Sherman had an idea for a tv game he called I Know A Secret. His friend Mark Goodson changed the name to I've Got a Secret and it ran on CBS (1952-1967) almost as long as WML..
The Weird Al comparison is spot on, but he became famous in the 1960's, not the '50's. Allan's first album, _My Son, the Folk Singer,_ came out in 1962.
@@Galantski Sherman was creating game show and tv concepts in the 1950's He is credited for creating the concept for long running game show I Got A Secret He started as many did in radio He died quite young but had a long career as a writer and performer His first recording was 1951 a parody song of a bushell and a peck as a satchel and a seck. he and Tom Lehrer were doing comic song parodies at around that time not together as seperate artists and the formula had been used in the past t Sherman popularized it and many have followed in his footsteps The LPS he recorded later in the 60's bought him to more mainstream attention and that he became famous for
@@mrpuniverse2Weird Al Yankovich was the 80s/90s version of Allan Sherman. If anyone was made for the early days of television it was a chubby Jewish kid from Chicago named Allan Sherman. Allan's seriously overweight (350 lbs) dad Percy Copelon died while dieting when Allan was in grade school. He took his mother's maiden name (Sherman) the rest is history..
As a fan of Steve Lawrence, (I rank him in the top 5 male vocalists of the 20th C), I can't fathom how he managed starring full time in a major (hit) Broadway show and still find time to charm us all for a half hour on Sunday nights. Still with us today (2022), and thanks to surviving media we can still appreciate his bottomless talents.
For those who can remember seeing Frankie Fontaine on the Jackie Gleason show, they will recognize the excellent Fontaine impression by Allan Sherman at once. I recall seeing a previous appearance of Steve Lawrence on the program in this collection in which he also did a superb impersonation, much better than the quick one he knocked off on this show. If Sherman had chosen not to use his own voice at the end, he would have stumped them, I'm positive. Certainly he gave one of the most amusing mystery guest performances ever.
I did intend to say one more thing, which I have never seen anyone say regarding this appearance. I have watched many, many mystery guest segments in the John Daly era and this is the only time in which I can remember hearing very clear laughter and giggling from children in the audience. Even when you had a Roy Rogers and Dale Evans or a Bob Smith or an Edgar Bergen, you didn't have this very audible appreciation from kids.
Nearly 3 years later this show would feature actress Chris Noel as a mystery guest. Her business in Vietnam wasn't being a foreign correspondent, though (like it was with Pam Sanders); it was as a Disc Jockey for the U.S. Armed Forces.
Hello Muddah, hello Faddah, here I am at Camp Granada. I remember loaning that album to my best friend, Adrianne Hammel. I had a hard time getting it back from her, Loloud ‼️
Worth noting that Pamela Sanders Brement passed on the 26th of June this year. According to her obit she was born in Manilla, was interned by the Japanese for the duration of WWII and wrote several books over the years, and returned Vietnam for a time in 1974 with her husband, a US Foreign Service officer. An interesting life.
I'm somewhat surprised that Dorothy Kilgallen didn't know who she was or the name wasn't familiar to her. There were exactly tons of female war reporters in the early 1960s.
Allan Sherman was awesome when he wrote and sang "Hello Maddah, hello Faddah!" His Uncle Milton Bradley invented the board game "Camp Granada." I have a DVD with the game show "Shenanagins" dated in 1964 where Allan Sherman showed a new board game that his Uncle Milton Bradley invented called "Camp Grenada." Yes, that's the same Milton Bradley that invented several board games in the 1960s. Allan Sherman was hilarious when he sang the song "Hello Maddah, Hello Faddah!" Lol.
Old school television, from back in the day when Americans were able to watch it on American-made television sets, not disposable sino-produced garbage from brands that no one had ever heard of until this nation's political and business "leaders" sold out its soul add manufacturing base for pennies on the dollar.
It's kind of surprising to hear JCD describe Vietnam as an "ugly situation" this early in the game, but the SV president had just been assassinated. If JCD only knew what was yet to come. My father will leave in June of this year of '64 to spend a year there and will survive it. 58,000 other Americans will not.
My late father was there just about 10 years prior to yours, as a LTJG/Communications Officer in the USNR and serving on an LST, as a participant in Operation "Passage to Freedom", evacuating the French forces, Vietnamese forces, and civilians out of northern Vietnam. He had also been in combat in Korea, not long before.
First contestant. Some animals are just funny. The goose for example. It is difficult, but it looks and sounds funny -- probably even to other gooses. If you want chaos to ensue, bring in a live goose. If you need to break up any dull meeting, say "goose" a half dozen times in 6 different accents and that will do it.
