2   Recorded June 23, 1972

Pat Carroll, Henry Morgan, Meredith MacRae, Richard Dawson


Chet Brooks from Woodland Hills, California kept a yo-yo in motion for seventeen hours and four minutes. 

Brooks demonstrates his secret (with the panels’ eyes averted) instead of whispering it to Steve, so there is no on-screen graphic.  His intent was simply to get his name in the Guinness Book of World Records, and he would be successful in that pursuit.  The Guinness book was originally developed to settle bets about extremes in the natural world.  The tallest this, the fastest that, the longest other thing.  Over time, it became a repository for superlative and unusual human achievements, and people would scour a volume to see what records they could better (or create new ones) just for the thrill of seeing their own names in print in subsequent editions.  As a time-filling visual, since there really is nothing else to the Secret, the panel plays around with yo-yos of their own.  

105-year-old Larry Lewis from San Francisco, California: “I run six miles every morning” 
The centenarian is not only active, he’s employed.  He works as a waiter at the St Francis Hotel, a job he first held on a part-time basis in 1904.  In his early years, Lewis was an aerialist for the Barnum and Bailey Circus before it merged with Ringling Brothers.  He also worked as an assistant for magician Harry Houdini for 33 years.  Lewis would pass away in February 1974 at age 106.   

Special guest Joan Rivers appears on stage with two paintings: “I painted one of these paintings.  The other was painted by an elephant."  
Carol the Elephant from the San Diego Zoo is on hand to demonstrate her technique, which consists of striking a canvas on the floor with a regular four-inch paintbrush she holds in her trunk.  With her is trainer Joan Embery of the San Diego Zoo.  Embery, only 22 years old here and a pigtailed blonde in a miniskirt, would go on to have a career as a public ambassador for the zoo, best remembered for nearly 100 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.  Joan Rivers, of course, would also have a long relationship with The Tonight Show, one that would end badly in 1986 when she left her role as Johnny’s regular guest host to lead a competing talk show on FOX.  At this point in her career, Rivers is well known from her frequent television appearances, but nowhere close to the star she would become.  

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