“That’s three down. We move now to Arlene Francis.” On this day in 1950,
Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, humorist Hal Block, and Louis Untermeyer joined host John Daly
as one of the classics of early television debuted on CBS. What’s My Line stayed on the air for 17 years -- the longest-running
game show in the history of prime-time network television -- and launched one of TV’s biggest
production companies: that of Mark
Goodson and Bill Todman.
 During many years in the
television industry, the Goodson-Todman name became famous for such hit game shows as
I’ve Got a Secret, Beat the Clock, The Name’s the Same, To Tell the
Truth, The Price is Right and The Match Game. What many people don’t know
is that Mark Goodson and Bill Todman also produced a dramatic anthology, The Web,
which aired on CBS-TV from July 1950 through September 1954 and then on NBC-TV (for four
months) in 1957.
As the announcer for these shows would say, “This program is a Mark Goodson
- Bill Todman Production.”
|
