Brilliant edition! Who can ever forget Gordon MacRae singing ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’ from the wonderfully enjoyable OKLAHOMA, the greatest picture of 1955, robbed of the Best Picture Oscar when the award incredulously went to ‘Marty’ a film seldom seen or remembered. One of several monumental blunders by the Academy.
@@shirleyrombough8173 I can't stop watching them. I don't know why. There were so many stars that I've seen in picture that I'm seeing talking for the first time. And everyone's so well-mannered, yet very funny! It's very refreshing.
I'am so happy you are posting these shows in order, I' m up to Oct. 19th 1958 and hope that you end up posting all you can get your hands on. I' m disabled and in a wheel chair full time and the winter months I'm also a shut in and all I have is You- tube and Face Book, I don't watch much TV. And again thank you for all of your effort. Robert.
My pleasure, Robert. Glad you're enjoying the shows. Some folks don't seem to appreciate that it takes a fair amount of work to put the shows in some kind of order. RU-vid doesn't make this easy at all!
What's My Line? -- And as I've said before, I really enjoy the playlists that make it so easy to watch the shows in chronological order. In fact, I use the playlists every day and will copy and paste the link to the next show (when I'm done for the day) into my "bookmark" for WML so I can easily find my way back to the playlist at just the right spot. Once again, I commend your excellent efforts and thank you for them.
These people were probably not “very rich” but were very hard working relying on their heavily taxed earned income to support a suburban house and pied-a-terre. Remember, each has a demanding full time vocation and we are watching just one of their part time jobs. Over the years the cast has respected all contestants except those who were obese or physically different, sophomoric but apparently part of the zeitgeist.
I love these shows -all very special entertainers/panelists. Bennet Cerf had such an unassuming, kind, caring, paternal aura - I particularly enjoy his sweet personality.
What a happy episode! I'm glad John let the panel take the time to guess the dice-dotter. Their approach was slow but sure. And the time was balanced by Bennett quickly guessing the airplane traffic cop, based on his own experience. Even for a widely traveling lecturer, what are the odds that his driver would have been caught by the same cop? That left plenty of time for Gordon MacRae to be charming as the mystery guest.
+Neil Midkiff I would say the odds were 100%. I can imagine Bennett talking about the experience when he got back and the WML staff tracking down the flying traffic cop to bring him on the show. It was a great idea for a profession as it was a fairly novel one at the time. And Bennett would not have actually seen the flying cop. The only mistake was in the cop giving his location.
The contestants are always asked where they are from, and the panelists have to deduce if that location has anything to do with their line. And perhaps the cop wasn't from Hammond, but might have been directed to give that as a response because that "fed" Bennet's "Dirty trick!" comment based on the incident. The successful shows included acts of intellect (arriving at dice and dots) and outright amusement, and this episode was no exception.
He was only going through Hammond, not to there, so they thought they could slip it by. Bennett could easily smell rats, and they had one there. At least they also knew Bennett could put in a hilarious reaction, so why not get the laugh and give the man 50 bucks?
I agree with Lois. WML staff went out to Indiana and got THAT traffic cop to be on the show after Bennett got his ticket. The interstate freeways were in the process of being built at this time, and those would allow 73 mph until, that is, the 1970s oil embargo when federal speed limits were reduced to 55! Can you imagine driving from Chicago to LA doing 55 the whole way?
Gordon MacRae was not the only performer in his family. His wife, Sheila MacRae was a noted actress at the time of this show. One of their daughters, Meredith MacRae, was also an actress, best known as Billie Jo on the TV series Petticoat Junction. Another daughter, Heather MacRae, was also a busy actress.
The flying traffic cop was a fascinating idea which I had never heard of. Today it could be done by an unmanned drone relaying video footage to a police car on the road and stationed to intercept the speeding driver with proof of the offence. Here in the UK speed cameras have to be visible - they are painted yellow - but I assume that in the USA in 1958 the flying traffic cop could take people like Bennett Cerf by total surprise.
