Lois Simmons Can’t deny that. Very classy indeed! But the Hal Block downside is larger than the upside. If he could have kept himself in check, he could have stayed on the panel as long as he liked - but, alas, he couldn’t! You gotta tailor your act to your audience, and he couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. I wonder how many of WML’s female contestantsfound his act excessively boorish.

I'm a gal and I find his 'act' funny, however not suited for this show, he IS very amusing and quick wit@@lottalady73

Hal Block was a famous comedy writer. His style might not fit the panel -- but he was brought onto Whats My LIne to add some comedy to the show. He can't be blamed for being what he was -- the producers knew his style and initially it was thought to be a good idea. It is fortunate the the panel evolved to have such a perfect mix of regulars.... Rowby.

While his style did not fit in with the show, he was very clever and funny. He was an excellent panelist in terms of questions he asked. Also, I did notice after time that his flirtatious schtick was consistent with all female contestants, young and old. So he did look like a creeper when he did it to the younger ladies, he would compliment and flirt similarly with much older ladies. And there was one episode where he jumped up to help an elderly contestant across the stage, very much the gentleman.

He's a boor and always looks as if he's about to burp. How could so much bad taste be in one person? They should have tied his hands under the desk so he couldn't scratch or stick a finger in his ear.

She has a great smile, too.

I had shingles on my chest. What a horror. A lot of pain. Lasted about three weeks. Started on my birthday the 24th of Dec. so had both my BD and Xmas ruined. Stupid doctor gave me nothing for the mental anguish and prescribed a lotion which was useless but cost $50 which was a tidy sum back then. My wife made a lotion which was better than the expensive one and coincided with the affliction actually getting better. Shingles of the eye has to be even worse than what I endured.

I was a kid and I remember loving Sunday night's at 10:30 eastern.

And Home Alone 2 and Rookie of The Year

Haha 😂😂quick wit

mr bracken was mr duncan who had the toy shop in home alone 2

The patch adds some mystery or style or something, she looks good with it.

there is another episode, a later one, with her wearing a patch on her other eye

It appears she was somewhat accident prone even before she had a very serious car crash. I'm not looking for gossip but I noted as well that she looked rather strained and unwell in some earlier episodes (I actually wasn't even sure it was her!). I wonder if something was occasionally amiss behind the scenes.

I watched at least half of over the eight hundred wml videos and have noticed at least twice that Arlene wore an eyepatch. Somewhere in the comments someone mentioned she had an uncle who was a cosmetic surgeon. Since then I've wondered if the patches were a convenient cover for having her eye/eyes done. I have also seen joan rivers wearing sunglasses on a live tv show. It was well known that she was a plastic surgery junkie. Before the wonderful Regis philbin's local show went national he also wore sunglasses on his live morning show with the excuse he had a medical condition with his eyes. I absolutely loved Arlene francis with or without the patch.

+Lois Simmons - Could you imagine Bennett saying, "Good night, John-Boy?" :)

Yes, that fact is kinda sad.

Teresa, you're right! These shows are far more entertaining than anything on in 2023, which are mostly self congratulating trash, and for those who watch them, the trashier the better! That's why I just loves these shows!

Looks like it was 24 Aug 1952. Good eye!

Me too, very awkward! I'm glad they gave it up after a while.

@@MarthaCarnahan I agree! It looked extremely awkward for everyone involved. I was glad they did away with it, too.

Luckily back then they weren't crazy like you. What an interesting way it was to bond with the contestants rather than just start off with a dry question answer session.

Lois Simmons wow...never thought of camera hogging Lois.....cynical much?

Daisy Cassidy -- it's better than when they had to perform tricks. A quick walk is fine.

I didn't like the parading in front of the panel. Hal block could be boorish when it came to the women. Uncouth, not funhy. It was an effort to put some lightness and fun into a show that would otherwise have been dull and boring. I'm glad they finally worked out the kinks and changed the format.

@@sophiemorrison9820 But, the producers should have realized early on that the perp walk and guessing occupations was unnecessary. These stayed in the program for way too long and the perp walk was especially cringey. It's an example of how clunky early television was.

I get why it's there. In concept, it could help give the panel small clues to occupations, but it was too often not helpful and just embarrassing.

I agree I really didn't like it when Dorthy asked them to show her their hands and the inside of their coats!

Yes, and you left out the most important star in that movie-Marilyn. This was when she was fresh and not so world worn down.

