What's My Line? - Suzy Knickerbocker; Ed Sullivan; PANEL: Phyllis Newman, Dick Cavett (Oct 23, 1966) 

That was back when being a graduate of Yale (or Harvard) meant something.

As of 2022, Dick Cavett is still alive.

@@mikevanriel7573 Still 2023, only 86.

​@@mikevanriel7573 As of May 2024 Dick Cavett is still alive. He's 87 years old.

What mistake

@@gailsirois7175 A "yes" answer doesn't earn a card flip.

Correct--except it ran for 23 years.

and if you recall, Jimmy Carter (as played by Dan Akkroyd) felt that God did not forgive Carter for lusting after Phyllis Newman!

Right!

No, your not gorgeous

It's just you. She's annoying.

tomitstube I don't know but I just find it amusing that she thinks she needs to shout while wearing a blindfold.

It's just you

Stirling Moss was a WML guest in 1959

Johan Bengtsson Bennett seemingly spent his entire life hanging around with showbiz people!!

Were they taping more shows in this last season? October doesn't seem like the time when the panel would take off.

@@MrJoeybabe25 31 live, 16 taped.

Nope..it wasn't..was a miss

I think it was decided no one could replace Dorothy after all these years, and they liked mixing things up a bit with guest panelists.

Ed replied "no"...

But videotape pans were still not well done, the faster the pan, the worse the picture. This improved over the years, but even today electronic cameras are still short of film when it comes to movement.

@@MrJoeybabe25 And of course we're watching these on RU-vid in compressed digital video, so the image quality degradation because of compression artifacts during camera movement is a much bigger issue than anything related to the videotape or the kinescope.

Joe Postove Apparel usually refers to clothing. A Halloween mask would come under 'costume'.

liberty Ann ONLY

Ah Showbiznia ... a quaint little town, just this side of Altoona.

+soulierinvestments In regard to the segment where the product was Halloween masks, Dick asked if the product would be unusual to give as a wedding gift. John actually gave it a yes but then flipped the card over anyway. Dick being a newcomer to the panel just let the card flip stand. No doubt Arlene (who was fierce in battling card flips), Bennett, Dorothy and many of the more frequent guest panelists would have immediately protested that they had received a yes and John would have sheepishly given some excuse or simply pretended that he was trying to get one past them.

Steve27775 Her husband, Erik Carlsson, mentioned in the show, died 27 May 2015.

Never liked Phyllis, as she either looked or acted ditzy, not so much in this appearance or her very early ones, but in most others I found her annoying. Classy save by Arlene as she later commented that Suzy looked as good as the people she wrote about.

Yeah. Phyllis could have been more diplomatic.

To me, it is quite possible that the production staff may have asked the audience not to "wolf-whistle" when Suzy entered, so that the panel couldn't deduce the sex of the Mystery Guest from same. And she did, indeed, manage to fool the panel for quite a while!

Johan Bengtsson - I always got the impression from Phyllis that she appeared to think of herself as being just a bit more attractive and cosmopolitan than she actually was.

I agree with you totally.

All the men smelled like cigarettes, coffee, and cologne. Later in the day there would be alcohol as well!

And then there was the time that Archie asked Edith to bring him Kaopectate and she brought him Milk of Magnesia instead ... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0LlEFQkXHQ4.html

Funny to see Dick Cavett as a young man with short hair -- and a relative unknown at that. I remember him best as he looked in the 1970s, I guess: ronbenningtoninterviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/dick_cavett_435x290.jpg. (I'm not actually sure when that photo/screenshot was taken, but that's the way I usually think of Dick Cavett.) Also interesting that he said he watched WML as a boy. He was born in 1936, so I guess he meant as a teenaged boy. He was clever and humorous here, as always. I loved his trying to outdo John Daly in the confusing language department! (11:27)

SaveThe TPC He was an excellent guest panelist. The best for a very long time. He asked funny and unexpectent questions. Made witty remarks with a stooneface (I don't like persons who laughs at their own jokes) and had a subtle star quality. He could have been a very good actor. I never saw his own Show but I regret it now if he was like this. :)

Johan Bengtsson Unless it is blocked in your country, there are quite a few interviews by Dick Cavett on RU-vid. With people like Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, Richard Burton, Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, George Harrison.

49yt Sounds great! I will search for them and take a look.

49yt Wonderful! Nice to see him be honoured like that. :)

Yeah, but Bennett was asking the question about the meow. She just happened to turn to John, for some reason.

How old is that studio, Vahan? Was it ever used for radio?

Joe Postove It was first built in 1927. Don't know about Radio.

***** Was it built by CBS? If so, almost certainly radio was produced there.

Joe Postove en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Sullivan_Theater#First_66_years

***** According to the Wiki article (by the way, thanks Vahan, great copy) Merv Griffin also originated his first syndicated show from the theater. Since Merv's show started in 1965 and according to TV.com went to color August 24, 1967, I wonder if both color and black and white productions came from the studio. However that date for Merv moving to color seems rather late to me. CBS acquired the studio in 1936 and hosted lots of radio from it, including the premiere of " Major Bowes Amateur Hour".

You would think if Ed was a MG, it would be better to do it on Sunday. All Ed would have to do is sit in dressing room, alone, thinking that he really is good looking.

