What's My Line? - Carol Channing (Aug 2, 1964)

MYSTERY GUEST: Carol Channing
PANEL: Dorothy Kilgallen, Robert Q. Lewis, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf
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[@dianagager2308]

Talking about phones coming a long way. I’m watching this on mine:)

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Me too🎩

[@broughtbackin]

Arlene's amazement and glee hearing about the touch tone phone was just spectacular. (Seeing where we are now). I kinda miss those phones sometimes.

[@prchristman]

I still have a touch-tone phone, and no cell phone!! I went to the World's Fair when I was 12 or 13 and remember the picture phones. I talked with someone on the West Coast, and we could see each other. I'm glad that never caught on, and as you've probably guessed, I don't have Skype.

[@loissimmons6558]

I have Skype, but most of the time only use it for audio connections, usually to someone outside of the U.S. and Canada.

[@gailsirois7175]

It DID CATCH ON...that's skyping and video messaging ...facetime..people talk to each other and see each other every day

[@gailsirois7175]

Not surprised

[@prchristman]

@@gailsirois7175 That was 6 years ago. I have a cell phone and Zoom now. Surprise.

[@TheCosmicVagabond]

Welcome to the 2020's!! (You won't like it.) 😵

[@mercedeslatapie9772]

What would all of these wonderful people think of our cell phones today??? Along with texting, etc.????? Love Dorothy's sweet little giggle!!! A great loss.

[@yeahnoonecaresifyouarefirst]

What would Thomas Edison think?! ❤

[@LarsRyeJeppesen]

8 years later, water skiing was actually part of the Summer Olympics in Munich 1972

[@soulierinvestments]

Yeah its true -- I am old enough to remember using the dial phones, either on the desk or on the wall. Some in colors, most black, all heavy equipment. In this period Western Electric made two huge developments in phones: touch tone buttons to signal the phone number and Trimline phones, which put the buttons in the receiver. The Trimline phone with the buttons. My favorite landline phone of all. Both mid 1960s innovations.

[@juangalt3496]

This was about the year my sister got a 'Princess' phone - she was 15 and loved it. The 'Trimline' first came out with a dial in the receiver and later buttons. Back in 1964 you could only get phones through the phone company - that changed in the '70s.

[@erra404]

john g I still have a couple of push button princess phones in harvest gold. They are part of my small collection of phones.

[@16Lizards]

I have dial princess fone I use in my garage just to receive calls. Too cumbersome to dial! This was a fun mystery guest talking about the new technology. I would have guessed touchtone fones were 5 or so years later. They were very expensive to rent (yes, all fones were owned by the fone co and rented) for many years and most homes didn't have them until the late 70s. You had to pay extra for touch tone service. I remember my friends thinking we were rich in the 70s because we had a touch tone fone and a color TV in the den!

[@stevenginsberg8471]

dial phones were still very common in the 1970s. And most pay phones were still using rotary dials well into the 1980s.

[@garyzerr9821]

I am responding to an old thread, but I still have ( plugged in) a princess phone by the bed... still stylish and retro. Those things were built to last forever. Bought it from the phone company in 1982

[@soulierinvestments]

When this was videotaped, "Hello Dolly!" had just started its run. By the time CBS broadcast it in summer, it had settled into its long run. Channing did the show so many times, we think of it in terms of her; but when Merrick started casting his work in progress "Dolly: a damned exasperating woman" AKA "Call on Dolly" then finally titled a few weeks before opening "Hello Dolly!" , he thought in terms of Ethel Merman or Mary Martin and then later in terms of Carol Channing. AT this stage, she must think how did I ever live without it? Channing is now in her 90s.

[@MrJoeybabe25]

The original run was Jan 16, 1964 - Dec 27, 1970.

[@davidsanderson5918]

Joe Postove Yep Wikipedia is such a good resource. I use it too. :)

[@MrJoeybabe25]

@@davidsanderson5918 It is! I (ahem) did not have that in my head. 😁

[@kentetalman9008]

I saw Carol Channing in the original production. As great as she was, she wasn't NEARLY as great as Pearl Bailey in the all-Black production. That was marvelous!