That's why I don't even try lol

He was Mr. Duncan

And those were 1952 dollars.

I don't know why she's wearing a patch

@@jessyleppert2 - Bennett comments that she somehow cut her eye.

I thought the same thing. But, I would not have wanted to miss The roulette wheel operator at the Flamingo and the Limburger cheese salesman. (I can see that Flamingo tower with the pink neon design in my memories! I was there several times in the 1950's.) I agree that the steeplejack lady deserved better. The questioning could have been hilarious.

I hate that too, but they still get the $ for coming

They do and are always giggling about stuff that is only, if that, slightly amusing. Would like to slap upside the head those in tv who dragged people in off the streets to supposedly add to the show.

Mr. Wally world.

He's better in "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," or "Hail The Conquering Hero."

I was thinking similar thoughts; couldn't cheese be served with any meal, after all?

Ewwwww

People go to Florida to die.

i feel the same way, but this is early television. everything was new. they had to make mistakes to learn what did not work. they were probably afraid to try just talking to each other, or, no one thought of it, yet.

Actually, that’s the BEST spot to grab! Run outta time easy 50.

PepsiMama2 I agree! The contestant is likely not playing for the money. They aredoing it for a chance to be on TV, play the game, and be a hometown hero of sorts. It just seems so unfair. They should have figured something out.

With such a short time, they should have dispensed with the Walk of Shame and those silly guesses.

I saw an interview on the Canadian CBC network from 1975, right after the end of the series, where Arlene admitted to peeking through a space in her mask. I had it recorded on VHS but cannot find it.

@@ChrisHansonCanada Nice to have my suspicions confirmed. I often wondered if at least one panelist might have been given a contestants "line" in advance so that a contestant could be terminated if time became a problem....at least before the celebrity was due to arrive on stage

Someone mentioned that with another contestant a couple of days ago, so apparently it happened more than once. They generally stood up for the women.

lol

soulierinvestments I thought about that too, as there seemed to be some elements of the "gambit" technique in Bennett's line of questioning there.

The first few months aired only every other week, on a different night (I think Wednesday?), at 8pm Eastern time. Otherwise, yes, for 17 years, WML aired at the same time every week, no reruns.

So I guess trhat another C BS show hAD as much of A chance of getting into that Sun. nite at 9:30 timeslot as a cube of ice does hurtling into the sun huh?

WML premiered 2/16/1950 @ 8:00 on Thursdays, moved in April 1950 to 9:00 on Wednesdays, finally settling into the Sunday night 10:30 slot in October 1950, where it remained permanently.

@@steveburrus5526 A very few special programs preempted WML from time to time. But each was a one-time interruption. Typically, someone in our group of commenters will have researched old broadcast schedules and posted their findings in the comments for the episode following the gap.

bigred997 Yeah, if I’d have been a contestant I’d try to be slated last. The more time I could waste, the easier it would be for me to win the $50 by forfeit. BTW, $50 in 1952 would buy as much as $60 or $65 dollars at today’s prices so it was a pretty good prize.

In 1952 $50.00 was a really good week's pay.

In later episodes, when there was not much time left at the end of the show, they did exactly that. John would explain that there was not much time, and he would eliminate the walk and the wild guesses.

Steeplejacks were always male. Nowadays nobody would laugh because woman have been doing traditional jobs for males for decades. Back then it was very unusual.

Block had just done an all-night charity marathon, he was probably tired and that would account for his being grumpy.

She obviously has a head for heights but not for hats!

Some of the "hats" British women wear are ridiculous.

It could be that he thought it was bloody and that the blood taken from it would have been of aid to our military, which at that time was engaged in the Korean War. It was a pretty lame joke.

@@TheBlackhawkbrat Yes, not funny at all and very bad taste.

+LoudCitizen Only Arlene ever wore an eyepatch on WML, always due to various eye injuries she'd suffered.

If you watch her after taking her mask off she is constantly touching her eyelashes with long sharp nails. Probably scratched her eyes with those claws lol

I had to listen to that exchange again (12:41) to get it straight in my own head! Dorothy: "Would I be wrong in assuming that this product was not especially designed to beautify the lady?" John's answer: "Yes, it is not especially designed to beautify a lady." You're right, Larry Teren! If he had been able to clearly think through all the double negatives, John's answer by rights should have (or at least *could* have) been: "No you would not be wrong." But it *is* confusing -- so I guess he goofed this time! ;p

SaveThe TPC thank you for recognizing genius. seriously, there are few shows left that challenges one's intellect anymore- jeopardy and wheel of fortune and can't think of another at the moment.

