After their Hollywood and Lake Tahoe
sojourns, the show returns to New York and is live. Between his vacation and not traveling with
the group, this is Bill’s first live show since January 14.
Reverend Kehm from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who, it is established,
had lunch with Betsy and Garry earlier: “I’ve never met Betsy Palmer…she had
lunch with my twin brother today”
Betsy had
lunch with the Reverend Paul Kehm, and the contestant was Reverend Harry Kehm. The jovial identical twins say that they
routinely play tricks on unsuspecting strangers.
Mrs. Barbara Axe of Lima, Ohio: “I have seven children” and her
three-year-old daughter Kathy: “I’m the oldest”
Wacky
childbirth. Kathy’s kid brothers are
2-year-old Charles and 1-year-old Timmy. On March 4, the family added a set of
identical female quadruplets. Though
unnamed on the show, they are Susan, Julie, Anna and Rita. The family would later have a son named Joe.
Special guest Meredith Willson is on stage with 26 average folks:
“They’re going to sing their names…Their names make up the words of a song.”
In one of the
most ambitious and most entertaining secrets of the show’s entire run, their
names are the lyrics to “In the Good Old Summertime” (1902). Sort of.
The names were culled from New York telephone books by the Secret staff. They are, repeated when necessary, Inda,
Good, Old, Somerstein, Strolin, Shady, Layne, Witcher, Bebe, Mines, Hugh Holder,
Hand, Blank (they couldn’t find an ‘And’), See, Holds (two children named Hold),
Yoars, Sam Datz, Avery, Sine, Schayes, Ure, Toosie and Woosey. Two additional people named Umpa and Paar
provide the rhythmic introduction. Mr.
Somerstein’s endearingly off-key performance earned him a return visit the
following week. (See also E365,
E587
,
E670
) The film version of Willson’s The Music Man (1962) has been nominated
for six Oscars. It would win one for
Best Score at the April 8 ceremony.
Willson is working on a new Broadway show called Here’s Love, a musical adaptation of the classic film Miracle on 34th Street (1947). It would open on October 3 and run for about
ten months, a modest hit but the least successful of his three Broadway shows.
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