[@FreihEitner]

I can never see Carol Channing without thinking of Ryan Stiles' impressions of her on Whose Line Is It Anyway. Him doing Channing quoting Clint Eastwood's "Do you feel lucky? Well do you punk?" was comedy gold.

[@yeahnoonecaresifyouarefirst]

Or when he bumped his head and broke the bulb 😂🤕

[@alanhumphrey4198]

My late father rode an elevator with Carol Channing and her security escort once when she visited Alanta, GA. He considered it his "brush with greatness".

[@battlegirldeb]

I wish the last guest had more time. It would have been fun to see if they ever got what his job really was.

[@rmelin13231]

I find that seems to happen fairly often. Then I get to thinking that maybe it's because I don't want the show to end? Nevertheless, I agree that it would have been interesting.

[@battlegirldeb]

I love when the product is so simple that the never get it.

[@SteveCarras]

Correct.

[@shirleyrombough8173]

Dorothy looked really pretty in this episode.

[@mosipd]

Wow, the new technology that is being debuted at the World's Fair, touch tone dialing! Now that's cool.

[@neilmidkiff]

Yes, I tried it at the Fair in 1964. I was eight, so was old enough to have experience using rotary dial phones, and it was clearly a great step forward in convenience. As a budding musician, too, I remember how dissonant the pairs of tones sounded -- not like any intervals in our musical scale. Later, as an engineer, I understood why the system was designed that way; it was easier for the phone company equipment to pick out the individual tones if they didn't fit into a "chord" musically speaking. And decades of familiarity with the tones has made them sound much less weird than they did to me back then.

[@Merrida100]

That last contestant is so genteel. Look at how respectful he is to Dorothy and Arlene. Wow, what a gentleman.

[@HelloooThere]

I don’t know that it was reciprocated.

[@malcolmmarshall5946]

I still have a Trimline phone, cherry red, with the rotary dial.

[@rmelin13231]

Now THAT is cool !

[@malcolmmarshall5946]

@@rmelin13231 LOL of course I don't use it nowadays, but I keep it on my kitchen counter for retro decoration!

[@joycejean-baptiste4355]

Master, we don't use that term for young men any more. Brings back memories.

[@neilmcdonald9164]

That its abbreviation was the same as Mr didn't help...there was no need for a disguise for male marital status,a qv of Ms,therefore I kinda like it...was it used for older unmarried men too??🎩

[@erichanson426]

That is indeed a good question of the last product, is it cheap? Cheap to get yes, expensive on what you do with it, and that is why I would never be Daily, I would give away way too much info.

[@washoe4827]

if you pay the balance each month, it's cheap - only an annual fee, yes?

[@scottpardee6303]

I am sorry to read the criticism of Bennett Cerf. He was a great Panelist. He also gave a useful interview about the program that other commentators have attached to other videos of this show, which explained a lot of how panelists guessed contestants.

[@Gcooper85]

I think the criticism is well deserved. I heard Cerf's wife had knowledge of the contestants beforehand and would feed him the "lines" on occasion. It appears to be true the way he "luckily" guesses...my admiration for him as dimmed as he is essentially cheating.

[@joelfogelsanger5773]

Carol Channing is a pure delight

[@dinahbrown902]

Could never stand her voice

[@kali3665]

Carol Channing's voice is not exactly easy to disguise, even back then. 😜😜

[@TOM-C.]

9:41 Dorothy "Does it make any sort of sound when it's working, or does whatever it does" It's a telephone, the dang thing rings when it's working, and John says it doesn't by giving Dorothy a NO! Sometimes that man is just stupid, and ticks me off! Love you John! 😁👍😎✌

[@TyrSkyFatherOfTheGods]

A push button phone! Whatever will they think of next?!

[@loissimmons6558]

Dick Tracy's two-way wrist TV. He used it to call his partner, Sam Ketchum.

[@davidsanderson5918]

fishhead06 We still had a 'dial' phone in the house till the early 1980s!!

[@slaytonp]

One of the amusing things I've seen recently was a couple of teenage kids attempting to find out how a dial telephone worked. They were totally baffled.

[@VahanNisanian]

You know it is a pre-taped episode, when John mentions the "August Heat", and the ladies are wearing warmer clothes, instead of light summer dresses.

