122     February 9, 1955
Bill, Jayne, Henry, Faye

Beginning with this episode, the questioning only goes once around the panel instead of twice.  Contestants earn $20 for each stumped panelist.  Winston Cigarettes is the new sponsor instead of Cavalier, though both are products of the RJ Reynolds Company.   

Bruno Ceresa of Langeloth, PA: “I am the all-time US Champion liar” 
The Burlington Liars Club has been presenting annual awards since 1929, and Ceresa was the 1933 champion.  For their silver anniversary in 1954, they crowned Ceresa the “Champion of Champions” for his lie (more of a tall tale) about a grandfather’s clock that had been operating for so long that the shadow of the pendulum had worn a hole in the back of the case.  (Also see E88 and  E479 )   

Mrs. [Anna Franks]: “I sat on Abraham Lincoln’s lap (1864)” 
In the 1940s and 1950s, hundreds of senior citizens claimed to have met the president and sat on his lap when they were very young, a terribly difficult thing to prove. A year from this episode, Secret would have a far more remarkable eyewitness to Lincoln story. ( E173 )
  

Special Guest Paul Whiteman and his band: “We’re beating our feet on genuine Mississippi mud” 
Whiteman and his band were famous for their recording of the song "Mississippi Mud" (1927) and this secret simply took the lyrics of that song literally.  The mud came from the banks of the Mississippi at Davenport, Iowa, not from the state of Mississippi.  Whiteman led one of the most popular jazz bands of the 1920s and 1930s, and in his time was known as the “King of Jazz.”  On Whiteman’s hit recording of “Mississippi Mud," one of the vocalists was a young Bing Crosby.  At the end of the show, Garry joins the band on drums.

This episode has not been reviewed.  ​Information comes from alternate sources, including Gil Fates' handwritten notes.  Quoted secrets are based on those notes and are believed to be accurate.

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