4:36 🤣😂. Arlene’s reaction is priceless! She is clearly fuming at John’s decision to overrule the contestant’s initial answer. As the camera pans to RQL, note her dramatic eye-roll! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂.
ghshinn Mr. Madden obviously didn't know, but Mr. Daly should have known better, than giving a consistent "no" when he himself wasn't sure of it. This show was also about being accurate, and Daly should have left Dorothy's question to be open. By the way; the contestants came from all over the U.S, and even if the panelists came from New York, I doubt the inhabitants of N.Y. were their main viewers. The panel was supposed to be well informed in many fields. Kilgallen was on the right track, but trusted Daly's judgement, which in this case was wrong. (I really don't mind Madden. He wouldn't care, as long as his geese picked the weed and did their part of the deal ;)
I always like when they would have the first challenger be a minor celebrity, having the panel put on it's blindfolds. Maybe not as a regular segment, but I would have liked to see it more often.
According to Allan Sherman's autobiography, Goodson-Toddman liked Allan's idea for I've Got A Secret but rather than pay him for it he was made a producer on the show. He was with IGAS through some in 1958 when he was fired. It was Allan's contention that it was a “setup”. Taking stock of what he had that could earn him money. That's when he pursued parody type songs in earnest. Sadly, he died in 1973, just a few days short of his 49th birthday.
Yeah, but their minds didn’t go there. In 1962 they had Vaughn Meader on as the mystery guest, which was at the height of “The First Family” fame. He totally stumped them using a fake voice. A sad episode, btw. It was just before New Year 1963, and they all wished each a good new year, of course little suspecting that in less than a year they’d be mourning the death of JFK.
+Ronni G What really stinks in today's America with it's politically correct/crybaby/victim mentality he couldn't get away with his antics seen here. It had me crying.
Rarely mentioned: Sherman’s type of song parody is rooted in Yiddish culture. In the years leading up to his fame, the Jewish-American jazz musician Mickey Katz - father of Broadway star Joel Grey, grandfather of Jennifer Grey - gained fame adapting popular songs into Yiddish-inflected, funny versions that owed a lot, musically, to klezmer as well as jazz and pop. Katz became very famous, but faced a lot of prejudice by those who thought his songs were “too Jewish,” and refused to play them on radio. There were even Jews who were eager to be regarded as American, in a time when that meant to be like white Christians, who felt embarrassed by what they regarded as shtick. Essentially, Sherman picked up where Katz left off. Sadly, though, he rarely if ever acknowledged his debt to Katz or the Jewish humor tradition that paved the way for him. And “Weird Al” Yankovic (not a Jew, btw), who acknowledges Sherman as an inspiration, rarely if ever mentions his grandfather in the parody song tradition: Mickey Katz.
"Things" had been "busy" in Vietnam for decades. Everyone knew it was a hot spot in the world in 1964. The French did what the US did and fought and lost so many in an unwinnable war and then we went in.
@@sbalman “Busy” being a euphemism for killing millions, dropping more bombs than in WWII, and poisoning several countries with carcinogenic Napalm and Agent Orange
If I were Amilcare Ponchielli, I would be miffed that most people remember "Dance of the Hours" from my opera "La Gioconda" from those lampoons by Disney and by Sherman. We're lucky that most people today can hear the music without thinking "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." I still see hippos and ostriches and alligators in my head when I hear the music, but personally I can live with that.
It's interesting that when the panel deduce that the female foreign correspondent uses a typewriter, the next question is 'Are you a secretary?' Today that would get a hiss from the audience. This show often seems cosy and unthreatening but in its time it was forward-looking - there are many female contestants in surprising jobs and black guests treated equally to white guests. The humour sounds very dated by now (especially Bennet's puns) but the inclusive spirit lives on...
John ended the game (again!) with the foreign correspondent far too early. There was plenty of time left in the show, and sometimes (like this time) he just arbitrarily gives up the game. It was still interesting to me. Can someone go back to 1964 and take care of this?
@@MrJoeybabe25 And when he gets back, maybe he can get us out of this pandemic, which has already killed 5 times as many Americans in nine months as were killed in combat in Vietnam in 11 years.
Am I the only one who caught this. The man "rents" geese to eradicate the weeds. Imagine that no Glyphosate. What the hell have we done to the place we all live.
Are geese in the duck family? Geese, Ducks, and Swans are close relatives and belong to the same family which explains the resemblance. Geese and ducks belong to the family Anatidae.
It's clear that conference got Allan a little on-edge where they threw out every name but his that he decided to just use his own voice so they could get it! Before he hit it big with his parody records he had been the co-creator and producer of "I've Got A Secret" from 1952 to 1958 when he was fired by Goodson for this spot (Allan Sherman's last episode as producer (IGaS 6/11/58, 2 of 2)) that bombed completely.
Several months after that, his successor, Gil Fates, would bring on Jonathan Cerf, Peter Gabel, and Kerry Kollmar (all sons of regular WML? panelists) as part of an "I've Got A Secret" show devoted to relatives of famous people. (No, the boys did NOT each walk away with a carton of Winston cigarettes.) As fate would have it (or was it planned that way?), Allan Sherman would appear as Mystery Guest one more time on the original "What's My Line?," on 14 May 1967. One of the guest panelists that evening was none other than Mark Goodson, who had fired Sherman almost 9 years earlier.
