What's My Line? - Jack Benny (Feb 8, 1953) 

Steve Allen says some of funniest things and can think of funny comebacks so quick.

Rochester: Mr. Benny? Your dentist and your barber called. Jack: Oh, what did they say? Rochester: They left the same message - you can pick 'em up tomorrow!

Its so nice seeing this. People were so civilized and polite with one another. There was a simple eloquence and respect for one another that seems to be lacking today.

Two words to describe Jack Benny - simply wonderful.

Did you catch that Dorothy paid Jack Benny out of her purse as he left! One of the best moments of WML!

Dorothy Kilgallen was such a pro.

Daly was an amazing show host... intelligent, witty, charming and good natured.

I love Jack Benny's eyes. The smile lines show he is a happy person.

Jack Benny had me rolling on the floor. I have watched this episode four times 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I love mr. Daly!! He makes me laugh watching him enjoy himself!

I had the unique honor of seeing Jack Benny perform live.

Jack Benny was wonderful, Steve Allen was hilarious and Dorothy Kilgallen was so smart.

I miss Bennett Cerf when he doesn’t appear on the panel. This show aired the year I was born! Love Jack Benny.♥️

Jack Benny. .such a wonderfully distinctive voice.

Dorothy Kilgallen just amazes me. She was so sharp, intelligent and perceptive. I can count the number of these shows where she zeros in on the answer like a hawk on rabbit.

possible the most beloved comedian of all time. Too bad they ran out o time and couldn't interview him...

It's a crying shame they didn't get him on as a MG when Fred Allen was on the panel. That could have been electric.

Jack Benny had the best comedy show on radio. If you haven't heard it you should be able to find it on the internet.

My addiction to WML is so serious, I may need an intervention!

Jack Benny, one of the greats! I love these shows. They are like time capsules to the past. So entertaining!

The inimitable Jack Benny...like so many millions of others, Oh how I love that man!

Do I get paid for tonight? And Dorothy pulls out her purse!

Jack had some of the best reactions. “WELL!” 😆

“Do I get paid for tonight?” 😂😂😂

If you all want a good read, get the book Jack Benny's daughter wrote about him and growing up in Beverly Hills. She really loved him.

The greatest comedian of all time. Wether it's standup or situation or sit com, Jack Benny did it all. A genius that all comedians use as the 'gold standard' of their art.

Jack Benny may be the most beloved entertainer in history. A poll gave him a 97% approval rating. Jack responded, “what did I do to the other 3%?”

Just good clean fun.....And still fun today!!

I love that Dorothy just paid Jack Benny!

I love Jack Benny, he is great on this

Great stuff. Love the show and Jack Benny is wonderful.

John Daly had a nice smile.

Dorothy Kilgallen paid JB a quarter lol

It’s so refreshing to see cursive writing, suits, dresses, bow ties, politeness, and extraordinary vocabulary that we are sorely lacking today. I love watching this show!

From 23:20 - Oh my gosh. Hysterical. It’s clear that John Daly couldn’t hold it together at all. He was trying but just couldn’t.

Oh my word, my mom was two yrs old then. Love these episodes! Thank you

Yay for Jack Benny!

So cool to watch these. Thank you.

Back when even the biggest stars were humble and appreciative of their status.

I throyghly enjoyed his humor clean fun there will never be anyone like him again.

I love watching the shows that aired before I was born. Thank you for posting them.

I wonder what was funny at 25:26 when Jack Benny was leaving? You see Dorothy digging in her purse as Jack approaches, and then laughter.

Loved Jack Benny!

This was exactly 49 years before I was born.

I also love the regular guests-they really buck assumptions, which is the point. I would’ve never guessed jazz drummer from a woman who looks like Marie Callender.

I loved that Dorothy gave Mr Benny money. He was. a national treasure

Leila Dell Miller is 91 in 2015, so she must have been 29 or 30 on this show. An evangelist with a mink ... Glory be!.

My friends might be getting a little tired of me telling them to watch these old programs. Oh well.

Mystery guest: Jack Benny: If they had focused on which instrument he played, they would have identified him almost immediately.

