What's My Line? - Victor Borge (Jul 27, 1952) 

It's actually my parents era but I love them too. 😀😀

Oh absolutely! These are my go-to when I want something light and pleasant 💕

Indeed. I watched it with them at the time and it brings back fond memories. It also makes one wonder what happened in the intervening years to both TV and US' collective IQ.

It was my childhood era.

I was only about 4 weeks old when this first aired.

He died.

@@keymaninmusic No sh*t! Really?

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@@keymaninmusic So, you can no longer view him on videos? SMH

Thecatspajamas891 I also saw Victor years ago in person while in Tacoma, WA. Wonderful performer, so witty and a great musician! He put on a great show.

I love him even more now

WOW! IMPRESSIVE!😇😇😇

Majority of jobs are extinct 😢

@@robertholman8730 sadly yes.

Much better MG than panelist.

He made the crowd laugh, I think he was a cornball idiot.

@@TheBigMclargehuge The rest of the panel found Block to be an idiot too. However creepy Hal was to watch, I think they did him dirty. After reading interviews of Cerf's for the Oral History Archives, it's much more interesting to watch knowing what other people thought of this one and that one. For instance, Dorothy wasn't liked as much as I thought, and they usually knew the mystery guests early on, but played it up for the audience and to give the celebrity more air time.

@@davidadams2395 interesting. I thought Dorothy was a snob and Block an idiot. I think a lot was played for television.

Block was an idiot

​@toreckman8899 Block was a hoot. A riot. Livened up proceedings. Clowns like Borge, Cox, Paar etc were just full time annoying jerks.

Specifically, he was the Traffic Commissioner, which was a branch of the police department. I wonder what you had to do to get that job in Chicago in that era.

Thank you. Have you noticed how in the second aired episode, they tried one segment without telling the audience the occupation? It was tragic to watch, almost no laughter. The whole appeal of the show really comes from watching the panelists struggle to get at the answer.

oh that's true. I never thought of that, but you're right...by the audience knowing the occupation is 1/2 the show... wow...

Well here’s some more info: Apparently this chief, L A (Louis) Capparelli wasn’t the last Capparelli to work in the Chicago Police Traffic Division; but not every Capparelli had a stellar career in the force. articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-01-16/news/8501030873_1_indictments-charge-policemen-bribes Thomas Capparelli (who was five when this episode aired) was indicted by a grand jury in 1985 for accepting bribes from motorists who’d been accused of leaving the scene of an accident. He took the money and then made the incident “go away”. He was sentenced to five years in prison. I wonder if the two are related. I’ll channel my inner Hal Block and suggest that the younger Capparelli appeared on “What’s My Crime?” after he completed his sentence. BTW, the Capparelli who we see in the show died on 16 December 1975, but I️ haven’t gotten my hands on an obituary.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing. The thing about watching old comedy is that some of it is contemporary, and we have no idea what it is about. :)

Great background info there. On the subject of comedy of the past, being a collector and enthusiast of it I'm well aware when I watch what I own that so much material, use of contemporary figures' names and so forth will be a mystery to people under 40. Monty Python a chief example. Even Tom & Jerry has references that need checking. In fact one day, old people will be having to explain to youngsters what The Simpsons is about!! The majority of that certainly needs contemporary knowledge to get the joke. Still.....it keeps us alert to do the research!!

@@davidsanderson5918 Rocky and Bullwinkle would be another example. Even the Boris and Natasha segments would make little sense to generations who did not live through the era of tension with the Soviet Union. And even Boris's name being a twist on a Russian historical figure requires a bit of a leap to appreciate.

Very interesting facts thank you. While king farouk may have been corrupt he didn't invade Israel so I'm not sure it was a good trade-off.

They weave together like cloth for diapers.

Well phrased. I wince at some of his jokes, but Hal is undeniably fun in the episodes I’ve seen so far.