Joe Postove It's all a complete mystery to me, this whole thing. One thing is clear to me at least, if not to others: this editing had nothing to do with time zone shifting.for the west coast. But maybe this was done in the prints that were sent out to stations which aired the show in a different time slot entirely (a practice I've only just been informed of-- but thinking back, it makes sense, with all the times John used to end the program telling people in "other localities" to consult their local listings for the day and time of broadcast.)
What's My Line? Especially in markets with less than 3 stations and in small towns. It would not have been unusual practice at all to send a film (kine') to the station to play when they wanted to.
Joe Postove In that scenario, they would have had plenty of time to do the editing, so it seems more feasible. I can't imagine them scrambling to develop and print the kinescope and edit out one word in the 2.5 hours they had between the east and west coast broadcasts, as has been theorized. What I still don't get, though, is why it wouldn't have sufficed to have a notice at the end of the show saying it was prerecorded.
Joe Postove Yes, 1953 and 1961-- but what do you mean by "default"? It's not like they had him on standby in case of cancellations. . . he was a huge star. What's My Line? - Nat King Cole (Dec 6, 1953) What's My Line? - Nat King Cole; Joey Bishop [panel] (Mar 19, 1961)
Not that he was there Gary, c'mon, c'mon. I can see Nat King Cole waiting backstage for his chance to be on the show THAT NIGHT! "Maybe tonight Mr. Goodson, Huh, Huh?" :) What I meant was that on at least 2 or 3 occasions I have heard his name mentioned by the panel and they were usually way off the mark. "Do you think its Nat King Cole?
@@WhatsMyLine Huge is the word. John fought long and hard after Mr. Cole was seated in '61 to quiet the audience so they could get on with the show. Thanks for bringing this joy into our fractured lives, Mr. WML. One thing it seems all of us "addicts" can all agree on.
@@SteveHolsten Alas, the weeder geese probably never caught on. They were domestic white geese, not the wild ones that someone said were chased away by hired dogs, and they didn't fly. I had a few at one time to help with a little organic farming I was trying to do. They were great at picking out crab grass, but they also tended to eat everything else that wasn't a sturdy bush or a tree, so they were a bust in your strawberries and lettuce patch. It's a shame they didn't catch on with the cotton weeding, however. Mine were homebodies and better at alerting and guarding the place than any dog I ever had.
Late in life, Allan Sherman wrote a very un-funny book titled "The Rape Of The A*P*E" ("A*P*E" stood for "American Puritan Ethic). The book was published in 1973 (the year Sherman died) - by Playboy Press, which indicates what kind of book this turned out to be.
:( can someone PLEASE tell what the point of this game is if John keep flipping the cards over? (you know he ruins the WHOLE show by doing that, right)?
The only point of WML is to entertain its audience sufficiently to sell advertising to sponsors. It accomplished that goal for many more years than average. Competition between the panel and guest or between individual panelists was the setting for the show but not the point
I don't have that much problem in the case of the first guest, when they had gotten that he did something with geese but would have been very unlikely to figure out what he did with them. It's ridiculous in the case of the second guest, where they absolutely could have gotten there with a little bit more time.
No, not at all. I think he's very friendly and also very hot. But someone agrees with you, that's why his name is never mentioned in the headline above.
Dorothy looks like hell, as if she'd either had (a) a stroke or other health issue that paralyzed part of her face or -- and I'm serious here -- (b) some precursor of Botox. Anyone know what's up with her face? (Not talking about ordinary aging)
She was dealing with substance-abuse issues, primarily alcohol abuse. Her problems finally got to the point that she missed quite a number of WML? shows in early 1963 to undergo treatment for her problems. She had also suffered at least one (and perhaps several) ischemic strokes during WML? episodes in the early 1960s. There were a couple of WML? episodes in January of 1964 in which she was clearly much more than "three sheets to the wind." But at least she seems to be clean and sober here.
I am so surprised that the voice Allan used was accepted there are real disabled people that sound like that I’m pc but if anyone had a Down syndrome child back then they would not think that’s funny! It’s one thing to be a minority and to be judged but disabled people can’t help that voice! I’m ok with the prank I’m just surprised there aren’t more sensitive people making comments because no matter wht the intention people do get their panties in a bunch just a observation I GET IT CANT WE HAVE ANY FUN YES WE CAN ! I’m just surprised there isn’t any backlash
He was imitating Frank Fontaine, a comedian who talks like that at the time. No one is insulting anyone. You can choose not to be offended and especially choose not to be offended for other people. If we can have fun then don't mention it, but since you mention it you don't want fun.
Not sure why you jumped to the conclusion that he _had_ to be making fun of the handicapped. I had not heard of Frank Fontaine previously, so I didn't recognize the impression per se, but I would have assumed he was doing an impression of somebody, particularly once they asked about Fontaine in a way that implied that might be his voice. A lisp, yes, I would assume to be mockery either of speech impediments or the effeminate unless otherwise informed, but this voice didn't come across to me at all as being a mockery of a disability.