[@2508bona]

Also because the laughter after Daly's "August heat" lasts a suspiciously long time. It was probably really cold that day.

[@savethetpc6406]

Chris Barat Yes, as ***** pointed out in another post, below, this episode was actually taped in February. They sure did make a lot of jokes about the supposed summer heat, humidity and skin-burning sunshine. Obviously they knew at the time that this episode would be scheduled to air in August. I wonder if some people watching it on TV when it first aired believed it was live.

[@TheBraveIntrovert]

Ha! when touch tones were new. They are older than my mom.

[@theoriginaledi]

Walt Jr clearly living a life in deep cover witness protection in New York.

[@VahanNisanian]

Recorded on February 16, 1964.

[@stuartharris2165]

Hence the laughter when John talks about August heat!

[@rubberdc]

Its funny to hear now 2018 about push button phones. How would they feel about the Iphone I wonder?

[@washoe4827]

they'd still have to push the buttons...

[@savethetpc6406]

I can't help cringing at Bennett's attempt to pronounce "un peu" (French for "a little").

[@slaytonp]

For being one of the more literate people of his time and so closely associated with the Random House Dictionary, he certainly fit many of his spoken words into The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations by Charles Harrington Elster.

[@rmelin13231]

I likewise cringed while he (repeatedly) used the phrase. Obviously not even a second or third language for Mr. Cerf.

[@kentetalman9008]

Bennett, being an avid reader, got many of his pronunciations by reading words, rather than by hearing them spoken.

[@MrJoeybabe25]

In 1964 if Dorothy walked down 5th Avenue with a telephone she would be conspicuous. Now, in 2020 if you walk down 5th Avenue without a MASK...oh, boy! Call the cops!

[@kristabrewer9363]

I only started wearing a mask last week and that's only because it became mandatory, but I only wear them in the grocery store and the place I volunteer at. There is no WAY I'm gonna let the government control me by having me wear them when I'm out walking!

[@peternagy-im4be]

@@kristabrewer9363 I never wore one. Didn't buy into the total bullshit

[@joycejean-baptiste4355]

The telephone manufacturer didn't know that one day, like Miss Kilgallen asked, this question would be in the affirmative, phones would be on the person, Lol!

[@worldnotworld]

Let's go back to rotary phones.

[@lllowkee6533]

“Touchstone!!! How marvelous!” 🤣. Hard to imagine!

[@peternagy-im4be]

Splendid!! Absolutely splendid!!

[@LANCSKID]

Touch TONE not stone. Unless you are in Ancient Greece.

[@wcwindom56]

wow, the invention of the push button phone. how far we have come today

[@washoe4827]

they're STILL push button, no?

[@enriquesanchez2001]

@@washoe4827 Actually - we can voice call no - no hands

[@washoe4827]

@@enriquesanchez2001 haha - got me !

[@joycejean-baptiste4355]

Miss Frances was right, you could sit on or lie on your phone in the not too distant future. Especially if it's in your pocket like some people carry it. Or if you fall asleep with it near you. Not a good idea but I see some people do. If they only knew.

[@ericsamuelson5656]

Aired less than a day before my late half sister Valerie Wax was born

[@jasonfrancis6174]

8:00- If this was the mid to late 80's instead of 1964, Dorothy wouldn't be wrong. She might've gotten a qualified yes. By then, people did have phones on their person.

[@savethetpc6406]

Jason Francis And of course, nowadays, there'd be no qualification about it!

[@jasonfrancis6174]

That's right. lol

[@16Lizards]

I was thinking that, too! Most people only had one fone (legally) in their home because you paid for each fone you had. Some people managed to get (steal?) extra fones and use them in other rooms. I remember stories long ago of fone repairmen telling me in the "old days" they'd recall going to houses and hearing bells 'jingle' while people ran to hide their fones once they realized who was at the door!

[@WhatsMyLine]

16Lizards Back then you didn't even own your phones-- you rented them from the phone company!

[@16Lizards]

What's My Line? Yep, I mentioned that in another comment above. Older fones have markings on the bottom that read "Property of "

[@joycejean-baptiste4355]

They already had push buttons. They were futuristic ideas in the making, interesting.

[@lancesteel1475]

I hope to see one of those newfangled phones with the push buttons at the next World's fair!