Oh, it’s too bad Fred Allan wasn’t on the panel for this one!

19:50 Daly's reaction to "Do you play a musical instrument?" 😂

I adore Jack Benny.

Dorothy Kilgallen is the bomb!

It's too bad that Moe Howard never appeared on this show.

I Love Jack!!!

Particular interesting show, the day before I was born

Dorothy gave Jack a COIN as he was leaving.

I love Steve Allen too.

I just realized that Mr. Benny signs his name the same way I would. We have very similar hand writting.

Fantastic show

I love these earlier episodes.

Mildred, that's a name that's gone extinct.

Love you , JACK, what a great man xxxxxxxxxxxx RIP x PS.. JACK APPEARS @ 17:03 :)

Jack Benny was awesome.

I never did look Miss Miller up, the first time I watched, because other folks had done some sleuthing already. But it occurs to me, I don't actually know what denomination she was. So, she was famous in her own circles (niche famous, as I keep saying), and is of the Church of the Nazarene, which as I understand it, isn't actually Baptist (though it does baptise), but is descended from Methodism. Her sister Nettie basically got her into evangelism. They both graduated from the still-extant Trevecca Nararene University in Nashville. (So did their brother Jack. But not the older sister, Alice.) Leila Dell became known as The Flying Evangelist, since she went anywhere and everywhere, Hawaii included. Did this through the 70s, at least; died in 2002.

Mary Tyler Moore said once Jack Benny told her to let everybody else get the laughs...it's your name they will remember. No self importance. Neither minded being the brunt of a joke.

25:26 - We'll probably never know what evoked that big laugh while Benny was off-camera.

Steve Allen asking about trouble with hair? Now that’s a laugh.

It is a measure of how popular Arthur Godfrey was in 1953 that when a star as popular as Jack Benny signed in, at 17:25, Hal Block thought that based on the audience reaction that Godfrey was the MG. This is why Arlene starts off the questioning by saying she does not think Godfrey is the MG. Benny stayed popular over the years but Godfrey didn't.

Did Dorothy actually give Benny some money?!

7:15 Dorothy Kilgallen was the best, by far. Incredible.

People used to have a very beautiful hand writing

I do think it interesting John Daly made the "peaches" comment at the beginning of Leila Dell Miller's appearance, given he already knew she was a minister. His doing so made the panel feel free to make comments in that direction. Perhaps he did it to steer them away from even remotely thinking "minister."

When the Jack Benny Show would go to the South of course Rochester (Eddie Anderson) was with them. Any Hotel that wouldn’t take Black people; they’d go to another Hotel. Just think about all the money those Hotels lost because of the segregated South.

Leila Dell Miller was a well-known evangelist with the Nazarene denomination. She was privileged to lead many people to Christ in her ministry.

Notice that they're still hand-flipping the credit cards at the end. This was the "straw that broke the camel's back" episode vis-a-vis WHAT'S MY LINE? and panelist Hal Block. Though his Marx Brothers-style chasing of the first panelist, Leila Dell Miller, upon her exit from the stage, was not shown on-camera, it did happen, and that incident (after Block had been suspended for 2 weeks by the show in early January and after he had been repeatedly warned by the producers about his behavior and his often lewd remarks on the show) was the "one too many" that led WML producer Gil Fates to notify Mr. Block after the show (over a drink at a local bar) that his option was not going to be renewed and that, after the next 3 shows, he would be replaced on the panel.

Although I've long found Dorothy's hand-inspection undemocratic and awkward, I wonder whether part of her reason for doing it was to *reduce* awkwardness. When you've stepped out onto a television stage for the first time in your life, and you're being watched at that very instant by millions of people, and you've just shaken hands with a very famous person, and you've had to write and speak in front of that audience too, you may already be pretty nervous. Then, suddenly, you're asked to do a strange, staged walk in front of four more people you haven't met, very close to them, yet not introduce yourself or shake hands-and all four of them are rich and famous, too! When you get to the end of this, Dorothy, the gentlest of the bunch, suddenly addresses you kindly, politely, and asks you to do something easy, and gives you what may well be a calming touch, some human contact. Then she sweetly thanks you, without offering any negative opinion of your hands. Maybe, for many people, that little inspection by Dorothy was the best they'd felt so far in their first several seconds of a strange, nerve-racking experience, before they finally got to sit down behind a barrier . . . and endure a live TV close-up of their faces.