Jeopardy! definitely challenges one's knowledge and I find it highly entertaining to watch, even by myself, the challenge being to say the correct answer out loud before any contestant does or before Alex Trebek reveals the answer. In contrast, I don't think Wheel of Fortune is that much of a challenge. It certainly isn't anywhere near as difficult to qualify as a contestant. I find "Wheel" to be about as challenging as "Celebrity Jeopardy!" -- the celebrity version of "Jeopardy!" is completely dumbed down. As to "Wheel" I'm always amazed that people will spend their accrued money buying vowels when the answer is so often obvious with just consonants showing. I would include "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" to be intellectually challenging, but I find the program's format rather annoying and slow moving -- and it's especially annoying when the host can't pronounce the answers correctly. At least Mr. Trebek comes off as reasonably intelligent himself.

Who wants to b a millionaire is good.

This show was always very lenient on answers. Very often Mr. Daly would give a yes in extremely broad terms, but I think that was often to aide in the humor, because it often caused the panel to follow the wrong line of reasoning,

I'll be back to posting within the next couple of days, don't worry.

Okay, just wanted to make sure you were alright, when things get out of pattern I tend to get concerned haha! Hope you're well!

Jane Pickens (though it took me quite a few listens to get it!)

soulierinvestments It was *quite* a hat! :) Btw, why would a steeplejack ever work indoors?

. . . rainy days?

soulierinvestments Doing what?

Even though most of a steeplejack's work would be outside, certain jobs might require a portion to be done inside as well (certain repairs for example, that still primarily need to be accessed from the outside and have the scaffolding or other rigging in place). As John Daly has said at other times, she would be the expert. It was also a shame, as he said, to have so little time to spend on the last challenger. Very few questions can be asked in that period of time, especially if the answers are borderline yes or no.

I think she e was just playing to the gender roles of the day.

Dorothy is my favorite panelist, but feeling the muscles and looking at the labels of men’s suit coats is just creepy.

lol, Hal is a witty man

Funny thing was, it was shot in Chicago not New York

@@jessyleppert2 Right

fifty dollars is top rize ic you are unluckyyouare hnlucky you will have to walk home

They said she cut her eye. In subsequent episodes her patch has the CBS "Eye" logo on it.

From TV.com episode guide for this show: "ARLENE'S EYEPATCH INCIDENT #1 of 4: Arlene is wearing a black eyepatch over her left eye this evening. In her 1978 autobiography, Arlene explains her scratched cornea: "The first accident to my eye came about because my son, Peter, was sitting on my lap, watching a Disney cartoon on television and something in the movie scared him. He turned to bury his head in my shoulder, at the same time lifting his hand, and the scratch on my cornea to which I referred was the result." www.tv.com/shows/whats-my-line/episode-119-92954/

49yt Makes more sense than Gil Fates's explanation that Arlene had a "habit of sticking her fingernail in her eye".

It would seem that Arlene frequently got something like a fallen eyelash in her eye, or some other small foreign object, and on multiple occasions managed to scratch her cornea with a long fingernail while trying to remove the object with her fingertip. I would have suggested to her using a Q-Tip with the cotton bud on the end wet in water or eyewash solution. I think that kind of self-inflicted injury to the cornea accounts for three out of four incidents that required an eyepatch. The fourth one you can read about elsewhere in this post -- where her son Peter, as a toddler, poked her in the eye accidentally.

She was moonlighting as a privateer.

He was in a lot of movies, including Home Alone 2.

You have to take into account that this show was broadcast just 7 years after World War Two. It was fresh in our minds. We’d fought a costly war for freedom and to stop bossy boots like you telling us all what to do. Now, 76 years after the war, our sacrifice has largely been forgotten and new generations of people abound, demanding that we must do this, or must not do that. Do you think that a strong independent woman like Arlene would give your admonishments serious consideration? Rather, she would likely have coined a new term, and today we would be complaining about an infestation of “Kristas” rather than “Karens”. Please visit your local cenotaph and reflect on your attitude young miss.

WTF? How determined to find fault with someone do you have to be before assuming there was nothing wrong with her eye after Bennett SPECIFICALLY SAID she had cut her eye and was wearing a patch for that reason. Damn. You couldn't be like everyone else who missed it and ask why she's wearing a patch, rather than assume with no basis at all that she's being a horrible person?