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Alfred's Serif Users' Forums → General Discussion → What's My Line television programmes in America in the 1950s and 1960s
This edition dates from early 1953.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1bkBzw1QnY
This is an early one. Ones from some years later do not have the initial guesses and they have the panel walk on at the start, said to be so that viewers could see full length the dresses that the ladies were wearing.
So, this post, in early November 2022, is nearly seventy years after the broadcast.
William
An interesting edition of What's My Line. It includes the American advertisements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw90sezjgCI
Spoiler alert.
You may prefer not to click on the next link until after you have watched the link above, because it is about something mentioned in that programme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO7mtHMQ0Uo
William
This episode, from 1953, has as the celebrity guest Eleanor Roosevelt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ew82Ae_N9g
I have watched a number of episodes of the American What's My Line from that era, and usually when the people of the panel shake hands with the visitors, the males stand, and the females remain seated.
Of the episodes that I have watched, this is the only one where the females of the panel stood to shake hands, and only for Mrs Roosevelt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt
William
when the people of the panel shake hands with the visitors, the males stand, and the females remain seated.
Is that not normal etiquette?
Mrs Roosevelt, as a past "First Lady", was no doubt felt to demand greater respect.
Who is supposed to have demanded what?
William
Who is supposed to have demanded what?
I took Geoff’s comment to mean that Eleanor Roosevelt’s status as a former First Lady, rather than the lady herself, demanded greater respect.
An interesting thing has occurred to me.
A former USA President is referred to as President Surname after not being the current president.
An American journalist addressing a former president in an interview, addresses him as Mr President, notwithstanding that the former president is not the current president.
So I wondered how a First Lady is addressed and how a former First Lady is addressed.
I have found the following.
https://www.formsofaddress.info/president_spouse-usa/
William
A "first lady" has no official position, or title. She could be addressed in exactly the same manner as she had been before her husband was elected. However, Mrs Roosevelt was very widely admired and respected for her charitable work.
This one is interesting. From 1955.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sis3jlplL50
As a child I remember reading of something about the topic with which the second contestant is connected.
I have noticed something, a pattern, in at least the early editions of What's My Line that went out live.
Typically they have two members of the public, then a celebrity, and then sometimes, but not always, another member of the public.
If they have the third member of the public, I have noticed that the person is always from New York, or close by, such as from New Jersey.
I suspect that this is because they are local, so if they are not called, then they are asked back the next week.
I also noticed that in this episode the American Airlines credit at the end mentions the contestant by name. I have not known of that before as best I can remember.
William
William
From 23 June 1963
A contestant from England.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llkn_pE49XU&t=1240s
William
Alfred's Serif Users' Forums → General Discussion → What's My Line television programmes in America in the 1950s and 1960s
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