commercials |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS, Syndicated, NBC |
| Release | 1956 – 2002 |
To Tell the Truth is an American television game show that has been seen in various forms on and off since 1956.
The basic premise consists of three contestants, each of whom claims to be the same person, being interrogated by a panel of four celebrities in an attempt to identify who is the real one and who is bluffing. The contestant in question usually holds an unusual occupation (a premise similar to the show's sister, What's My Line?) or has done something noteworthy. After each celebrity has had a turn to question the guests, they each vote as to who they think is the real person. However, if the celebrity actually knows the guest, then that person would recuse him/herself from voting; this resulted in an incorrect vote for the team of challengers.
When this is finished, the host says, "Will the real [person's name], please stand up?" The real person stands (often after some brief playful feinting and false starts among all three guests), the other two then reveal who they really are, and money is awarded to the players based on how many incorrect votes were placed.
First edition (1956–1968, CBS)
To Tell the Truth, created by Bob Stewart[1] and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions, premiered on Tuesday, December 18, 1956 on CBS in prime time as Nothing But the Truth, but changed its name to To Tell the Truth the following week.[2] A daytime five-day-per-week edition was introduced on Monday, June 18, 1962, running at 3 p.m./2 p.m. Central.
Bud Collyer was the host of this version; major 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, John Cameron Swayze, and Ralph Bellamy.
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; the producers reduced it to two games on the daytime version. Each incorrect guess from the panel paid the challengers $250 on the prime time run, for a possible $1000. But if the entire panel was correct, the challengers split $150. A design element in the set of this series is 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 an incorrect vote and a guaranteed $100 for the contestants.[3]
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' 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.
During one of Collyer's rare absences from the show in the mid-1960s, the guest host was packager Mark Goodson himself.[4] Robert Q. Lewis, a comedian and sometime game host in his own right, also hosted in place of Collyer. One episode during this stretch, from the nighttime edition, is one of the few from the CBS run preserved on color videotape (as opposed to kinescope) and has been shown on GSN. The majority of the daytime shows still exist on videotape, in black and white from 1962 to 1967 and color from 1967 to 1968. These shows have been broadcast on GSN.
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. G-T experienced success the previous season with relaunching What's My Line? as an off-network daily feature for local stations, so the company tried emulating that approach with Truth; it too reaped great success for the packager, who would lose all its network shows, daytime and primetime, during the 1969-1970 season. 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, 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. 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 the NBC studios 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, now the disco-theatre, Studio 54.)
Garry Moore, formerly host of Truth's sister show I've Got a Secret, hosted until 1977. Regular panelists included Orson Bean during the first year, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle and Bill Cullen, who substituted for Moore when needed.[5] 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. Kitty Carlisle and Peggy Cass both switched places with Moore for one game in different episodes.
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/presenters on the NBC radio show Monitor at the time, and Downs was on The Today Show.
Each incorrect vote in this version was worth $50 to the challengers. (Unlike many game shows, the appeal of To Tell The Truth had very little to do with the amount of money at stake.) Fooling the entire panel won the challengers a total of $500.
In late 1976, Moore was diagnosed with throat cancer. 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.[6] 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.[7] 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, 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 G-T appointed him announcer of the revivals of The Price Is Right and I've Got a Secret (which both shot in Los Angeles). NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell replaced Olson until 1977; Alan Kalter took over during the final season.
To Tell The Truth used three distinctive sets throughout its nine-year syndicated run. The first set (designed by Ted 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, two additional men were 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. The doors on the final set bore a strong resemblance to the sliding doors on The Price is Right.
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 (by which time Bill Todman had died) to revive it again, much as Ralph Edwards had done with Truth or Consequences in 1977 in response to the continuing popularity of episodes hosted by Bob Barker.
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 who they thought was the real person.[7]
The show was first released to local stations (mostly larger- and mid-sized markets) on September 8, 1969, a date with a sad coincidence: original host Bud Collyer died that day at the age of 61 from emphesyma.[8]
Third edition (1980–1981, syndicated)
With the Moore/Garagiola episodes still running in smaller markets, Mark Goodson, now working alone since the death of his longtime partner, interpreted their popularity as a demand for a revival. Thus, To Tell the Truth 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. $500 was awarded for fooling the entire panel.
Some fans disliked this version because the level of panel banter was decreased in favor of more game play.[9] In addition to the two regular panel games, 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 them was purposely withheld from the panel in their previous introductions. After revealing that information, each of the panelists questioned the impostor directly across from them. After 20 seconds, the panelist was asked if that person was the one to whom the fact applied. An incorrect 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, was its main announcer. 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 (who by this time worked out of Los Angeles) on most episodes, and a host unknown previously to American audiences (Ward) inhibited the show from getting many stations, and TTTT disappeared quietly after one season, not to return again for nearly a decade.
