About Bill Cullen

I continue to enjoy the hoary reruns of I've Got A Secret on the Game Show Network and I keep noticing little things I never noticed while watching them as a child.  One is how amazingly sharp and clever panelist Bill Cullen was.  Cullen was a great game show host but he was even better as a player.  And I also didn't realize back then that you almost never saw him walking more than a step or two.  He had a bad limp due to childhood Polio and apparently asked the producers to avoid making it obvious.  So they staged the show so you either never saw the panel walk in or across stage or cut around Mr. Cullen walking.

It also meant that the other male panelist, Henry Morgan, handled any activity that required moving about much, and it explains why Morgan, not Cullen, usually guest-hosted when Garry Moore was away.  Too many of the Secret activities required the host to work on his feet.

I did notice, when I watched these shows in the sixties, that the questioning would often start with Betsy Palmer, who was often in the second chair.  I did not understand (but do now) that this was because Cullen was just too smart.  For certain secrets — especially those involving aviation or the military — he was likely to knock it off too rapidly.  Starting with Betsy meant that Bill would play last.

One of these days, panel shows like Secret and What's My Line? will make a big comeback.  The impediment (and I'm sure it's surmountable if anyone tries) may be that there aren't a lot of obvious contenders for panelists.  Back then, there were people like Cullen who'd logged thousands of hours of live TV experience and knew well how to play a game for real but still make it funny.  The recent, unsuccessful resurrection of To Tell the Truth featured a lot of panelists who never quite connected with each other, let alone the audience.  But with half the population of this country now more or less in show business, I can't believe they can't find a new Bill Cullen.