In the US, the 6th amendment requires there must be an accuser to cross-examine, so there has to be proper review of the footage. This includes speed and red light cameras. In addition, there must be public announcement that this sort of thing may be happening, otherwise you get into the realm of illegal searches (4th amendment).
In reference to the lady who paints dots on dice, Faye Emerson asked would be used in any particular part of the home, and Daley said “you can’t answer that question yes or no.” But later on Arlene asks if it could be used in one part of the home rather than another, and the question was allowed.
John Daly has done that a few times in other episodes in reply to that specific question. Of course Miss Emerson's question can be answered yes or no! I wonder if John gets a little confused sometimes. It's been known to happen in regard to other questions and often he catches himself and allows the panelist to continue.
I'm watching these like crazy and forgetting to comment! Really REALLY appreciate your posting these. I'm young and a fanatic for film Noir so that's what brought me here because some of the stars were linked to these videos. Now I realize that "ALL" of the great ones are here and again thanks so much!!!
The panel found out that Gordon sang pretty early in the questioning but no really asked anything that would help reveal the kind of music he sang. There were only so many big male stars in Broadway musical theatre then , and he was probably the biggest.
I would have to say that dice were very useful to me in the home, seeing as how my friend and I used them a lot to play Yahtzee. Though, back then, they may not have had Yahtzee yet. I don’t know when the game was invented, but there are, and probably were back then, a lot of games that have dice in them, so I believe they are useful.
john did a disservice on the first profession. he threw out a lot of red herrings that misrepresented. dice can be used in board games at home by men and women.
Larry Teren True. Sometimes he does go overboard in explaining things or trying to clarify and at times it either confuses things further or gives too much of a hint, but in general I think he did a great job with the show, and I usually find even his most overblown explanations rather endearing. As he mentions after they've guessed correctly, he probably let the questioning for this contestant go on much too long, but it sure turned out to be an entertaining segment!
I can find a Cora Jean Bronkema being baptised (in Chicago in 1941). That'd make her like, 17 here, in her dice painting period, but she is fairly young... So maybe that's her. I can't find any direct links to her being the Cora Bronkema who married a gent from Michigan in 1966. I really quite hope it was her, because the gent's name was Henry Dice. So, y'know.
The Ms. Bronkema you found from 1941 is the one in this video, but she married a gent from Chicago instead of Mr. Dice. Despite missing out on an incredibly ironic surname, things worked out alright for her in the end. At the age of 76, my grandmother's smirk still hasn't aged a day since she was 17.
+Jen Sliwa Always love it when someone who was on the show or one of their relatives comments to give an update or further background on their life. I enjoyed your grandmother's appearance. She was a delightful guest. I hope she enjoyed the experience of coming to NYC and being on WML. But who would have thought that there would be two different people named Cora Bronkema!
@@jennifersliwa Hi! Glad to hear from you, even if I am belated in saying so. I am very glad to know things worked out for her, and that she's had a good life.
maremacd Someone with a 1957 Indiana road map posted in another forum that the speed limit on state highways was 65 mph then. I'll bet it was more strictly enforced, though, than today's speed limits are in California. Here, sometimes driving at the speed limit is dangerously slow because 99% of the drivers are way over the speed limit. My earliest driving was in the 1970s in Missouri, and though I never got a speeding ticket, my recollection is that the enforcement was fairly tight, without much leeway.
Dice are quite useful as a product...if you played games. That question would have gotten a qualified yes from me....maybe not for everyone..but for gamblers..it would be a useful product.
Ryan Schroer -- Dice are very useful even for children or adults who play board games of various types at home where gambling is not involved. Monopoly, Clue, Careers, Parcheesi, Mouse Trap, etc., all require dice to determine how many steps you get for moving your token around the board. Then there are perfectly innocent games like Yahtzee, where the game provides five dice and a dice cup, plus scoring pads to keep track of the various "hands" you roll for points. I grew up playing tons of games like that and while some board games had numbered spinners with a pointer, most used dice.