+Vahan Nisanian I think you answered your own question. It was difficult enough to strike the "Ed Sullivan Show" set in time for the 10:30 PM (Eastern time) start of WML. It would be that much harder to strike it in time for an extra WML to be pre-recorded. And some sets for Sullivan must have been more difficult to strike than others. Besides, if the show was being preempted some weeks and the WML crew didn't need to come in on Sunday, any other day of the week would have been just as good for the WML crew and on stage personalities to appear. It wasn't like they were being asked to come in twice. The main problem that Monday caused compared to Sunday would be booking current Broadway stars as Mystery Guests. The Broadway theaters were dark on Sunday evenings (as John Daly would often mention when he thanked Broadway stars for appearing on their evening off), but there were performances on Monday evening.

SaveThe TPC It was not his first. He was on before in 1950, an episode that no longer exists. The episode with him wearing the mask was only his second appearance. www.tv.com/shows/whats-my-line/episode-23-92540/

***** I stand corrected. I meant his Sept. 14, 1958 appearance.

And that 1958 appearance is one of the most funny mystery guest sequences of the 1950s.

I like some guest panelists better than others (neither Suzy nor Phyllis is among my favorites, actually), but I think G-T made the right choice in not attempting to find a permanent replacement "to fill Dorothy's chair." I'm sure that there were many in the contemporary television audience who, like me, were not enough enamored with any one of the guest panelists to want to see that person every week. Mixing up that panel position with a variety of guest panelists, as they had been doing with the second male panel position for many years, made the show more interesting and perhaps drew fans of each celebrity panelist to the show for his/her episodes. It may also have prevented people who actually disliked any one particular panelist from giving up on the show.

Then there is the issue -- by 1966, it must have been hard to get stars to make permanent commitments to any one TV show.

For those who don't feel like clicking the links: Oct. 30th = "a news special devoted to Lyndon Johnson's trip to Asia" Nov. 6th = "a news special devoted to Tuesday's mid-term elections"

SaveThe TPC Thanks!

Zachary Dunlap-Tunnage You're welcome! :)

More and more we see WML being kicked to the curb, a sign that the plug will be pulled soon.

@@loissimmons6558 I knew things would be heading south when I saw that the 1966-67 RU-vid grouping had only 74 episodes.

Johan Bengtsson I'm always amazed by how funny Ed is in his WML appearances! He never came across as having much of a sense of humor on his own show.

SaveThe TPC Before I heard his voice for the first time I thought he was going to sound like Lurch. :)

Johan Bengtsson You rannngg? ;)

SaveThe TPC More or less so.... :)

+SaveThe TPC I wonder if he was too nervous to be intentionally funny when it was his own show. The stories of his various types of misspeaking are legendary and plentiful. Others however note that he had a poor memory and his struggles to remember names would interfere with his delivery. There is even some evidence that he was beginning to suffer from dementia near the end of his run on television. Coupled with his stiff and hunched posture, it would make him appear to be humorless and clueless. But Sullivan was fiercely protective of his brand. That was the one way to get on his bad side as some rock groups and individual performers like Bo Diddley and Buddy Holly found out if they went against Sullivan in terms of lyrics changes or song choice. However when he was on WML, Sullivan didn't have the pressure of protecting his brand or remembering the names of the performers he was introducing. Therefore he could be himself. Additional evidence of his sense of humor is that he actively encouraged certain entertainers, especially Will Jordan, to do impressions of him right on his show. And something I just learned was that he filled in for Red Skelton one time on Red's show and performed Red's part in all the sketches. It's actually somewhat ironic considering the line of one of the non-celebrity guests: on 9/14/58, Ed showed his intentional comedic side by wearing a rubber mask during his turn as Mystery Guest on WML.

It was a boo boo. I didn't notice it myself until I saw someone else pointing it out, too.

Maybe John was flustered that Mr Cavett beat him at his own game.

druidbros .l Ben

Paul Edelstein Studio & Gallery Society columnist. Whatever that is.

She was on the Panel 2 weeks ago!

no she wasn't on the panel 2 weeks ago; I just looked at the date. I typed in Jan 23, and when the one who made Halloween masks came on, I looked at the date and it gave me OCT 23!

upon first reading this line , i missed the [n/Jo] . . . how appropriate 😎

Joe Postove What's a "Yamica"?

***** I think he meant "yarmulka."

519DJW In that case, I don't see one on Ed Sullivan's head.

***** Seeing as Ed Sullivan was Irish, I'm assuming Joe was making a joke.

Well then, good one, Joe Postove.

After seeing the Dec. 25 episode where Suzy is surprised by her son home on leave from submarine duty, I agree with the commenters to that program that she seems a great deal more personable under the influence of genuine emotion. So maybe what I'm reacting negatively to is an act, where she thinks she needs to be serious and businesslike (trying to follow in Dorothy's footsteps, maybe?) to gain a permanent seat on the panel. Whatever the motivation, it still doesn't work for me.

+Neil Midkiff It sounds like the WML powers that be were leaning towards Suzy and trying to find any way they could to make her more warm, fuzzy and acceptable to the audience, but nothing really worked.

Always was glad to see Suzy on the panel. She was a NY sociallite as well as an entertainment reporter. She was very fashionable with great style.

Lily Bean They'll still have got their appearance fee though.