A piece I posted over on my News page about Bill Cullen brought an amazing amount of response, including this note from Rich Twoley…
I had never realized how on those quiz-panel shows, the producers were making an important decision when they decided who to start the questioning with. Did that apply to all shows or just I've Got A Secret?
All shows. But it was especially evident in the famed "Mystery Guest" segments on What's My Line? People occasionally accused a show like that of being rigged…of giving the answers to the panel. There was, of course, no reason why they should do that, since the show was most entertaining when the panel was lost and guessing wildly off the target. In fact, on What's My Line? and a couple of other game shows (especially The Name's The Same, which Game Show Network occasionally resurrects), it's obvious they were sometimes giving panelists false leads so their questions would be funnier.
On What's My Line?, they had to prevent the panelists — especially Bennett Cerf and Dorothy Kilgallen, who were fierce competitors — from knocking off the Mystery Guest too quickly and prematurely ending the fun of the game. This was difficult because the main source of Mystery Guests was folks who were either performing in New York at the time or making the rounds to promote a soon-to-open movie or other project. If Bob Hope had a film opening in Manhattan any day now, there was a better-than-average chance he'd be the Mystery Guest.
Kilgallen was a reporter and before each broadcast, she'd go over the newspapers and press releases to make up a list of likely Mystery Guests. Cerf went her one better: As the publisher of Random House books, he had a whole staff that dealt with publicists and book tours and who was in town for promotional purpose. He'd have the staff make up a list for him and, before the show and during commercial breaks, he'd pull it out of his pocket and cram for the Mystery Guest spot.
To make it more difficult for him, the producer (Gil Fates) would usually have the questioning commence with Cerf. If he didn't…if the person before Cerf asked, "Do you have a movie opening this week?" and the Mystery Guest said yes, the odds were that Bennett would nail it on his first question. Having him ask the icebreaker question generally ensured that the game would at least last until each of the four panelists had asked a question.
The problem got worse in later years when they did the syndicated What's My Line?, which Game Show Network has just begun rerunning again. Apart from occasional guest shots, Cerf had departed but Soupy Sales was on the panel, and Soupy was too good at guessing the Mystery Guest. He knew every obscure show biz celebrity — and on the syndicated version, some of them were pretty damned obscure — and, no matter what the vocal disguise, he could recognize most voices. Fates, who was still producer, appealed to Sales to go easy. Not only was the entertainment value of the endgame suffering but the shows kept running short and it was necessary to pad with lame interviews. The Soupman, however, wasn't about to miss a chance to win. To try and cut down on his quick identifications, the producer instituted a new rule, which they called "Fates' Law." It specified that if a panelist guessed a name and was wrong, the panelist had to remove their blindfold and sit out the rest of the game. It slowed Soupy down, but only a little.
I mentioned in the Cullen piece that one obstacle to a new wave of panel-type game shows might be a lack of great panelists. Another could be a paucity of experienced game show producers who know how to set up and run a contest for maximum entertainment value. Guys like Gil Fates had done them for years in the formative days of television — and some even in radio. They perfected the rules of their games and how to make them work. In today's TV industry, where shows have to prove themselves quickly or get axed, they'd never have the chance.