Frank Fontaine was a very popular and recognizable comedian of that era. Sherman was obviously imitating Fontaine, with no reference to anyone's disability.
it's really freaking impressive that they went from ''please be a hooker or cheerleader, please be a hooker or cheerleader'' all the way to figuring out she works with stationary XD
![What's My Line? - Peter Lawford; Martin Gabel [panel] (Jul 26, 1964)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sNYns9R_tg4/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Peter Lawford; Martin Gabel [panel] (Jul 26, 1964)](/img/tr.png)
![What's My Line? - Bill Hartack; Beatrice Lillie; Allan Sherman [panel] (May 10, 1964)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Md3UQWjlrKY/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Louis Armstrong; Ross Hunter [panel] (Mar 22, 1964)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5PM5Xk9Hxxo/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Jack Lemmon; Terry-Thomas [panel] (May 17, 1964)](/img/n.gif)
Allan Sherman was a top producer and well paid TV man who made the songs he did at parties for his friends into a million dollar hit.
Sherman had an idea for a tv game he called I Know A Secret. His friend Mark Goodson changed the name to I've Got a Secret and it ran on CBS (1952-1967) almost as long as WML..
@@rtflone the million dollar fat man
Allan Sherman the 1950's Weird Al Yankovich I loved his comic songs
The Weird Al comparison is spot on, but he became famous in the 1960's, not the '50's. Allan's first album, _My Son, the Folk Singer,_ came out in 1962.
@@Galantski Sherman was creating game show and tv concepts in the 1950's He is credited for creating the concept for long running game show I Got A Secret He started as many did in radio He died quite young but had a long career as a writer and performer His first recording was 1951 a parody song of a bushell and a peck as a satchel and a seck. he and Tom Lehrer were doing comic song parodies at around that time not together as seperate artists and the formula had been used in the past t Sherman popularized it and many have followed in his footsteps The LPS he recorded later in the 60's bought him to more mainstream attention and that he became famous for
@@mrpuniverse2Weird Al Yankovich was the 80s/90s version of Allan Sherman. If anyone was made for the early days of television it was a chubby Jewish kid from Chicago named Allan Sherman. Allan's seriously overweight (350 lbs) dad Percy Copelon died while dieting when Allan was in grade school. He took his mother's maiden name (Sherman) the rest is history..
Tremendous talented people who we Will never see again Ever Period!!!!!
Pamela Sanders Brement author/journalist, died June 26, 2014 at her home in Tucson at age 79 of liver cancer.
Oh how funny was Allen Sherman. Best mystery guest in a long time.
Instablaster
I loved Allan Sherman as a kid -- I played his album,
"My Son, the Celebrity" to death! Hilarious stuff!
.
A time when Americans (collectively) just had plain fun.
As a fan of Steve Lawrence, (I rank him in the top 5 male vocalists of the 20th C), I can't fathom how he managed starring full time in a major (hit) Broadway show and still find time to charm us all for a half hour on Sunday nights. Still with us today (2022), and thanks to surviving media we can still appreciate his bottomless talents.
Steve Lawrence had dementia (12/1/23)
When television exuded, spontaneity, intelligence and class.
I did many shows as a drummer....I did ''Hello Muddah,Hello Faddah'' I could not contain myself from laughing,it was so funny.
Loved listening to Allan Sherman on the Ed Sullivan show
The Allan Sherman part was the best of this whole episode 🤣😂🤣😂🥰‼️
For those who can remember seeing Frankie Fontaine on the Jackie Gleason show, they will recognize the excellent Fontaine impression by Allan Sherman at once. I recall seeing a previous appearance of Steve Lawrence on the program in this collection in which he also did a superb impersonation, much better than the quick one he knocked off on this show. If Sherman had chosen not to use his own voice at the end, he would have stumped them, I'm positive. Certainly he gave one of the most amusing mystery guest performances ever.
I did intend to say one more thing, which I have never seen anyone say regarding this appearance. I have watched many, many mystery guest segments in the John Daly era and this is the only time in which I can remember hearing very clear laughter and giggling from children in the audience. Even when you had a Roy Rogers and Dale Evans or a Bob Smith or an Edgar Bergen, you didn't have this very audible appreciation from kids.
romeman01 Kids up at Sun night??? LOL Mine were too for special occasions, like a WML show.
I would have loved to have been a contestant on this show. From 1990 to 2005 I operated a caterpillar farm.
Nearly 3 years later this show would feature actress Chris Noel as a mystery guest. Her business in Vietnam wasn't being a foreign correspondent, though (like it was with Pam Sanders); it was as a Disc Jockey for the U.S. Armed Forces.
Hello Muddah, hello Faddah, here I am at Camp Granada. I remember loaning that album to my best friend, Adrianne Hammel. I had a hard time getting it back from her, Loloud ‼️
Worth noting that Pamela Sanders Brement passed on the 26th of June this year. According to her obit she was born in Manilla, was interned by the Japanese for the duration of WWII and wrote several books over the years, and returned Vietnam for a time in 1974 with her husband, a US Foreign Service officer. An interesting life.