Fourth edition (1990–1991, NBC)
To Tell The Truth returned yet again, lasting from September 3, 1990 to May 31, 1991 with Gordon Elliott, former football player Lynn Swann, and then finally Alex Trebek of Jeopardy! (and at the time Classic Concentration) in the host's seat. The reason for all of these changes was because Elliott was fired eight weeks into the run due to a contract dispute with his former employers. Because of this dispute, Elliott could not appear on television for some time (Hosting a talk show almost four years later). Swann, a former football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers had formerly been a panelist and took over as host in the interim. After 14 weeks as emcee, due to scheduling conflicts with his job as an ABC Sports commentator, Swann was replaced at the helm by the producers of the show with Trebek.
Besides Swann, the celebrity panelists for TTTT during this period included Carlisle and other stalwarts (see last paragraph of this section). Also serving were former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, columnist Cindy Adams, actor Ron Masak, actress Betty White, producer David Niven Jr. (son of David Niven), actress Polly Bergen, attorney Gloria Allred, TV personality Sarah Purcell, and actor Tom Villard. The panelists were introduced in twos with the male panelists escorting the female panelists down the staircase.
There are two more hosting oddities related to this show. On the first day of the show's run, NBC inadvertently aired (in the East Coast feed only) the pilot episode of the show which was hosted by actor Richard Kline.[10][11] The second oddity occurred during Trebek's run as host when his wife went into labor just before airtime. So Mark Goodson guest hosted two shows (Goodson had previously filled in for an ailing Bud Collyer in 1967, during To Tell The Truth's original daytime run).[4] This would be Goodson's final appearance before his death in 1992.
Hosting To Tell The Truth made Trebek the first and only person to host three national (American) game shows simultaneously, as he was also hosting Classic Concentration on NBC and Jeopardy! in syndication. (If other countries' shows are counted, Jim Perry joins Trebek on the list; while hosting the Canadian shows Definition and Headline Hunters in 1978, he also took the reins of the first Card Sharks.)
Fooling the whole panel won the challengers $3,000. Three wrong votes won $1,500, while any less than that awarded $1000.
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 gets $1000 for stumping that audience member. 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, almost but unsuccessfully tried during one episode to convince an audience member that he was really the songwriter to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
The show could be considered more "retro" than the 1980 edition: octogenarian Carlisle appeared 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.
TTTT, 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.
Fifth edition (2000–2002, syndicated)
TTTT had a two-year run in syndication starting in 2000 with John O'Hurley as the host, and Burton Richardson returning as the announcer.
Comedian Paula Poundstone and actor Meshach Taylor were regulars both seasons on this edition. Kim Coles, Brad Sherwood, and Brooke Burns joined the panel as semi-regulars for season two. Richardson, the off-camera voice of the NBC edition, returned as the regular announcer for the two-year run. The series was produced in Burbank at the NBC Studios.
Notable guest panelists on this edition include Dave Coulier, Patrick Duffy, Jackée Harry, Kermit the Frog, Richard Kind, Greg Proops, and for one episode, Kitty Carlisle, who had appeared on the show in six consecutive decades.[12]
As on the CBS daytime 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.
According to Steve Beverly's tvgameshows.net, this edition of TTTT never got above a 1.8 in the Nielsen ratings. It was cancelled in late 2001, only 65 episodes into its second season. However, repeats continued to air through the summer of 2002. [13]
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 and its lyrical theme song, penned by Score Productions chief Bob Israel and TTTT producer Paul Alter; the psychedelia was toned down somewhat in 1971, and replaced altogether with a more conservative, but decidedly modernistic, blue-toned set 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 sans the lyrics (the a capella vocal group Take 6 was originally supposed to perform a new recording of the lyrical theme for this version, but the plans fell through).
Famous contestants
Several people who would go on to fame appeared on the various incarnations of this show:
- Frank Abagnale, Jr. - He appeared on the show years after he had given up his con artistry. The biopic 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 TTTT is used.[14]
- Sissy Biggers - When she was 16 years old, she was one of the impostors on a 1973 show in which she was pretending to be a baton twirling magician named Abbey Lee Green. When she became an adult she later hosted her own talk show alongside veteran game show host Marc Summers on The Lifetime Television Network called Biggers & Summers. Then beginning in 1996 she replaced Robin Young and became host of Ready.. Set... Cook! (the US version of Ready Steady Cook) on the Food Network.[14]
- John E. DuPont - the heir to the DuPont fortune, appeared on a 1966 broadcast. He was training in the sport of modern pentathalon 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.[14]
- Teenage track athlete Mary Decker appeared on the show in the 1970s, on an episode in which her coach was a contestant; she would go on to famously collide with Zola Budd in the women's 3000m race at the 1984 Summer Olympics.[14]
- Figure-skater Peggy Fleming, track star Wilma Rudolph and baseball player Don Drysdale also appeared as contestants in the Bud Collyer era.[14]
- 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.[14]
- Also during the Bud Collyer era, the panel had to determine who was the real Richard Heermance, an actor who was also Collyer's brother. In another episode, Collyer's son, Michael, appeared as an impostor.
