Liz, Woody, Paul, and More

I promised three posts today, so if i don't get up at least this second, I'll have trouble sleeping. (That's not true. I'll sleep like a baby either way.)

The last few days I've been watching several old clips from What's My Line?, the identity-guessing game show that originally ran from 1950 to 1967 on CBS. On each episode, the panel would try to guess the occupation of an average person by asking yes-or-no questions. But they would also occasionally don blindfolds and be asked to guess the identity of a mystery celebrity guest. YouTube has a treasure trove of this stuff. Most notable is a bizarre and entertaining appearance by Salvador Dali. (I linked to that a long time ago, and I highly recommend you watch it, either again or for the first time.)

Below I'm embedding a few more of the clips I've most enjoyed over the past few days, with just a line or two of introduction. As you can see from this complete list of the guests, there's plenty more to search for if you're in the mood.

Elizabeth Taylor, gorgeous, of course, and charming in her efforts to disguise:



A very young Woody Allen leads with a strong joke, written down, and then does a blunt job of disguising his unmistakable voice and stumping the panel:



Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who finish with a funny anecdote that would not fly in today's more uptight times. (Well, today we're more uptight and yet not uptight enough. That's a subject for another time, or times.) Paul Newman: Coolest man to ever walk the planet? Discuss.



And lastly, mostly for my friend Dez, a future president really hamming it up:



Like I said, there's a lot more out there. Others I enjoyed include Ed Sullivan, Wilt Chamberlain, Alfred Hitchcock, and Paul Newman (again, solo this time).