What's My Line? - Andre Kostelanetz (Mar 7, 1954) 

You have a gift for comedy... ---- I'm returning it in the morning. LOL

THIS is my ALL TIME favorite WML line-up; Dorothy Kilgallan, Steve Allen, Arlene Frances & Bennet Cerf…you can’t get any better than this! 😊

I very much liked the way Ms. Muselli approached the panel, extended her hand to prompt a handshake from each of them, and otherwise was nicely outgoing, not shy or timid, but friendly in her approach. Even if John Daly had to explain to her a couple of the humorous guesses by the panel, I think Ms. Muselli enjoyed herself. She was also ready to smile. The best sort of contestant in my view.

I think that was the longest fade out in the history of the show, with John Daly staring at the camera.

Mr. Kostelanetz bowed slightly to the women when he shook their hands- such a gentleman, and very European! He had a very kind and intelligent face.

My Mother had some of Andre's Albums I use to listen to when I was a child. Strangely I really liked them being that I was so young. Also this program was done years before I was born.

André Kostelanetz's arrangements of "light" classical music are well worth listening to.

Exploding cigars... that's my grandfather for you... LoL

The exploding cigar one was funny.

Many years ago, I saw the composer Arnold Franchetti introduce his friend, the composer Aaron Copland. Franchetti, who was completely bald, said that Copland "composes music for the longhair, the shorthair, and the no hair at all."

This episode featured the 35th foreign born MG and the 5th known regular guest from a foreign country. “Good night boys” was said by Steve for the 18th time and by Arlene for the 9th time. 21:57 is an example of Steve’s ready wit that I enjoyed much more than the gambits.

Bennett Cerf alluded to a fine baseball player with the same last name as the second challenger. Johnny Kling was one of the best catchers in the major leagues in the early years of the 20th century. Brought up to the Chicago NL team at the end of the 1900 season, he began to see regular playing time the following year. He was the starting backstop for the Cubs in three straight World Series in 1906-08, the last two of them victories over the Detroit Tigers in 5 games (the 1908 victory being the Cubs last World Championship until 2016). He shared the catching duties with another fine catcher of the dead ball era of baseball, Jimmy Archer, in the Cubs 1910 World Series defeat at the hands of Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's. Although not quite good enough to be elected to the Hall of Fame, the diminutive Kling (5'9½", 160 lbs.) was the premier defensive catcher of his era. His strong throwing limited the efforts of the great Ty Cobb to only two steals out of four attempts during the ten games of the 1907 and 1908 World Series. (Cobb averaged nearly a steal every other game at that time in his career.) He went from the Cubs to the Boston Braves in the middle of the 1911 season, becoming their player-manager for one season in 1912. He hit .317 that year in part-time action but his managerial efforts weren't as good as the Braves finished dead last in the National League. He spent his final year in the big leagues in Cincinnati, again in part-time action, hitting .273 (one point higher than his big league career average). One of the first Jewish major league stars, Johnny Kling was also a champion billiards player during his baseball career and he invested $50,000 in a grand billiards emporium in his native Kansas City following the 1908 World Series. His related absence from the Cubs in the early part of the 1909 season may have cost his team the pennant when they finished second to the Pirates. Had they finished first that year, the Cubs would have had an NL record five straight pennants from 1906-10. He also owned the minor league baseball team in KC from 1933-37, and he eliminated segregated seating at the team's home ballpark while he was owner. The challenger of the same last name was from a small town in Pennsylvania, far from Kansas City.

At 18:00, we’ve got a fun, classic example of John Daly’s long-winded explanations. The conference and John’s wordy explanation take a full minute! :D

Andre Kostelanetz ranks along with Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Mantovani and George Melachrino as one of the all-time greats of easy-listening music. (Incidentally, Andre, Ray & Percy all recorded for then-CBS subsidiary Columbia Records.)

This is a hilarious episode! I have never laughed out loud more!

Andre Kostelanetz was born Abram Naumovich Kostelyanetz in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

WMLs sponsors come and go but the ad for Random House is a fixture.

Hal Block would have had a heart attack seeing the first contestant. Can you imagine his reaction!!

The cigar guy brought back an incident/story that I remember. I worked with a guy who had a very heavy german accent, was also an alcoholic. So he was usually loaded, so to speak. I was complicit in getting his cigars loaded with cigarette loads. He lit one up and of course it exploded and he said, "Who put zee bombs in my cigars"? Have to think about that heavy accent! His father worked there and saw what happened and cracked up! We never got caught. :) What great fun those were!

That French woman was beautiful. I thought John Charles Daly would flip all the cards, but I guess it was too early in the show’s history for him to feel comfortable doing that.

Today's RU-vid Rerun for 1/19/16-- NOTE: There are occasional minor a/v dropouts in this video. I haven't watched this one for a long time, but as I recall, the dropouts aren't too disruptive in this one. And you really don't want to miss the special announcement in the newly posted video here (a lost episode has been found!): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JCDmbcTJYgE.html ----------------------------- Join our Facebook group for WML-- great discussions, photos, etc, and great people! facebook.com/groups/728471287199862/ Please click here to subscribe to the WML channel if you haven't already-- you'll find the complete CBS series already posted, and you'll be able to follow along the discussions on the weekday "rerun" videos: ru-vid.com/show-UChPE75Fvvl1HmdAsO7Nzb8w

I enjoyed Mrs. Muselli's immediate and confident replies to the panelists' questions. The majority of contestants seem to either not understand if they should respond yes or no, or they require encouragement from Mr. Daly prior to answering. That being said, it's easy for me to be a "Monday morning quarterback" many decades after these men and women faced live audiences, cameras aimed at them, panelists and Mr. Daly. I'm sure it was nerve-racking for them.

