Today's Video Link

This is a prime time episode of the game show Password and it was broadcast on May 24th of 1965. What's unusual about it? Well, it's got Betty White on it but that was true of most TV shows. But in this one, she and Arlene Francis have as their partners, syndicated newspaper cartoonists. Playing, two at a time, are Al Capp (Li'l Abner), Alfred Andriola (Kerry Drake), Allen Saunders (Mary Worth), Lee Falk (The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician), Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey) and Leonard Starr (On Stage).

Actually, Saunders and Falk were more writers than cartoonists. Saunders did rough sketches for the strips he wrote but the artwork in the published material was always that of someone else. Saunders also was anonymous on some of his strips. He wrote Kerry Drake for decades but the byline was just Andriola. Falk reportedly drew his two strips only for their first few weeks before bringing in someone else to do the drawing.

Thanks to Craig Robin for alerting me that this was on YouTube…