Before the games begin, Garry corrects
what he calls a “grave injustice” created on the last program by bringing out
and acknowledging the second “barker” on “How Much Is That Doggie In the Window”.
Joe Reisman, the song’s arranger, was a
musician in his own right and also contributed to the Patti Page hit “Tennessee Waltz.”
Mr X: “I flew a MIG through the Iron Curtain
to freedom”
Lt Franciszek Jarecki flew from Poland
to Denmark on March 5 in the Russian-built jet seeking asylum, eventually
winding up in America and achieving brief celebrity. Zygmunt Nagorski appears as his
interpreter. Nagorski later wrote
feature stories about “Frank” and his daring exploits.
Anthony Mazzeo: “I get shaved every day by a
murderer”
Mazzeo is the Hospital Superintendent
at the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. The inmate is not identified,
only that he is the prison barber and is in jail for killing his wife. Only a few months after this appearance,
Mazzeo would lose his job at the prison.
He was accused of providing narcotics to inmates there, though he would
eventually be acquitted of the charge.
Special Guest Xavier Cugat: “I’m going to
dance a rhumba with Faye Emerson”
Cugat was a colorful Spanish-Cuban
bandleader whose recordings and frequent television appearances are credited
with spreading interest in Latin music throughout the US. Garry makes reference to working with Cugat
in their early radio days, and playfully calls him by nicknames like “Cugie”
and simply “X”.
[Walter Perry] from Boston: “I carried Eleanor
Roosevelt piggy back”
Mrs. Roosevelt remained active
throughout the 1950s with humanitarian and charitable causes after her
husband’s death, making the image for this Secret delightfully
incongruous. Perry, an older man here,
was once a young seaman who carried Roosevelt a short distance to shore when
her dinghy ran aground.
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