500     November 12, 1962 (LIVE)
Bill, Betsy, Henry, Bess

Mr X: “My father built this car in 1896…He’s home watching the show tonight”                 
George Duryea’s father J. Frank Duryea is credited with building the first successful gasoline-powered car in America, two decades before Henry Ford introduced his Model T.  Frank built the vehicle based on designs by his brother Charles.  The brothers founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1895.  Late in that year, on a snowy Thanksgiving Day in Chicago, Frank drove the Duryea horseless carriage to victory in the first automobile race ever held in the US.  Frank, watching the show at home, is 93 years old here.  He would live until 1967.   

Special guest Carol Burnett comically models the latest fashions, with the panel blindfolded.  The clothes are supplied by Henri Bendel, which was at one time among the leading fashion retail stores in New York.  The name is immortalized in the lyrics to the classic Cole Porter song “You’re The Top” (1934).  Porter wrote “You’re a Bendel bonnet/A Shakespeare sonnet/You’re Mickey Mouse.”  The Bendel family sold the store to investors in the 1950s.  The Bendel brand name continued for several more decades, even expanding from the single NYC store to a nationwide chain, before the modern owners shuttered the stores and the brand in 2019 after 123 years in business.   

With time remaining at the end, Garry asks the panel about books they’ve been reading.  Bill mentioned Fail Safe.  Betsy’s choice is Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea.  Henry talks about picking up an antiquarian copy of The Adventures of Marco Polo.  Bess has just finished Herman Wouk’s Youngblood Hawk and is about to start Seven Days in May.  Garry recommends Below Negative by Edmund Streeter.