What's My Line? - Abe Burrows; Joey Bishop [panel] (May 6, 1962) 

I really laughed at that one. Dorothy always seemed more vulnerable than most of the regular panel to confusion over some of John Daly's "clarification/interpretations", whatever you call them but that was one of the best ever - and the poor girl did it to herself no less!

John Daly was absolutely correct. Many have been the times that I have unfolded sheets that were previously folded so I could make a bed that had been stripped of its dirty linen. +Craig Willis You are correct with the alternative that Dorothy should have used.

I caught that right away and knew Dorothy was misleading herself. She might've said "ununfoldable" instead, but of course that's not a word.

He was also a guest panelist a few times: - Episode dated 18 April 1965 (1965) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode dated 19 August 1962 (1962) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode dated 6 May 1962 (1962) ... Himself - Mystery Guest - Episode dated 17 December 1961 (1961) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode dated 16 July 1961 (1961) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode dated 21 May 1961 (1961) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode #4.4 (1952) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode dated 10 June 1951 (1951) ... Himself - Guest Panelist - Episode dated 26 April 1950 (1950) ... Himself - Mystery Guest

Johan Bengtsson - I think it was just John and the formal tone cultivated by "What's My Line?". On other game and talk shows, first (or given) names were used in most cases. Unless it was a very important or very old person.

Television before the downfall of civilization.

I realize this is an old post, but both of the responses you received were spot on!

+amberola 1b Refer to the notes to this episode that there were two sources combined by Gary (+What's My Line?) to create this video, and that there were problems with the sound quality of one of the sources. That suggests that the sound problems that were noticeable at times were not in the original kinescope but in a subsequent dubbing to create one of the sources.

It sounds to me as if one of the microphones, perhaps John's, wasn't working for a while, and the engineers had to turn up the gain on another mic, perhaps the contestant's, to pick his voice up. This would explain the echo effect and the beginnings of feedback, because the extra gain would make that mic more sensitive than usual to the sound emitted by the stage monitor speakers.

@@loissimmons6558 What dubbing method did they use, holding a high-powered microphone up to a speaker? Whatever they did, they ignored science.

@@michaelclark6223 I wouldn't know. My only knowledge of this is from Gary's notes to the episode.

It seemed as if everyone on the panel was a little testy this episode, maybe that's why.

Rodgers and Bennett Cerf were lifelong friends, co-member of the class of 1919.

I totally agree about Richard Rodgers. And Hammerstein was a genius.

+Joe Postove Horse races vary in length and generally do not end at the same place as the starting line. Plus the ultimate goal is to transport the jockey and the horse into the winner's circle of a major race, located off of the track completely.

I agree. In this context, one should not be referring to a horse race as transportation. If I was a cop walking a foot patrol I would not say that I was 'in' transportation, nor if I were a circus clown riding a unicycle.

***** That must account for the facetious tone of Joey's response to John's "nice to have you back" comment and the ensuing laughter (2:38 - 2:45).

Vahan Nisanian n

+Joe Postove Very good! There are three key entities with life insurance policies and you correctly noted two of the three: the named insured and the beneficiary. (The third key entity is the owner of the policy.) Furthermore, the named insured and the beneficiary are usually different entities. The closest would be that the named insured's estate would be the beneficiary. Somehow I doubt that a deceased chicken leaves behind an estate in any jurisdiction of the United States. So you have just gotten one question correct on the NY State Life & Health Insurance Agent exam. :-)

John deserved that good basting you gave him.

@@loissimmons6558 Then I am now competent? Where's my Nobel Prize?

@@MrJoeybabe25 If they gave out a Nobel Prize for every person who got at least one question right on the NY State Life & Health Insurance Agent exam, there would be millions of them around and I'd have a couple of them, seeing I passed the exam to get my license and passed it again at least once to renew the license. (I let it expire since then.) But I will give you a round of applause from one hand clapping.

@@loissimmons6558 💗💗💗💗💗🤣🤣🤣🤣�

However, no one nose for sure...

Now this is a new one on me, that somebody made note of the fact that another person had clean ears. The last time I was concerned with that was when my daughter, now 39 years old, was a little kid; and that is one of the things the parents do check as part of the child's hygiene. But I guess Joey Bishop was pretty good at doing his own ears, maybe because he learned how to do it well from his own parents.

Yes I noticed that too but I thought I misheard what Joey said. 15:28

+Johan Bengtssonjioijjjkjjhhhjjjmm

Gioquinte Blalock Brilliant addition to the conversation. Thank you!

+Joe Postove Would that make her June Poplar Black? I was thinking, especially since she was from Missouri, that she was more likely to be June Poplar Bluff.

At times, it's more than a little.

Joe Postove she should have said "non-foldable"

Unfoldable means it can't be folded. I think she was right.

Me too. Toothpaste and brushes.

My guess was that John almost stumbled and said "Mr. Burrows" and quickly corrected himself. But it may have been enough of a clue that Joey Bishop immediately guessed Abe Burrows after that exchange.

@@loissimmons6558 I think John stumbled there, too. However, Burrows was a multi-faceted talent who wrote plays and jokes, directed, and wrote songs. So, he was probably the only winner of a Tony the previous week who could answer the question that made Bennett think he was Richard Rodgers due to composing. Though, of course, not in the same class as Rodgers, but then who is. I think that gave it away to Bishop once it was determined he wasn't Bennett's school chum, Rodgers. Didn't he and Bennett go to PS#whatever in Manhattan together as kids?

