164     December 7, 1955
Bill, Jayne, Henry, Faye

Faysie’s back!   

Paul Anderson: “I’m going to lift the panelists all at once” 
The combined weight of the panel is around 600 pounds.  Anderson exploded into the public consciousness earlier in the year when he traveled to the USSR to compete in an amateur weightlifting championship.  His decisive win there was a great symbolic victory for the US during the Cold War.  In October, he won a gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championships in Germany.  He would go on to win an Olympic gold medal in 1956 and become one of the great ambassadors for the sport of competitive powerlifting.   He would return to the show in 1963 ( E523).   A brief clip of THIS appearance can be seen on the fourth anniversary show ( E192)

George Kelly: “I cut down the Christmas tree for the White House lawn” 
The tradition of an outdoor National Christmas Tree began in 1923 during the early months of the Coolidge administration.  An indoor White House Christmas Tree is a different tradition altogether, with 19th century origins.  A Capitol Christmas Tree has been yet another Washington DC tradition since the 1960s.  This 1955 tree came from the Black Hills of South Dakota, where Kelly is the Assistant State Forester. It’s believed the tree started out as a seedling around 1890, coincidentally making it the same age as President Eisenhower.   

Special guest Art Linkletter 
Linkletter's visits were often tied to the sort of silly games he would play with unsuspecting contestants on his House Party series.  One such game here involved snooping through the contents of Jayne's handbag, where one of the more unusual items he found was a large chunk of wallpaper.  Jayne explained that she and Steve were remodeling, which let to the discovery that all four members of the panel were involved with home improvement projects of one kind or another.

This episode has not been reviewed.  Details come from alternate sources, including thumbnail descriptions of the episodes in GSN documentation.  Except where noted, “secrets” are not exact quotes.

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