She couldn't have been very old. She would have been a young child to be interred by the Japanese during WWII!
She was 79. The cause was liver cancer.
I'm somewhat surprised that Dorothy Kilgallen didn't know who she was or the name wasn't familiar to her. There were exactly tons of female war reporters in the early 1960s.
melkaman8200 Maybe that's why. There were tons (I did not know that) so maybe she only knew a few hundred pounds of them,
@@melkaman8200
They might have traveled in different circles but that did cross my mind.
Allan Sherman was awesome when he wrote and sang "Hello Maddah, hello Faddah!" His Uncle Milton Bradley invented the board game "Camp Granada." I have a DVD with the game show "Shenanagins" dated in 1964 where Allan Sherman showed a new board game that his Uncle Milton Bradley invented called "Camp Grenada." Yes, that's the same Milton Bradley that invented several board games in the 1960s. Allan Sherman was hilarious when he sang the song "Hello Maddah, Hello Faddah!" Lol.
Very interesting! I had no idea.
I had that Camp Grenada game as a kid. It was a lot of fun to play!
@@Historian212That's awesome!! I would love to get that game someday!
Whoaah... old school television. Weird watching this on a hi tech computer connected to 48" led tv and surround sound speakers.
Old school television, from back in the day when Americans were able to watch it on American-made television sets, not disposable sino-produced garbage from brands that no one had ever heard of until this nation's political and business "leaders" sold out its soul add manufacturing base for pennies on the dollar.
Steve Lawrence seemed so pleasant and decent.
It's kind of surprising to hear JCD describe Vietnam as an "ugly situation" this early in the game, but the SV president had just been assassinated. If JCD only knew what was yet to come. My father will leave in June of this year of '64 to spend a year there and will survive it. 58,000 other Americans will not.
My late father was there just about 10 years prior to yours, as a LTJG/Communications Officer in the USNR and serving on an LST, as a participant in Operation "Passage to Freedom", evacuating the French forces, Vietnamese forces, and civilians out of northern Vietnam. He had also been in combat in Korea, not long before.
Imagine being a foreign correspondant in Vietnam in 1964.
Or Viet-Nam, for that matter.
First contestant. Some animals are just funny. The goose for example. It is difficult, but it looks and sounds funny -- probably even to other gooses. If you want chaos to ensue, bring in a live goose. If you need to break up any dull meeting, say "goose" a half dozen times in 6 different accents and that will do it.
Steve Allen would’ve had a field day with the geese segment. 😂
Allan Sherman was hilarious! 😂❤
4:36 🤣😂. Arlene’s reaction is priceless! She is clearly fuming at John’s decision to overrule the contestant’s initial answer. As the camera pans to RQL, note her dramatic eye-roll! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂.
*Erm!* Mr. Daly and Mr. Madden! A goose (and a swan) belongs *indeed* to the *duck family!*
I doubt that anyone in the city of New York would know that! Mr. Madden evidently didn't think so, either.
ghshinn Mr. Madden obviously didn't know, but Mr. Daly should have known better, than giving a consistent "no" when he himself wasn't sure of it. This show was also about being accurate, and Daly should have left Dorothy's question to be open. By the way; the contestants came from all over the U.S, and even if the panelists came from New York, I doubt the inhabitants of N.Y. were their main viewers. The panel was supposed to be well informed in many fields. Kilgallen was on the right track, but trusted Daly's judgement, which in this case was wrong. (I really don't mind Madden. He wouldn't care, as long as his geese picked the weed and did their part of the deal ;)
SuperWinterborn If Daly doesn't know that insects are animals, I don't expect him to know a goose is part of the duck family. :)
What's My Line? No, that's right, but I expect him at least to leave the question open, when he's not sure about knowing the answer himself. :)
@@WhatsMyLine I watched an episode of WML where John Daly did say that insects are indeed animals.
I always like when they would have the first challenger be a minor celebrity, having the panel put on it's blindfolds. Maybe not as a regular segment, but I would have liked to see it more often.
According to Allan Sherman's autobiography, Goodson-Toddman liked Allan's idea for I've Got A Secret but rather than pay him for it he was made a producer on the show. He was with IGAS through some in 1958 when he was fired. It was Allan's contention that it was a “setup”. Taking stock of what he had that could earn him money. That's when he pursued parody type songs in earnest. Sadly, he died in 1973, just a few days short of his 49th birthday.
I'm surprised they found it that hard. They knew it was a comic singer. In 1964, you'd think he'd be the first one you'd think of.
Yeah, but their minds didn’t go there. In 1962 they had Vaughn Meader on as the mystery guest, which was at the height of “The First Family” fame. He totally stumped them using a fake voice.
A sad episode, btw. It was just before New Year 1963, and they all wished each a good new year, of course little suspecting that in less than a year they’d be mourning the death of JFK.