[@nandofigueira2005]

I love carol 😊

[@Sylvander1911]

Arlene first up 2 weeks in a row

[@MrJoeybabe25]

was Broadway silent on Sunday night so that Carol could attend WML? I thought it was Monday night.

[@spongevee1]

It varies with different shows, but often there's a Sunday matinee and then they're dark until Tuesday night.

[@LANCSKID]

I have two tin cans connected by string … amazing technology!

[@jennj6107]

Isn't Walter White in Breaking Bad? lol

[@LANCSKID]

My mate, Slugger, prints credit cards … and to order - any one you want.

[@jeremycrandall2899]

20:49 I thought that Bennett was gonna ask if he was related to Sonny Liston.

[@ChrisHansonCanada]

*_PROFESSIONAL WATER SKIER (MEN'S WORLD CHAMPION)_* *_MANUFACTURES TELEPHONES_* *_PRINTS CREDIT CARDS (AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY)_*

[@1928gerry]

I saw Hello Dolly in London Eng. and wasn't impressed with it. Possibly the choice of Carol Channing made it popular in New York but none of the cast stood out in the London production.

[@savethetpc6406]

What's My Line? Gary, I don't know if you realize it, but the way you have posted the title of this video makes it look as if Carol Channing is a guest panelist. I'm guessing that this oversight has something to do with your aversion to mentioning the actual guest panelist. ;)

[@WhatsMyLine]

Yes-- you called it! That's what caused the error! :) I have corrected it-- thank you for pointing it out.

[@savethetpc6406]

What's My Line? You're welcome. :)

[@kentetalman9008]

@@WhatsMyLine No, you haven't corrected it. That would have meant mentioning the actual name of the guest panelist. How petty of you!

[@LarsRyeJeppesen]

R.I.P. Carol Channing

[@lisal8984]

It is sad that Carol Channing had to hide her biracial identity. Her father was half Black and also lived his life "passing" for white.

[@peternagy-im4be]

Extraordinary comment.

[@rmelin13231]

My understanding is that she was quite proud of her heritage, although it did take her many years to speak publicly of it.

[@dinahbrown902]

Sad?

[@bluecamus5162]

Is Walter White the first black contestant who was NOT a famous mystery guest? I can't recall any others.

[@RonGerstein]

No, there were women black contestants.

[@DebbieFaubion]

4:51.....aaaaawkwaaarrrd....

[@davidsanderson5918]

DebbieFaubion Why?

[@joycejean-baptiste4355]

Miss Carol Channing cannot disguise her voice, LoL! 😂

[@flaggerify]

Cerf got the first one suspiciously fast.

[@loissimmons6558]

Sarasota, Florida connected to a water sport. Not a difficult stretch, especially when the door had already been opened to his line having something to do with sports.

[@rmelin13231]

I think Mr. Cerf's general knowledge of U.S. geography has helped him guess correctly, or at least get the ball rolling, on many occasions. (But didn't help him with his French pronunciation).

[@Merrida100]

Oh God, Bennett butchers so many different words and names in the English language. It's so unsettling and irritating.

[@1928gerry]

As I said to another person, Bennett had a speech impediment that shouldn't be unsettling or irritating to anyone else. It must be difficult for him.

[@washoe4827]

Merri, you're easily unsettled and easily irritated, yes?

[@gailsirois7175]

Old worm lips Cerf..only thing I disdain in the show

[@kristabrewer9363]

Carol Channing and her gawdy hats! I don't like her! (not for that reason)

[@shirleyrombough8173]

Why don't you like her? Not every mystery guest is well liked by everyone.

[@lisal8984]

Did you never meet her?

[@gailsirois7175]

Being such an obvious cheater. Cerf should never have been allowed on this show...ever !!!

[@markxxx21]

Dorothy looks bombed out of her mind. She is clearly all giggly and laughing at the start and by the end, she is like 23:00 she is slurring her words almost

[@1928gerry]

How rumours got started: she wasn't any gigglier than often was nor was she slurring her words.

[@shirleyrombough8173]

She is not. Why do you people say that?

[@washoe4827]

Marky, don't bogart that joint...!

[@gailsirois7175]

So what

[@stuartharris2165]

R.I.P Carol Channing