Hal Block was bought in to liven things up but I've heard remarks from other panel members that were over the top yet nobody attacks them for it.

@@peternagy-im4be Well the only two that I remember who laid it on thick for the show were Groucho Marx and Henry Morgan -- the latter of whom was a grade A certified, 100-proof _asshole._ As a kid I never did like him, and seeing some of the cringy spots he did on WML now it's even worse looking back on it.

Thankfully. He became a perpetual bore on the show. A remarkably unfunny jerk.

@Paul Bradford +Paul Bradford I caught that "Knight and Daly" pun and thought it was good, too! I was also disappointed that it got no reaction. I"m glad at least you and I liked it -- and hopefully hundreds of others who have seen the show over the years!

How can you not be a fan? He's pretty funny. :D

@@hypolyxa7207 - many fans wrote In protesting to bring Hal back but his humour was too racy for some of the prudes

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1mPJ3hm6M5I.htmlsi=dueR09uPr2ibIEJk

I think "still" was a clue which Dorothy picked up.

Adult diapers were not what we think of today. At that time plastic was not used in homes as it didn't come our homes until the early 60's. Even then it wasn't until the late 60's that we saw ziploc bags. Diapers were cloth and covered with "rubber pants" the size of granny panties. You are correct in saying the reference was directed at the level of maturity.

time constraints to get another person scheduled to play

And the cushion is there! :)

well, not a professional actor or singer, perhaps.

Yeah I just looked it up so the max prize would be just shy of 500$

A hoot. A very funny guy.

No, I don't miss Hal Block at all. He was rather good at questioning and making witty remarks but otherwise he was just coarse and loud. I liked the idea of Guest Panelists, it vitalized the other of the Panel.

SaveThe TPC wanted to give a "thumb up" for your comment here, but was denied. Twice (Reloaded, but it didn't help much). I think Hal Block was a very nice person. Naive, childish, AND nice! :)

SuperWinterborn Please extend my thumps up to her. Thanks :>)

SaveThe TPC Ps. Sending some *extended thumbs* for you from *Joe!* ;)

Toes too, though they don't move as well!

It's customary for men to stand when a lady enters a room, approaches them, or comes onto a platform that they are on. Since respect for women was much more valued then than it is today, the men, and occasionally women, would stand to shake the women's hands. Every so often, they would stand to shake the men's hands as well, but that wasn't customary nor expected of them.

@@ifbpeanut If we had classy bombshells like in this show today, I, too would go the extra mile and stand up to shake for them.

@@ifbpeanut they were very respectful to women and yet I know there's a certain sector of people today who would claw their own eyes out in rage and despair when they call them a lady weatherman or something.

Gentlemen always stood to shake hands. Bennett could not because Hal didn’t. A gentleman doesn’t point out that another man is impolite.

Bennett called him a clod, and I agree.

Did you know he has a son at Hahvud? In case you missed it somehow, Cerf has a son at Hahvud.

15:48 "It is a he, isn't it? It is a male?" Victor looks like he about to cry... priceless.

I think in this moment, Arlene asked, "Do you appear BEFORE people?" And Mr. Borge most certainly was thinking, "No, I appear beFIVE them!" But of course saying so would give him away as his inflated language joke was well known and would identify him.

My observation is that some Mystery Guests were always in a great hurry to get of stage, some MG rose slowly in hope that John would persuade them to stay for a chat and some MG remained seated (the ladies in particular!) for the expected interview. The first category puzzles me; were they in a hurry because the Panel hadn't guessed who they were fast enough? Or had they no reason to be on the show other than the fee and free PR? Or maybe John made it clear very discreet that "your contribution is over" so they had no option than walking of the stage?

