Secret No More (1967)

On February 23, 1967, CBS announced plans to do away with some of its longest-tenured series for the upcoming prime time season.  This included all three of the classic Goodson-Todman panel shows: I’ve Got a Secret (which had been on the air for 15 seasons), What’s My Line? (17) and To Tell The Truth (11).  (A daily daytime version of Truth would continue.)  The hatchet also fell on Candid Camera. Its most recent version, which aired just before Line? on Sunday nights, had only been on the air for six years, but its origins went all the way back to 1940s radio as Candid Microphone. It was an old show.  

Another show named for cancellation in the original announcement was the 12-year-old western Gunsmoke.  That series would end up getting a reprieve (and another eight seasons) simply because CBS president William Paley and his wife were fans of the show.  Gunsmoke would survive and, somewhat infamously in TV history circles, one of the shows chosen to get the ax instead would be Gilligan’s Island.  

It’s important to note that these cancellations had nothing to do with demographics.  While it was generally assumed that older shows, especially the aging panel shows, had older viewers, no one really talked in earnest about the demographic makeup of television audiences for another couple of years.  These were simply the result of declining overall ratings, which could no longer justify even the lower production costs of the games. 

When it came to the three panel shows, each one took a different path toward its demise.  What’s My Line? continued to produce new shows for the rest of the season, eventually ending its run on September 3 with a final episode that served as a going-away party.  Guests included the original three guests from their first episode in 1950, the producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, and John Daly, in a bit of silliness unusual for him, serving as the final “Mystery Guest.”  Similarly, To Tell The Truth continued normal production until its final episode on May 22, with host Bud Collyer briefly acknowledging that the nighttime run had come to an end, but that the daytime series would continue.   

I’ve Got a Secret had a strikingly different fate.  It was taken off the air almost immediately.  Newspapers announced that its last show would be on March 27, eventually extended by a week to April 3.  (One headline: ‘Secret’ Can’t Even Die Gracefully) Thanks to a few stockpiled episodes from preemptions and other reasons, the gang only reunited one more time, on February 27, to record two final shows.  One of those, with special guest Lynn Redgrave, would serve as the series ender.  After playing three regular games, Steve and the panel had barely ninety seconds to wrap up a 15-year legacy. The end result was awkward and unsatisfying. 

Because of the forced awkwardness of the goodbyes, there has been speculation that this final moment was recorded at some later date and inserted into a program that they didn’t realize was going to be their last. The “evidence” for that is Steve inviting Redgrave to “join us again soon” after her segment, and Steve then later beginning the wrap-up by saying, “Mark Goodson, I’ll get you for this.” The truth is, Steve’s strength as an ad-libber was also his weakness.  He could (and often would) say the first thing that came into his head, even a “come back and see us” cliché that he rationally knew didn’t make sense.  The Mark Goodson aside, while almost certainly related to the cancellation, could be interpreted any number of ways.  

As a practical matter, it would have been prohibitively complicated and expensive to reunite all five of our stars (Steve lived in LA, for example) dressed in exactly the same clothing and wearing the same hairstyles as before.  Plus, our timeline proves that they in fact DID know when they went to the studio on February 27 that this would be their last taping session.  It’s possible, we imagine, that they might have shot two different endings to the Lynn Redgrave show that night, one acknowledging the cancellation and one not.  But that’s as far as we’re willing to go. 

Still, a question remains.  Why did Secret get the early boot, when its sister shows were allowed to continue?  Our theory points not to CBS but to Goodson-Todman themselves.  Mostly Todman.  The fate of What’s My Line? specifically had been leaked to newspapers on February 14, and a couple days later, Todman (who usually kept a much lower profile than his partner) was reported to be angry with CBS for not telling him directly, since he had contracts to consider.  CBS, for its part, denied the original story only to confirm it with their season announcement a week later.
  
So let’s consider contracts. We’re not absolutely sure of this next part, but our understanding is that, at least in the case of Secret, the stars of the show were contracted in 13-week cycles.  What we do know is that the episodes recorded on February 27 would have been the 25th and the 26th shows recorded for that season.  Therefore, by shutting Secret down prematurely, Todman would save the company five hefty salary fees, not to mention the other production costs associated with a lame duck show.  Secret was replaced on the CBS schedule by Password, another game from the G-T stables, and a cheaper one to produce. (No panel!)  

Why not do the same thing for What’s My Line? and its similarly expensive panel?  That show was always the crown jewel and could easily have been considered more deserving of a respectful farewell.  And what about To Tell The Truth?  With its daytime show ongoing, using  exactly the same panel and host, the cost savings would have been minimal.  This is just speculation, and these days there’s no one around to prove any of it.  But it’s a fun theory.