ToddSF 94109 John Daly was waaay off his game with the first contestant. FE: "Would it be used in any particular part of the home?" JCD: "Now, that can't be answered 'yes' or 'no'." I surely don't see why it couldn't. Then he answers 'no' to Faye's question about its being a useful product, only to be caught on a following question by Arlene about its being decorative such that, realizing something not useful would have to be decorative, he has to answer 'yes'. Dice decorative? John's time management was also less skillful than usual. He let the first contestant take over half the show's time (14:22 out of 25:56), though he at least made the comment afterward that he should have cut the panel off a couple of minutes earlier. As often as JCD handled the game superbly, he did have a rare off day too. Still, I can't think of anyone I'd rather see in that chair than John Daly (as Bennett Cerf and Clifton Fadiman have demonstrated recently); certainly not Wally Bruner or Larry Blyden. Or was it Wally Blyden and Larry Bruner? lol
Dice are also used in math games in elementary school classrooms in the U.S. In fact, we teachers consider them indispensable. Some creative teachers, back in the 1950's probably also had the kids use them. Ditto for dominoes.
Having gone to school from 1957 to 1974 (Kindergarten through college) and math being one of my favorite subjects, I don't remember using dice in math class (from basic arithmetic to advanced calculus). Maybe teachers were more basic back then and less creative. Possible schoolroom use notwithstanding, dice are generally used in games (gambling and non-gambling). While they may be necessary to the game, the game is not necessary to life the way food, clothing, shelter, financial matters, law enforcement, etc. are necessary and therefore useful. Under the terms of reference that WML generally used, dice would not be considered a useful product, even though they weren't particularly decorative (and I considered that answer a stretch, unless they were thinking of the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror of a car. Usually Arlene or Dorothy would contrast useful with luxury rather than with decorative.
We know she definitely messed up, but to be a stickler, there are dice of various sides used in role-playing games. Four-sided dice (d4) are also known as tetrahedron or "pyramid" dice and apparently go back millennia.
He always tells them that one question can be answered yes or no and it can be I watched one yesterday that he told Arlene Francis the same thing. He just doesn’t like the question it’s not that it can’t be answered yes or no. The other thing I wanted to say is even at that time dice came and games like Monopoly and I don’t know many other games they didn’t just have to be used for gambling.
Zac M. You're right. In 1958, all games that used dice used the six-sided kind numbered from 1 to 6 by impressed dots. And a lot of games used dice back then and still do.
ZoneFighter1 I'm having a hard time imagining (imaging?) a 3 sided die or a 100 sided die (wouldn't that be effectively a sphere for rolling it?). I'm not sure about the 10 sided die either, but maybe there is one, although I do recall a 20 sided die that was used to generate base 10 numbers (every numeral was on it twice). I guess as long as you didn't stick to regular polyhedra, you could have any number you want. Perhaps a 3 - sided die was a triangular prism that only "rolled" along one axis? ******* I just googled it. There IS a 10 sided die, though it's not a regular polyhedron.
My brother-in-law looks a lot like Gordon MacRae, a whole lot 🥰‼️ He and my husband look totally different from each other. Like my sister and I, they don’t look like siblings at all. But my brother-in-law’s son looks like my husband.
@@laurahoward5426 In researching the only Copacabana in New York that I could find was the famous one located at 625 W 51st St, New York, NY, where Nat King Cole was going to appear, according to Gordon Macrae. Nothing in Brooklyn in 1958.
If anyone can buy McRae daughter's autobiography and you can just feel her pain I. Dealing with father's alcoholism it is heartbreaking and painful for a young child to watch.
Dorothy played the game well, even if she was a little too competitive rather than entertaining. But this episode shows that the show could be just as good without her with the right replacement panelists and good guests.
![What's My Line? - Gordon MacRae; Martin Gabel [panel]; Faye Emerson [panel] (Oct 19, 1958)](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