Gotta be my favorite WML? ❤
Actually,geese are in the duck family[called-anseriformes].. This includes ducks,geese,swans and screamers[a south american bird]
Well, if we're being actual, since "anser" means "goose", it would more accurate to say that ducks are in the goose family.
God Allan Sherman had the most precious, round face! :)
+Ronni G What really stinks in today's America with it's politically correct/crybaby/victim mentality he couldn't get away with his antics seen here. It had me crying.
Now they rent dogs to chase the geese-that settled on ponds and became a nuisance!
Allen Sherman created and produced the tv show "I've Got a Secret."
Rarely mentioned: Sherman’s type of song parody is rooted in Yiddish culture. In the years leading up to his fame, the Jewish-American jazz musician Mickey Katz - father of Broadway star Joel Grey, grandfather of Jennifer Grey - gained fame adapting popular songs into Yiddish-inflected, funny versions that owed a lot, musically, to klezmer as well as jazz and pop. Katz became very famous, but faced a lot of prejudice by those who thought his songs were “too Jewish,” and refused to play them on radio. There were even Jews who were eager to be regarded as American, in a time when that meant to be like white Christians, who felt embarrassed by what they regarded as shtick. Essentially, Sherman picked up where Katz left off. Sadly, though, he rarely if ever acknowledged his debt to Katz or the Jewish humor tradition that paved the way for him. And “Weird Al” Yankovic (not a Jew, btw), who acknowledges Sherman as an inspiration, rarely if ever mentions his grandfather in the parody song tradition: Mickey Katz.
Miss Sander looks like a blond Natalie Wood when she turns her head to left.
she really does!
She looked like May Britt.
...and the original voice of The Cat in the Hat.
I wonder if the foreign correspondent just knew how busy things were going to be in Vietnam very shortly
"Things" had been "busy" in Vietnam for decades. Everyone knew it was a hot spot in the world in 1964. The French did what the US did and fought and lost so many in an unwinnable war and then we went in.
@@sbalman “Busy” being a euphemism for killing millions, dropping more bombs than in WWII, and poisoning several countries with carcinogenic Napalm and Agent Orange
Ms. Kilgallen looked like her wig was wearing a wig.
If I were Amilcare Ponchielli, I would be miffed that most people remember "Dance of the Hours" from my opera "La Gioconda" from those lampoons by Disney and by Sherman. We're lucky that most people today can hear the music without thinking "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." I still see hippos and ostriches and alligators in my head when I hear the music, but personally I can live with that.
I love the cursive!
20:03 she thought it was Johnnie Ray 😂
It's interesting that when the panel deduce that the female foreign correspondent uses a typewriter, the next question is 'Are you a secretary?' Today that would get a hiss from the audience. This show often seems cosy and unthreatening but in its time it was forward-looking - there are many female contestants in surprising jobs and black guests treated equally to white guests. The humour sounds very dated by now (especially Bennet's puns) but the inclusive spirit lives on...
I can't wait for Sherman after Paul Anka guessed him when Tony Bennett was the mystery guest.
John ended the game (again!) with the foreign correspondent far too early. There was plenty of time left in the show, and sometimes (like this time) he just arbitrarily gives up the game. It was still interesting to me. Can someone go back to 1964 and take care of this?
I'm on it! Stay tuned for results..
***** Say hello to Barry Goldwater for me. Please tell him I'll vote for him in the next life (if he can get us out of Vietnam!).
Joe Postove sure!
@@MrJoeybabe25 And when he gets back, maybe he can get us out of this pandemic, which has already killed 5 times as many Americans in nine months as were killed in combat in Vietnam in 11 years.
@@alansorensen5903 True, but the pandemic hasn’t killed as many Americans as people Americans killed in Viet Nam hostilities
Am I the only one who caught this. The man "rents" geese to eradicate the weeds. Imagine that no Glyphosate. What the hell have we done to the place we all live.
Even the program intro was clever.
I see they really miss Bennett with all of the bad puns!!
I don't
I love the puns tonight lol.
Are geese in the duck family? Geese, Ducks, and Swans are close relatives and belong to the same family which explains the resemblance. Geese and ducks belong to the family Anatidae.
Geese are only distantly related to ducks, on my Mother's side. Actually there is some relationship, but that of second or third cousins, perhaps.
Joe Postove Oh, what a quack, Joe!
SuperWinterborn A Chiroquacker?
+Joe Postove
Geese are really swans who are not all they're quacked up to be.
Why can't we get Kellogg's OK cereal now? I used to drink and enjoy OK Cola back in the day.
By the time of Alan Sherman's appearance, I think everyone on my block was doing Frank Fontaine. Frank should have been a MG.
Frank was the mystery guest just a little while after this episode, on June 21, 1964.
Casey Abell Oh, wow! I've never seen that. Hope that comes up on the schedule soon! (Unless of course it's lost).
It is on here somewhere. He had 11 kids!