- 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 kernals. 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."[6][14][15]
- A New York detective named Richard Buggy, known for working the city streets in various disguises, appeared on the show in 1974, with each of the 3 challengers dressed accordingly. At the end of the game, after Buggy's identity had been revealed, the two imposters did the same; they were revealed to be Kitty Carlisle's son Chris Hart and Joe Garagiola's son Joe Junior.[14]
- 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 the oldest person ever to be elected governor of any state in US history.[14]
- Actress Catherine Bell appeared as an imposter on the 1990-91 version, ironically pretending to be a movie body double. She would actually become a body double in 1992.[14]
- Actress Ally Sheedy (From the Brat Pack films) appeared in a Moore episode from 1975 when she was twelve years old, in a story about a book that she wrote. The book was titled She Was Nice to Mice, and later on became a best-seller. This was well before she became famous as an actress.[16]
- Rosa Parks appeared in an episode of the Robin Ward version in 1980, with the three panelists being stumped by her (Nipsey Russell, the fourth panelist, knew who she was and disqualified himself).
- Some celebrities have dressed up as imposters. Soupy Sales[16], Bill Todman, Tom Poston, Nipsey Russell, Gene Rayburn, Larry Blyden, Wally Bruner, Christopher Hewett and Rip Taylor all dressed up in costumes to try and fool the panel.[16]
- Famous cartoonists Chuck Jones, William Hanna, and Garry Trudeau appeared with other imposters in episodes from 1980, 1975, and 1971 respectively. In the episode with William Hanna, a person in a Yogi Bear costume picked out Bill, and Daws Butler provided the voice of Yogi Bear as Yogi introduced the panel in a cartoon.[16]
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 (The only other game show that can claim this distinction is The Price is Right. The next three longest-running US game show format to have been produced in consecutive decades are Let's Make a Deal, starting in 1963, Jeopardy!, from 1964, and The Hollywood Squares from 1966.) It 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.
To Tell the Truth's place in American culture is such that the show's famous catch phrase "Will the real [name] please stand up?" became a well-known and frequently used cliché, often in a humorous context when someone's identity was in question. Almost as famous is the line used by the announcer to begin each game: "Number One, what is your name, please?"
Saturday Night Live had a parody of the 1980-81 version (using the actual theme) with three people who claim to be George Kennedy. The show would be interrupted when a camera shorted out.
Prince, in his 1992 song My Name Is Prince, uses the lyric "To Tell The Truth, tell me What's My Line.".[17]
Episode status
A handful of daytime episodes exist, most notably the color finale. This is due to a common practice used in the 50's, 60's, and most of the 70's for daytime programming known as wiping. Most of the night time run exists of the Collyer series, including a few color kinescope episodes.[18] The Garagiola/Moore version is intact, as is the Robin Ward version, the 1990-1991 version, and the 2000-2002 version. The Game Show Network has aired all of the versions through 1991, and will begin airing the O'Hurley version on July 18, 2007.[13]
References
- ^ "Game Show Congress" Retrieved 7 July 2007.
- ^ "Nothing But the Truth" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ "The TTTT audience game" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ a b "List of U.S. Game Shows" Retrieved 7 July 2007.
- ^ "Hosts who played their own game" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ a b "Number 1...No wait, it's number 2!...No, Number 3, definitely!...No, wait..." Retrieved 1 July 2007.
- ^ a b "To Tell the Truth 1977-78" Retrieved 30 June 2007. Cite error: The named reference "TTTT" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "The First Game Show Superstar.....BUD COLLYER!" Retrieved 5 July 2007.
- ^ "To Tell the Truth 1980" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ "To Tell the Truth tribute: 1990-91" Retrieved 30 June 2007
- ^ "http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Boulevard/5410/tttt.html" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ "To Tell the Truth tribute: 2000-2002" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ a b "TVGameshows.net Big News" Retrieved 1 July 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "TTTT notables" Retrieved 30 June 2007. Cite error: The named reference "Guests" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "Orville Redenbacher on To Tell the Truth" Retrieved 30 June 2007.
- ^ a b c d "To Tell The Truth Show Notes" Retrieved 4 July 2007.
- ^ "Prince - My Name Is Prince Lyrics" Retrieved 1 July 2007.
- ^ "The G-T Big 4: To Tell the Truth (CBS Nighttime)" Retrieved 3 July 2007.
External links
- The To Tell the Truth Memories Board
- General page on To Tell the Truth
- A comprehensive TTTT site that looks at all of the versions of the program
- Cliffhanger's To Tell The Truth website
- Mike Dudas' TTTT 90's page
- To Tell The Truth (1956–1968) at IMDb
- To Tell The Truth (1969–1978) at IMDb
- To Tell The Truth (1980–1981) at IMDb
- To Tell The Truth (1990–1991) at IMDb
- To Tell The Truth (2000–2002) at IMDb
- Game shows
- American game shows
- Goodson-Todman game shows
- Panel games
- First-run syndicated television programs
- NBC network shows
- CBS network shows
- Television series by FremantleMedia
- 1956 television program debuts
- 1950s American television series
- 1960s American television series
- 1970s American television series
- 1980s American television series
- 1990s American television series
- 2000s American television series
- 2002 television program series endings