WHAT'S MY SHINE?

WHAT'S MY LINE?
CBS 1950-1967

WHAT'S MY SHINE?
MAD #17, November 1954
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Jack Davis

Quick history lessons (groan!): Those old enough to remember fifties nostalgia (nostalgia for it, not the fifties themselves) think it was all Grease and Happy Days or Back to the Future. Those I've talked to that lived through the actual fifties remember it slightly differently, always in fear of being bombed at any moment, no diversity or conformity, and particularly the red scare.

White nationalists making up the majority of the Republican party may be bad, but it's not much worse than before. We've always had zealous bigots and disengenuous patriots in congress. What we didn't have is opinions influenced by 24-hour partisan news channels. The Trump of his time was Senator Joseph McCarthy, a demagogue of the sort previously mentioned, able to get away with his reign only because we didn't have fact-checking in real time. Hollywood and the Blacklist has been chronicled in many places, but the subcommittee also had its sites on accusing Communists (Reds) of infiltrating the military as well. There was also nothing like C-Span, there were just the three networks, so the Army-McCarthy hearings pre-empted regularly scheduled programming.

This MAD article was the first of many pre-cable articles to satirize talking heads using the premise that things like this should compete with the rest of TV to make it more exciting. In this case, What's My Line?, where the premise was that three or four blindfolded panelists asked questions to a guest about his or her occupation and were awarded points for correct answers. Here instead of host John Daly, it is moderated by Army-McCarthy special counsel Ray Jenkins.

The Subcommittee included Everett Dirksen (R-IL), Henry Dworshak (R-ID), Charles Potter (R-MI), John McClellan (D-AR), Stuart Symington (D-MI), Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA), and Joseph McCarthy (R-WI).

Robert Stevens was an Army Secretary that was a witness in the hearings and a photograph of him submitted by McCarthy was found to be doctored. Karl Mundt was chairman of the subcommittee.

McCarthy's lawyer was Roy Cohn is caricatured. He was also one of Trump's lawyers a generation later.

Private Schein was also a witness in the hearings. There was no equivalent to Lana Cheesecake in either the hearings or the quiz show, it was just a commentary on the optics of television.

WHAT'S MY CRIME?
Eh! #4, June 1954
a: Dick Ayers

From MAD's TV “Alfie” Awards by Larry Siegel and Mort Drucker in MAD #56, July 1960. The other panelists are Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, and Dorothy Kilgallen.

MAD VISITS THE WORLD'S GREATEST TV PANELIST
MAD #62, April 1961
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker

The interviewer is Ed Murrow. MAD writer Dick DeBartolo was simultaneously a writer for Goodson-Todman and sometimes used a pen name writing parodies of shows they produced.

WHAT'S MY LINE?
Sick #9, November 1961
artist unknown

WHAT'S MY SALARY?
Sick #21, June 1963
artist unknown

The last panel has Fred Gwynne and Joe E. Ross from Car 54, Where Are You ? for some reason. Probably because they were popular then.

QUEASE SHOW

QUIZ SHOW (1994)
dir: Robert Redford

QUEASE SHOW
MAD #334, March 1995
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker

In 1958, people are rushing home to watch the quiz show Twenty-One, specifically to see the reigning champion Herbert Stempel (John Turturro) being asked questions by host Jack Barry (Christopher McDonald).

Herb's a hero in his neighborhood of Queens, promising his wife Toby (Johann Carlo) this is their way to riches. Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a Columbia scholar and professor, is trying out for another quiz show when he is discovered by Twenty-One's producers (David Paymer, Hank Azaria) and asked to replace Herb Stempel, who will be taking a dive. Charles is hesitant about getting the answers in advance and asks the advice of his father (Paul Scofield), but is assured what he does is standard. Meanwhile, Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow) is a congressional aide just out of Harvard concerned his career is going nowhere.

Mrs. Stempel mentions J. Fred Muggs, primate co-star of The Today Show, who actually has a role in this. Rob Morrow's wife is played by Mira Sorvino in the movie, but here she's Janine Turner, his co-star in Northern Exposure, and his home is also the set of that show.

Herb is asked to throw the game by producer David Enright in exchange for being promised a part on a panel show. Now that Charles is the new star, he has become a new sensation and thus a hearthrob at his college. Richard Goodwin goes to New York to try and get information on whether the quiz shows are fixed, first by cozying up to the Van Doren family. Herb Stempel, upset about being thrown off the air, tells the courts and anyone who will listen about the rigging of game shows.

Richard does some investigating, while Charles finds his fame is getting too much to handle. Richard finally has proof the shows are fixed when one of the previous contestants complies by showing proof in the form of a certified letter he sent himself in advance. Charles has a guilty consience about being fed the answers while Herbert uses his testimony as an opportunity to perform in front of Congress, which only makes everyone think he's more insane.

In the next to last panel is Alan Dershowitz. In the last panel on the left is the original What's My Line? panel Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, and host John Daly. On the right is Alex Trebek, Pat Sajak, and Vanna White.

This is the show that was depicted in the movie.

TWENTY-ONE
NBC 1956-1958

TWENTY-WIN
Humbug #1, August 1957
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Bill Elder

The premise was that the returning champion and the challenger would be in isolation booths with headphones unable to hear any outside sounds. Each took turns getting questions ranging from 1-11 points depending on the level of difficulty, gaining points for each correct answer and losing points for each wrong answer. Whoever made it to 21 would be the reigning champion.

IF TV SHOWS WEREN'T RIGGED
Cracked #17, December 1960
w: Paul Laikin
a: John Severin

Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth, Truth or Consequences

What's My Line? again, Walt Disney being interviwed by Edward Murrow on Person to Person, and Groucho Marx on You Bet Your Life.

DAYTIME TELEVISION

DAYTIME TELEVISION
Crazy #5, July 1974
w: Marv Wolfman
a: Dick Wright

Let us take a trip to before the invention of cable television, when there were only three channels (plus some places with additional syndicated ones, usually on UHF). Actually, daytime terrestrial television fifty years ago wasn't entirely different than it is now.

Dinah Shore had been a singer who in the seventies had a daytime talk show.
Spiro Agnew was Vice President until 1973 and implicated in the Watergate scandal. The other people he mentions were others involved. "Impudent snobs" was from one of the speeches he gave looking down on what his base considered the elite.

Dr. Joyce Brothers had a show called Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers.
The original host of Jeopardy was Art Fleming.

The original host of Hollywood Squares was Peter Marshall. The panelists on this version are Wally Cox, Karen Valentine, Jan Murray, John Davidson, Paul Lynde, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver, Vincent Price, and Charlie Tuna. The latter was an animated spokesperson in commercials for Star-Kist Tuna.

Reruns of I Love Lucy were prevalent on daytime TV. Walter Cronkite was on in the evening. The panelists on What's My Line? are Arlene Francis, Henry Kissinger, Telly Savalas as Theo Kojak, and Dick Van Dyke.

As a bonus, we get to see what the Marvel Bullpen looked like around then.

Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall, was known for audience members trying to outdo each other with the most outlandish costumes in the hopes of attracting enough attention to be picked to be a contestant.

Bob Eubanks hosted The Newlywed Game to see how much married couples knew about each other. Most notorious for a wife once being asked where she and her husband wife make whoopee and her responding "in the ass".

There used to be couple dozen or so daytime soaps simultaneously running, now I think there are only four. General Hospital is one of them.

Mike Douglas was another entertainer who eventually became a talk show host back when talk shows were the twilight of a full career and the domain of daytime television.