Quick "heads up" to the folks watching the hoary What's My Line? reruns on GSN. The show that airs tonight (i.e., tomorrow morn) is the one from 3/15/64 and the Mystery Guest is Allan Sherman, then pretty much at the peak of his brief stardom. Mr. Sherman, as you may know, got his start in TV as a behind-the-scenes guy at Goodson-Todman, producers of game shows including What's My Line? So this appearance was probably a very satisfying moment in Mr. Sherman's life.
Then the next day, GSN should run the episode from 3/22/64 in which the Mystery Guest is Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong. Brief story. Armstrong then had a huge, unexpected hit with his rendition of "Hello, Dolly." He'd been hired for megabucks to go on a prime-time program — The Perry Como Show, I think — and give the first TV performance of the song. Among the many ironies of Satchmo's career was that after decades of making next-to-no bucks on wonderful, authentic jazz, he made his fortune and much of his fame with something as mainstream Wonder Bread as "Hello, Dolly." Anyway, he was to receive the largest check of his life for doing it for the first time on TV for Mr. Como's audience.
Then What's My Line? wanted him as Mystery Guest for the Sunday night before. Como's producers had the right to block this due to an exclusivity clause in his deal but the Goodson-Todman folks went to them and said, in effect, "Hey, it won't hurt you to let us have him. We'll plug his appearance on your show and it'll help your tune-in." Perry's producers said, "Well, that makes sense. But he's not going to sing 'Hello, Dolly' on your show, right?" The What's My Line? folks said, "Of course not. We're a game show. People don't sing on our show. We don't even have a band on stage." With that assurance and the promise of a juicy plug, the Como crew said fine.
So Sunday night, after Louis was unmasked, panelist Arlene Francis said to him, "Louis, dear…do give us a little of 'Hello, Dolly.'" And Armstrong, responding to the audience cheering and forgetting about the Como show's exclusive, started singing his hit song, a cappella. The producers of The Perry Como Show were not happy.