It's clear that conference got Allan a little on-edge where they threw out every name but his that he decided to just use his own voice so they could get it! Before he hit it big with his parody records he had been the co-creator and producer of "I've Got A Secret" from 1952 to 1958 when he was fired by Goodson for this spot (Allan Sherman's last episode as producer (IGaS 6/11/58, 2 of 2)) that bombed completely.
Several months after that, his successor, Gil Fates, would bring on Jonathan Cerf, Peter Gabel, and Kerry Kollmar (all sons of regular WML? panelists) as part of an "I've Got A Secret" show devoted to relatives of famous people. (No, the boys did NOT each walk away with a carton of Winston cigarettes.)
As fate would have it (or was it planned that way?), Allan Sherman would appear as Mystery Guest one more time on the original "What's My Line?," on 14 May 1967. One of the guest panelists that evening was none other than Mark Goodson, who had fired Sherman almost 9 years earlier.
Maybe it's just me, but I enjoyed that segment. Of course it's more nostalgic 60 years later.
Geese make good watch dogs
The Acorn Syndrome
Are you in New York...?
Obviously
It's the actor who plays the cat in the hat
Sounds like Johnny Olsen's "Live" was edited out. There seems to be no constancy about this, unless the Kine's are from different sources.
Joe Postove It's all a complete mystery to me, this whole thing. One thing is clear to me at least, if not to others: this editing had nothing to do with time zone shifting.for the west coast. But maybe this was done in the prints that were sent out to stations which aired the show in a different time slot entirely (a practice I've only just been informed of-- but thinking back, it makes sense, with all the times John used to end the program telling people in "other localities" to consult their local listings for the day and time of broadcast.)
What's My Line? Especially in markets with less than 3 stations and in small towns. It would not have been unusual practice at all to send a film (kine') to the station to play when they wanted to.
Joe Postove In that scenario, they would have had plenty of time to do the editing, so it seems more feasible. I can't imagine them scrambling to develop and print the kinescope and edit out one word in the 2.5 hours they had between the east and west coast broadcasts, as has been theorized.
What I still don't get, though, is why it wouldn't have sufficed to have a notice at the end of the show saying it was prerecorded.
Was Nat KIng Cole the "default" MG. I have heard his name bandied about several times when he was not there. He was a MG in the 50's right?
Joe Postove Yes, 1953 and 1961-- but what do you mean by "default"? It's not like they had him on standby in case of cancellations. . . he was a huge star.
What's My Line? - Nat King Cole (Dec 6, 1953)
What's My Line? - Nat King Cole; Joey Bishop [panel] (Mar 19, 1961)
Not that he was there Gary, c'mon, c'mon. I can see Nat King Cole waiting backstage for his chance to be on the show THAT NIGHT! "Maybe tonight Mr. Goodson, Huh, Huh?" :) What I meant was that on at least 2 or 3 occasions I have heard his name mentioned by the panel and they were usually way off the mark. "Do you think its Nat King Cole?
@@WhatsMyLine Huge is the word. John fought long and hard after Mr. Cole was seated in '61 to quiet the audience so they could get on with the show. Thanks for bringing this joy into our fractured lives, Mr. WML. One thing it seems all of us "addicts" can all agree on.
With a different hairdo the second guest Pam looks exactly like Drew Barrymore.
When did they start putting or stop putting a hyphen in Vietnam?
Sometime after they ceased referring it to as French Indochina?
Come back home Bennett. 😉
I would love to see Wierd Al on a modern one..
Geese don't Cotton to Cotton Plants!
Sería, quién se queda en mi silla?
Make mine manila, LOL!
I thought she said, "Make mine vanilla! "
Renting out geese to eat weeds.
I suppose that's called "Environmentally sustainable entrepreneurship" now?
*_RENTS GEESE TO EAT WEEDS_*
*_FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (JUST RETURNED FROM VIETNAM AND LAOS)_*
Occasionally, Steve Lawrence reminds me of Christopher Walken....
They are from very different tribes.
I've lived in Kennett, MO since 1986 & I've never of the Madden's Geese business.
This was 1964. They've probably substituted chemical weed killers.
@@slaytonp I should've said I've been around Kennett all of my life since I was born in 1960 & lived around Senath, MO. Kennett is our County Seat.
@@SteveHolsten Alas, the weeder geese probably never caught on. They were domestic white geese, not the wild ones that someone said were chased away by hired dogs, and they didn't fly. I had a few at one time to help with a little organic farming I was trying to do. They were great at picking out crab grass, but they also tended to eat everything else that wasn't a sturdy bush or a tree, so they were a bust in your strawberries and lettuce patch. It's a shame they didn't catch on with the cotton weeding, however. Mine were homebodies and better at alerting and guarding the place than any dog I ever had.
@@slaytonp Thanks for that good info!
Uhh... this was in 1964
When Tom Enright sees this he will be astounded by this episode and I mean it!!!! SMF
back when magazines printed actual news instead of *just* the latest gossip or worthless advice
AS's career declined (as do so many novelty artists do) after the mid 60's. He died young at 48 in 1973.