Joe Postove Thank you, Bennett Cerf! ;)

Dorothy did correct him. I think he limited animals to mammals.

Thanks-- I did reedit this one, along with all of the older episodes I've ever posted from epaddon, to remove stray bits of GSN commercials. Since his recordings were done on VHS, there were always stray bits of material to remove. Most of the shows from now on are *very* tightly edited, sometimes by me, sometimes not. There are a bunch of shows coming up where I've added back in the closing credits from older rerun copies pre-GSN-credit-crunching. But as always, I can't do any of this sort of thing if I don't have people providing the material to me!

What's My Line? Good job, pal!

that's nice

(if you don't like Joey Bishop, I guess you'll be missing ALOT of episodes)

Don't be so silly.

To be honest, Dorothy often annoys me. But I try to be appreciative of her good qualities. The "Is it unfoldable?" is a good example of an annoying moment. She apparently is guessing that the product is rigid so instead of asking "Is it rigid?" she asks "Is it unfoldable?". Very awkward and confusing. She would have gotten a "no" if she'd asked if it was rigid or if it was unfoldable (taking "unfoldable" in the way she later says she meant it). Instead she got a "yes" because John took it as "yes it can be unfolded after it had been folded" which to me is a straight forward correct answer. But Dorothy complains when it was her use of an awkward, confusing word that caused the whole thing. I'm totally with John.

Ernie Kovacs on WML as a panelist was the first to ask "Is it foldable?" When I first heard that, I thought it was funny and that he meant it to be funny and I think there was a laugh from the audience. So I just thought it was a joke. But later I decided that it was a useful question to narrow it down. In later shows, even years later, I noticed Arlene and Dorothy using the same question and they were not trying to be funny. But "unfoldable" is confusing.

49yt David Von Pein If Dorothy had said, "Am I correct in assuming that this is something which cannot be folded?" (not all that simple a sentence, but typical Dorothy phrasing and a whole lot clearer), the whole confusion about the nature of the product would not have occurred. I agree that John's interpretation of the word "unfoldable" was technically correct, but I also agree with David Von Pein that he knew what she meant from the beginning and was just having some fun with her. Still, in that case, he should have made the clarification about what he meant as soon as Dorothy qualified her question by using the word "rigid" instead of waiting until he had further confused Arlene and the other panelists. This episode is, to me, an example of how important the audience reactions were to the show. If the audience had laughed at John's answer to the "unfoldable" question, I think Dorothy might have caught on right away that there was something fishy about John's interpretation of her question and sought to clarify sooner. But I got the impression (and I could be wrong) that the audience felt uncomfortable with John's decision and didn't think it was funny, so they didn't laugh, and for me, as a "home viewer," the whole segment fell flat and was not very entertaining. I still think the whole thing may have affected the audience's reactions to the rest of the show as well. I kept hoping the subsequent games would be more fun, but in this episode I found each game to be somewhat disappointing and uncomfortable, and I think the lack of audible audience appreciation contributed to that feeling. I had also always given Ernie Kovacs credit as the originator of the "can it be folded?" question, but I think this show predates that. In a recent discussion in the comments section of another video, What's My Line? also suggested that Ernie was being deliberately funny by asking that, but I always thought it was a perfectly valid question.

I definitely sensed something "off" about the rapport between the panel and JCD on this episode. John is uncharacteristically tongue-tied when he attempts to talk about the second contestant's scuba diving title, there are a lot of awkward exchanges between he, Dorothy, and Joey, and he seems genuinely miffed by Bennett's good humored dig during the sign off.

Here's his daughter doing her circus act: www.circopedia.org/La_Toria_Video_(c.1965) She used the last name of Unus, & did an acrobatic act in the circus using a rope suspended from the ceiling & implemented metal hoops. She was very good. This is in color, as an added bonus.

Or as Jo Anne Worley might have asked Joey, "Is that a chicken joke?"

hahaha

Chickens are boids in the Bronx accent

Thanks for the link. Incredible. I assume no one has since replicated his feats.

Yes. It was Steve Allen's thing to ask back when he was a regular, and has been joked about many times along the way. (I'm watching these in order.)

Rikard Peterson You have quite a long way to go, Rikard. :)

What's My Line? Yes, but I have no rush. I'm not watching WML every day, as I don't want to risk getting bored of it. I love that you have them ordered neatly by date.

Rikard Peterson [whispers:] Don't tell anyone. . . but I get bored with WML eventually if I watch too much of it, too. But all it takes to address that is a few days of a break. :)

What's My Line? Take one a day, Gary and call me in the morning. Dr. Postove

I've not heard feedback myself for most of the shows. I've gone from 1950 to 62 so far.

They made toothbrushes and I think denture stuff.

Sell me a prize turkey

I agree about Dorothy's question. He knew what she meant. It's a word I or many others I know would probably use.

I'm sure Joey just had to cough and that was his reflex. And that he didn't think about the fact that he then shook hands with Abe. Just one of those things that happens.

That was rude. Joey should have coughed into his left hand, knowing he was going to shake hands in a second. Gee Willikers!

Joe Postove I think he did it deliberately.

Johan Bengtsson I'm with 49yt on this one.

Was there any reports of bad blood between the two? Gee wiz, both were Jewish fellas'!

Please remove this complete and utter troll from the comments section. Unfortunately today's awful society is full of pathetic losers intent on ruining other people's enjoyment of social media.