Dorothy picked up the clues on the jazz dummer in more than one type of instrument that had to be in the percussion area. And she figured it was Mr. Benny with the wife acting with him and he plays a string instrument. Who else could it possibly be! His long-running tv series plays on the AntennaTV network M-F at 6am and 6:30am CT, following George Burns and Gracie Allen's long-running series 5am and 5:30am.

Neat seeing Jack Benny, he always made me smile. But dunno what it is and if it is just me as I go through all these old episodes. There is just something kinda uncomfortable. Reading all the behind the scenes stuff in hindsight I can see why.

Columbus Ga! My hometown

And so Dorothy digs down to ensure Mr. Benny does "get paid".

Boy they were a little dense on Jack, but Dorothy came to the rescue. Comedian with his own radio and television show featuring monologues and supporting actors including his wife, plays a musical instrument with strings, has been featured in movies. Duh. Maybe the "leading man" threw them off. But really, how many comedians at that time had their own TV and radio shows?

How do you hold a piano on your shoulder and between your chin?

Rev. Lella Dell Miller 1923-2002 RIP

It would be nice to have these on a website so that we can play along to guess the guest with no picture to spoil the game.

the sad part of all this...everyone of the celebrity guests are no longer with us...great show...natural and genuinely funny and hugely entertaining

Great! But it took them unconscionably long to get Jack, didn't it.....

Including Hal Block as a panelist on WML was like throwing a monkey wrench into a well oiled machine.

The attractive female minister is believed to be a calculated move on the part of the producers to provoke the 'expected' hubba-hubba response from Hal Block so Gil Fates (the producer) would have all the more reason to fire him for inappropriate behaviour, which he did shortly after the airing of this episode.

Steve Allen could have made Great z Clark Kent/ Superman

Did Dorothy hand Jack Benny money when he was leaving?

Funny memories

I found this trivia interesting, it mentions this episode and hal block From IMDb: "The Paley Center for Media, with locations in midtown Manhattan and Beverly Hills, California, has a long interview with Franklin Heller, director of the CBS version of What's My Line, that was videotaped in 1987 and never telecast. Among his many revelations is the precise reason why regular panelist Hal Block disappeared from the series in 1953 and never again appeared on a quiz show or game show. Although Block's vulgar sense of humor caused his two-week suspension in January 1953, mail from viewers proved he still had thousands of admirers, and he had a substantial future with Goodson-Todman Productions, possibly on another of their shows, if only he had behaved himself during the What's My Line episode that aired live on February 8, 1953. According to Heller's videotaped statement, Block cheated while playing the game during the segment with female jazz drummer Mildred Landwehr from Trenton, New Jersey. One of the producers, Gil Fates, was standing very close to the soundstage and could see not only the panelists but also the studio audience members in the front row. He witnessed Block's sister, seated in the front row, pantomiming playing the drums. Heller said Hal Block obviously had conspired with his sister, arranging for her to sit in the front row for deceitful purposes. By this time, the less dignified I've Got A Secret was popular, and Block could have had a future on it or some other Goodson-Todman quiz show, but according to Franklin Heller, if anyone cheated, that was grounds for a permanent separation from the company. A 1978 book by Gil Fates reveals that Mark Goodson and Bill Todman instructed him to fire Hal Block. Fates makes no mention of the cheating or of Block's sister, but his explanation of why Block had to disappear is vague and does not contradict Heller's videotaped statement.."

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I think Jack Benny did something with his Toupee of screen at 25:25

Somebody tell us more about the jazz drummer! I'm fascinated, but everyone is talking about Jack Benny and occasionally about the minister or Hal.

