What's My Line? @ 75: Day 6

 

Continuing my series posting 10 of my favorite or notable moments from the history of What's My Line?, celebrating its 75th anniversary at the beginning of February.

5. Although the show would begin to be videotaped by the late 50s/early 60s, it still did many programs live and when doing live television, anything can happen. So was the case in two instances when two intruders invaded the stage during the live broadcast. Interestingly, both instances occurred during the Mystery Guest segment. I’ll feature both here. One on Mother’s Day 1958 just after guest Milton Berle had been identified and was talking about a new book of his. The intruder runs up to Berle screaming “I made it! For Mother’s Day!” before shaking his hand and sprinting off behind him. With Berle, Daly and the panel all momentarily stunned, Berle gets things back on track with a quick quip, “My agent!” A good laugh brought to a weird moment. After that was the night of October 7, 1962 when, just after the beginning of questioning of Greek actress and former Academy Award nominee Melina Mecouri by Dorothy Kilgallen, a man walks onto the stage, briefly apologizes to Mecouri and then proceeds to talk about something. John Daly calls for producer Gil Fates to come in and relieve the man from the stage at which point Fates and legendary announcer Johnny Olson come out and escort him away. Director Franklin Heller, wise to knowing that this man could say anything on live television, smartly dropped the audio for a few seconds while he was present. Apparently, he was hawking some dating service that, unfortunately for him, got no advertisement on air. John basically resets the segment and starts over again, but you could tell things were a little off kilter and that he wasn’t all to pleased with the intrusion. Guest panelist Victor Borge does well to bring levity to the proceedings with his brand of absurdity and the night ends on a short note with John needing to say goodnight for the entire panel as the show ran long. It’s such an odd moment in the history of the show that it had to be included. Perhaps as a make-up, Mecouri would appear on the show again in 1967 during the show’s final weeks on air.