Late in life, Allan Sherman wrote a very un-funny book titled "The Rape Of The A*P*E" ("A*P*E" stood for "American Puritan Ethic). The book was published in 1973 (the year Sherman died) - by Playboy Press, which indicates what kind of book this turned out to be.
Certainly November 1963 took a certain toll on the entire comedy field, as it did on all of us in other ways.
Bennett not there to cheat on this episode...woulda got Sherman in 2 seconds
Allan Sherman's false voice sounds similar 2 an Angry Grandpa impression
I think he sounds like the Tasmanian Devil.
What exactly was Robert Q. Lewis's talent?
Giving juicy hobknockers.
Do the geese eat locoweed
People with pet geese actually keep them indoors (with diapers), not sure why this is out of question for John
Dorothy was the token gentile on the show
SO ??????????
Are you an antisemitic???????????????
I love Dorothy and all her quirks...but the hair????? Yikes.
Why did he flip to 50 with ms sanders , they hadn’t finished guessing…?
John would do this often when the panel was so close to the right answer that it would be splitting hairs to pursue it any further.
17:30 this guy lol
kissing dorothy and arlene like that would be considered a chauvinistic assault today
That would be called chauvinistic by liberal women and men. Feminine women like me would be flattered by that.
@@lynettepalecek3141 A woman can be both liberal and feminine.
@@kentetalman9008 I DISAGREE WITH YOU 100%!! 😡👎
:( can someone PLEASE tell what the point of this game is if John keep flipping the cards over? (you know he ruins the WHOLE show by doing that, right)?
The only point of WML is to entertain its audience sufficiently to sell advertising to sponsors. It accomplished that goal for many more years than average. Competition between the panel and guest or between individual panelists was the setting for the show but not the point
🙄
I don't have that much problem in the case of the first guest, when they had gotten that he did something with geese but would have been very unlikely to figure out what he did with them. It's ridiculous in the case of the second guest, where they absolutely could have gotten there with a little bit more time.
I don't even pay attention, nor do I care, about how many cards were flipped. I watch for the fun.
How many other people feel that Robert Q. Lewis is just creepy, weird and neurotic?
No. Not at all.
No, not at all. I think he's very friendly and also very hot. But someone agrees with you, that's why his name is never mentioned in the headline above.
You must be the one who is creepy, weird, and neurotic!
Dorothy looks like hell, as if she'd either had (a) a stroke or other health issue that paralyzed part of her face or -- and I'm serious here -- (b) some precursor of Botox. Anyone know what's up with her face? (Not talking about ordinary aging)
She was dealing with substance-abuse issues, primarily alcohol abuse. Her problems finally got to the point that she missed quite a number of WML? shows in early 1963 to undergo treatment for her problems. She had also suffered at least one (and perhaps several) ischemic strokes during WML? episodes in the early 1960s.
There were a couple of WML? episodes in January of 1964 in which she was clearly much more than "three sheets to the wind." But at least she seems to be clean and sober here.
tejaswoman she looks perfectly normal to me not sure what you are seeing
She's drunk or on barbiturates, as she was in many later year shows.
Was Robert Q Lewis really Stephen Colbert's father?
I seriously doubt he was anyone's father. (wink wink)
@kentetalman9008 Same comment applies to YOU !
I am so surprised that the voice Allan used was accepted there are real disabled people that sound like that I’m pc but if anyone had a Down syndrome child back then they would not think that’s funny! It’s one thing to be a minority and to be judged but disabled people can’t help that voice! I’m ok with the prank I’m just surprised there aren’t more sensitive people making comments because no matter wht the intention people do get their panties in a bunch just a observation I GET IT CANT WE HAVE ANY FUN YES WE CAN ! I’m just surprised there isn’t any backlash
He was imitating Frank Fontaine, a comedian who talks like that at the time. No one is insulting anyone. You can choose not to be offended and especially choose not to be offended for other people. If we can have fun then don't mention it, but since you mention it you don't want fun.
Not sure why you jumped to the conclusion that he _had_ to be making fun of the handicapped. I had not heard of Frank Fontaine previously, so I didn't recognize the impression per se, but I would have assumed he was doing an impression of somebody, particularly once they asked about Fontaine in a way that implied that might be his voice. A lisp, yes, I would assume to be mockery either of speech impediments or the effeminate unless otherwise informed, but this voice didn't come across to me at all as being a mockery of a disability.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Frank Fontaine was a very popular and recognizable comedian of that era. Sherman was obviously imitating Fontaine, with no reference to anyone's disability.
it's really freaking impressive that they went from ''please be a hooker or cheerleader, please be a hooker or cheerleader'' all the way to figuring out she works with stationary XD
it might be spelled stationery...?
I think Dorothy must have had a nose job
Robert Q. Lewis sitting in Bennett's chair, the ANCHOR chair, is like having Plastic Man sub for Superman. Doesn't work.
Don Mueller The "Q: man could hold Clark Kent's glasses!
francis did not know how to shut her mouth-- very rude
8:58 ol' timey racisim
Ol’ timey dumb-ass-ism