Monologist. There’s a word you’d never hear now. People seemed much more intelligent back then. Gotta love Jack Benny. One of my favorite comedians of all time 👍

I realize my view of Mr. Hal Block, pertaining to this show alone, (because this is the only venue I’ve seen/heard him in) might be different from others, but, I do hope that this comment is taken with open minds and with the understanding that I’m not talking ill of the WML cast- - I’m just presenting what I’ve observed while watching the WML episodes, in order, and wondering if perhaps what I’ve noticed others may have as well. Or, am I completely wrong in what I’m seeing? 🤔🧐🤷‍♀️🙃 As you get to know the panelists of WML, it’s evident that each one has their own distinctive style and line of questing their guests. This being said, at times, Steve Allen’s questions/comments/comedy on this show seem to take a page from Hal Blocks, and the fact that Mr. Allen was/is more revered/liked than Mr Block, Mr. Allen’s comments and wit were more well received. WML writers seemed to know the show needed a ‘touch’ of crass for ratings, because whenever Mr. Block was absent from the panel (or even present), Mr. Cerf, Mr. Allen and/or other male guest panelists would take on Mr. Blocks direction of questioning and the occasional ‘crude’ comment and, as stated before, it was well received by all and with lightheartedness concerning any crudeness. From the episodes I’ve watched in these early years of the show, Steve Allen and other panelists take their questioning towards crudeness just as far as Hal Block. I recall Steve hinting that the product a guest made might be a pink negligee/nightie and other times a two piece bathing suit- getting him the same laughs from the audience that Hal Block would have received had he tiptoed precariously around the product in question as Steve Allen did. Before Hal’s two week vacation from WML, one of Hal’s more famous questions AND signature reactions to the audience reaction, ‘Would “I” enjoy/benefit/use your product/service?’, would always get a rise from the audience and Mr. Block would almost always look out to the audience and/or towards his fellow panelists with a quizzical expression on his face and a quick quip in the ready and seemed well received by the audience, Mr. Daly and his fellow panelists. When he returns from his vacation (what seems to be a few episodes before this one), the other panelists and Mr. Daly appear to be less amused with Hal’s everyday norm of jokes and questions. Steve Allen used Hal Blocks style of questioning during this episode (and others), which to me, seems a bit unfair to Hal as Allen is seated ahead of him in the panel lineup and, Allen was not given any flack for it. I understand that every now and again a panelist would ‘borrow’ a question from another, however, if the shows writers didn’t approve of Mr. Blocks signature style of questioning, you’d think the panel would be made aware of this and know that said questioning would be frowned upon. I also noticed that Mr. Daly didn’t seem annoyed with Mr. Block until a couple of episodes after that two week vacation Hal went on. Before then, Mr. Daly always had a genuine look of amusement when Mr. Block introduced him in the opening segment. I do agree that Mr. Block did take things too far at times (more so after his vacation). The ‘tomatoes’ comment he made, when Miss Leila Dell Miller made her walk past the panelists and back to Mr. Daly, in particular, was just very bad taste. Allowing the whistling from the audience, whenever they found a female guest pretty, could be considered bad taste as well. But- maybe that was the norm of those days- - however, I wonder if the females not getting the whistles would feel a little self conscious in those moments of silence while signing in. From what I gather, Mr. Block wrote comedy for a number of well known and loved comedians. Were those comedians acts crude as well? If so, why did the writers of WML hire Mr. Block knowing his type of comedy? I understand Mr. Blocks termination from the show may go beyond his comments on it and, sometimes it looked as if he purposefully crossed the line a few times to ensure his departure. 🤔🧐🤭🤷‍♀️ All this said, I do enjoy this show and I’m grateful for this channel and the time, care and commitment that is given to it. Many thanks. I was mainly wondering why Mr. Block was looked upon so differently than other male panelists when asking basically the same questions. I’m sure I’m missing something- 🧐 Be well, stay kind and blessings to all~ 🙏🏼

Rev Leila Dell Miller BIRTH 19 Jun 1923 DEATH 10 Oct 2002 (aged 79)

When hal Brock passes after saying male and female then saying who's left here we are in 2020 and that means something