Well, how many famous conductors do they know? You'd think when they heard conductor, they'd start naming off some names.

Good to see Arlene's no longer auditioning for the role as a pirate. Did I NOT hear any of the usual wolf whistles for that beautiful first contestant?

Envying the first guest's dress!

Just one more thing...I never saw an exploding cigar in the UK but there was a thing sold in joke shops to make cigarettes burn wildly and with a horrible smell. The thing was like a pencil lead that you stuck into the tobacco at the lighting end of the cigarette. If you pushed it well in, you could delay the surprise and give yourself the alibi of being somewhere else when the cigarette began to fizzle and stink. As a boy I did that to one of my dad's Benson and Hedges cigarettes and he lit it at a business lunch. He wrote a letter of complaint to Benson and Hedges because I was too cowardly to say what I'd done - I thought the joke would happen at home. Luckily he had dumped the smelly cigarette, so the evidence against me had gone and I never did confess.

I have NEVER heard Steve Allen Laugh like that (!) 😆😂🤣😂😂😂

Now, this is where I get a bit frusterated with the original WML. Here's we have someone with exploding cigars and he brought some with him and no demonstration. The Syndicated edition was excellent in having people demonstrate their line. Should have this occured 20 years later, Soupy and Arlene would have had exploding cigars in their mouths. What a scream to see Dottie with a cigar!

Steve Allen was the best. ❤

Kostelanetz said that he didn't write for motion pictures, but he did. He probably just forgot.

I happen to like Bennett Cerf very much and I'm glad he's back as of this episode. But considering that his substitute on the panel the previous week was Wally Cox, I'm am really glad to see Bennett again! All the two of them had in common as panelists was a very similar style of eyeglasses.

Exploding cigars.......that's original.

I didn't know Andre K. Will have to google him. Enjoyed his segment though.

Hey, WML, just a heads-up that this video has some minor AV dropouts. I know you've asked for people to let you know, so you can put it in the description. :)

What a refreshing change from Wally Cox the previous episode

I'm puzzled by the 2nd contestant who made exploding cigars. There was a question 'Was it ever alive?' and he answered No, but surely his cigars had tobacco in them at least as a disguise for the exploding device? Tobacco is a leaf that grows and is therefore alive. Perhaps the trick cigar was made from paper like a firework but dyed to look like tobacco. We will never know because John Daly ushered him offstage before he could show his products.

🤣 "How did I mean it?"

I was wondering about Charles Kling being a baseball player like Bennett Cerf mentioning the Cubs catcher during the dead ball era Johnny Kling.

Andre Kostelanetz was handsome!

So I wonder why Dorothy didn't get the cigar maker on the (very) first go around,?... 😐😐😐🤔😐😐🤔😐

Yaay, Bennett is back

Interesting how Alan Jay Lerners wikipedia does not mention any of the times he was married and divorced; including the fact of Miss, Micheline Mu Selli [first contestant] been his fourth wife. @t

Mrs. Muselli's second marriage was to Alan Jay Lerner (the lyricist); they evidently brought out the worst in each other, and divorced in 1965. She was the youngest French advocat/lawyer ever, at age 20, and practiced during WWII. She apparently died in 2012, but I can't find an obituary, which may be because I'm looking under the wrong name; she's got various variations on Micheline Musseli Pozzo di Borgo going on. I can't, sadly, find anything on Mr. Kling.

The panel seems to be really rude to the second contestant and I know they don't mean it. Because he IS a rather plain looking fella, they think he MUST be either coal miner, professional dance instructor, dirt farmer (not just a farmer but a DIRT one) or the son of a ballplayer. I wish he were a neurosurgeon. Show them, alright.

The exploding cigars had TNT in them?! Yikes!

I didn't get that Bennet's joke about Debora Kerr. 1:38 Can anybody please explain?

They always start with Steve Allen if they think the product is amusing or if it would get laughs. I've always wondered if the whole show was scripted or fixed right from the beginning.

What shame that Bennett's innocent fawning over the delightfully beautiful first contestant in 1954 would be corrupted into an almost criminal act by some in 2020.

Kinda frustrating how the editor chopped pieces out of the videos. Censored? Think so....

Would fifty dollars buy dinner for four at a top restaurant in Manhattan in 1954? Or were the top joints even then over the top?

CRIMINAL LAWYER MAKES EXPLODING CIGARS

Thank Heaven's Bennet is back. Hopefully Wayne Cox won't be on again

They should have keep victor borge and wally cox and steve allan because they was funny and fired that boring stuffed shirt bennett cerf and also keep arlene and dorothy at least they was not boring

too many dropouts...

No disrespect intended to Steve Allen, but what am I looking at on top of his head? Maybe it's an affliction of late-night talk hosts. Both Conan and Letterman have had some bad hair days.