Monsieur X: "My wife and I had our 25th child last week"
Heliodore Cyr would become the show's king of wacky childbirth secrets. He would make a second appearance a year later after the birth of his 26th child (
E117) and again a few years after that for the birth of his 27th (
E342). Number 25 here was born on January 31. Cyr himself is 48, and none of the offspring were the result of multiple births. Mitchell
Leiser from the Goodson-Todman staff (Garry accidentally says "Goodman-Todson" and nobody seems to care) serves as
interpreter for the French-Canadian Cyr, who doesn’t speak English. With entertainment options being in short supply in his remote home, the show gives him radio in addition to his regular winnings.
Mrs Leonard Cloud from Sioux City, Iowa: "I
escaped from Czechoslovakia in a home-made tank”
Mrs Cloud is a Czech native born Libuse 'Lila' Hrdonkova who met her American husband when he was stationed there during World War Two. He returned to marry her in 1949, but in the meantime the country had fallen to a Communist regime. They sent Leonard home when his visa expired, and they denied Lila a passport, effectively trapping her in Czechoslovakia. She became aligned with Václav Uhlík, a Czech mechanic who spent years secretly building a tank out of scrap iron and steel. Finally, in the early hours of July 25, 1953, Lila, Uhlik and six others (including Uhlik's wife and two young children) headed for the West Germany border in Uhlik's tank. From a distance, it fooled the Czech soldiers, who thought it one of theirs. By the time the dumbfounded border guards realized what was going on, it was too late. According to reports, not a single shot was ever fired. It would still be another two months until Mrs Cloud was reunited with her husband in Iowa on September 18. She became a public speaker denouncing the horrible conditions in her home country under communism. None of this is covered in any detail on the show, but Henry was at least familiar with the story. Mrs Cloud's saga is featured in the February 1954 issue of McCall's magazine.
Special guest Stu Erwin: "I'm going to give the panel this week's pay in pennies"
The game is abbreviated so that they can get the sight gag of all those pennies being delivered. Garry says there's nearly 1000 pounds of pennies. Erwin was a busy, Oscar-nominated film actor of the 30s and 40s with nearly a hundred titles to his credit. He transitioned to television with The Stu Erwin Show (1950-55) aka Trouble With Father, in which he played a high school principal named Stu Erwin. His wife June on the show was played by his real-life wife June Collyer, the sister of actor and host Bud Collyer. The low-key series (it had no laugh track until its final season) had an odd production history. The show originally aired new episodes each week for a year and a half (78 consecutive episodes) without a single break. After a relatively normal third season they took an extended break, and their fourth year (1953-54) was made up entirely of reruns. They then returned to produce what amounted to a fourth season in their fifth and final year on the air. In the end, they had made 130 shows in five years. That's an average of 26 a season, which was pretty normal for the time. They just went about it oddly.