269     January 15, 1958
Bill, Joan Bennett, Carl Reiner, Betsy

Henry Morgan hosts

Reiner plugs his new book Enter Laughing (Simon and Schuster, 1958).  The book would inspire a 1963 play, as well as a 1967 film directed by Reiner.   

Ralph Cutting from Hanover, New Hampshire: “I’ve eaten a peanut butter sandwich for lunch every day for 36 years” (13,166 peanut butter sandwiches) 
The taciturn New Englander says, “Because I like peanut butter sandwiches.”   

Special Guest Miiko Taka 
With the panel blindfolded, Taka serves tea to Henry as George Yoshida demonstrates jujutsu.  Yoshida runs the New York Dojo in Manhattan.  A fascination with jujutsu and other Asian self-defense arts exploded in Western countries following World War Two.  Taka had recently made her film debut in Sayonara (1957) alongside Marlon Brando.  She would make dozens of appearances in film and television through the early eighties before retiring.  She died in January 2023 at age 97.   

Eleven men and women: “We thought up 129 ways for a single girl to catch a husband” 
The group, meant to represents a wide cross-section of opinions, includes Eileen Ford of Ford Modeling Agency, Lee H Bristol of the Bristol-Meyers Company, and songwriter Buddy Bernier.  The eleven participated in a brainstorming session, which Henry describes to the viewing audience, since ’brainstorming’ is still a relatively new concept.  Bristol, who led the session, would later work with author Alex Osborn in bringing the concept of ‘brainstorming’ to the masses.  Bristol provided the foreword for Osborn’s book Applied Imagination (Scribners 1957), and also narrated the taped version.   The results of the team’s efforts appear in the January McCall’s magazine.