Johan Bengtsson Joe Postove Interesting questions, and I don't have a good answer either. I actually doubt that John himself ever rushed them off unless they were really short on time, but I also don't know why some guests did not choose to stick around. In these very early episodes, I think the schedule might have been tighter. Maybe they really wanted to get in that third regular contestant. But John did spend a nice, relaxed measure of time with Arthur Godfrey a few months earlier, as Joe noted, so it just comes back to... I don't know. Some MGs may have really had to get somewhere else soon afterward, I suppose, and some maybe didn't realize that it would be okay for them to stick around? Anyone else have any ideas? Gary? -- or any of you other WML mavens out there?

SaveThe TPC Other making a very late plane, where is a MG going at 11:00 on a Sunday night?

SaveThe TPC I can only offer my unsubstantiated notions. I think the lion's share of the blame for this belongs firmly on John's shoulders. Even in cases where there was a bit of talk after a segment ended, John generally hogged the conversation outrageously, reciting facts about the guests' life and career rather than simply letting the guests speak for themselves, essentially reducing them to the same "yes" and "no" answers they were limited to during the game. My feeling is that John, who is documented as having been very interested in maintaining control over the show, preferred to minimize the spontaneity of post-game interviews; if there was going to be an "interview", he was sure as heck going to control it to the greatest extent possible. As for squeezing in a 4th guest-- and still, just theorizing-- I think if John had been more amenable to post-game interviews, the production staff wouldn't have pushed to always have a 4th contestant on hand. The 4th segments are almost always overly truncated and rushed, and I think the show would have been better off without them unless a program was really running short. Another part of the explanation may be the producer's interest in not wasting the expense of having brought the contestant to NYC to do the show. A while back someone (can't recall whom) noted that, at least in the latter years of the show, the 4th contestants were almost always from the NYC area, which makes sense since they could return the following week if they got bumped. I'm not clear on when the producers got the clever idea to do things this way, but my memory tells me (ha!) that it wasn't until at least the 1960s.

What's My Line? What you're saying about John's post-game "chats" with mystery guests is largely true, but I don't think that would account for those guests who seemed to decide on their own to just get up and leave quickly. --Unless you think that they preferred not to sit through that type of chat with him.

Bennett also was.

Bennett is the one who always creeped me out with his horny comments about Marilyn Monroe and others.

@@ChrisHansonCanada I’ve always felt that way, although he always criticized Hal for just that kind of behaviour. Hal was harmless, Bennett could never be described as such.

Oh, give it a break. Hal Block is just a rough-around-the-edges, unpretentious good-natured working class type comedian who lets us know he's got real blood in his veins.

She wasn't a hairdresser 😮

He had to be if on TV or he'd get canned.

Bennett Cerf had a son at Hahvud. Show some respect!!!

Joe Postove Check out the link from nandofigueira2005 regarding Patricia Stenz, somewhere on this comments page. (It has moved from where it originally was when I first typed this reply in the wrong place.) She's mentioned in an article all about supposed cures for baldness and how they were received by the general public and the medical community -- quite fascinating!

There was a house detective and someone guessed "detective." They didn't say anything and the panel had to guess.

Jack Robinson Now we know how the panel felt! lol

The makeup artist would have tried to darken faces, not lighten then. The lights were harsh enough in the early days of television. Bill Cullen despised makeup. That is why he spent so much time fostering his tan.

Seems too clean to be an error... But we get to play along for a change!

Nicholas Todor It looked to me like there could have been some damage to either the tape or the original kinescope, but I agree that it was fun to be kind of "forced" to play along with the panel this time -- especially since I guessed his line fairly early on -- largely based on John Daly's quips at Hal Block's expense!

Most people know what a philatelist is - it is hardly risque, and quite a stretch from what you may be thinking that word sounds like - you are way off base.

I thought he was a judge or a prosecutor.

I believe his last episode was March 1, 1953

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.

In 1952, Bennett was 54 years old. My guess would be he was already grey.

Photos of him when he was younger show him to have had dark hair, so I think we can assume he went gray.

Most people go at least partly grey by the time they're 50.

I'm 55 and completely grey now.. I started going grey at 26...