In the summer of 1976, CBS gave another shot to I’ve Got
a Secret as a weekly network prime time series. The four-week run was an experiment, and a
half-hearted one at that. The first two
episodes, which had served as pilots for a proposed revival, had been shot nine
months earlier at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street in
New York, and were gathering dust on a CBS shelf. Two more episodes were shot on June 18, 1976
at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, originally the site of Sullivan’s legendary variety
show and later the home of David Letterman’s and Stephen Colbert’s late night
shows. Still, four shows isn’t much of a
sample, so from the beginning, it did not appear that anyone had any real
enthusiasm for returning panel shows to prime time.
This time, Bill Cullen took over the reins as host. Henry Morgan returned as a panelist, as did
Richard Dawson from the recent syndicated version. By this point, Dawson had made a name for
himself as the most popular panelist on the extremely popular Match Game reboot, which had been airing on CBS in daytime since 1973. His greatest and most lasting fame, as the
original host of Family Feud, would soon follow. Very soon, in fact. Family Feud debuted exactly six days
after the final episode of this four-week experiment aired. Actress Elaine Joyce and TV personalities
Phyllis George and Pat Collins took the female slots on the panel.
Returning the production to New York, with familiar faces
like Bill and Henry, suggests that Goodson-Todman was hoping for some nostalgic
appeal. Several of the celebrity
“secrets” (three out of four, in fact) were warmed over versions of games they
had played on the original series. They
even invited back longtime music director Norman Paris to help with the musical
secrets. The problem with this approach is that the line between “nostalgic”
and “old-fashioned” is a thin one. The
syndicated version shot in Los Angeles just three years earlier had energy,
color and life. This version was so set
in the ways of the past that it might as well have been in black and white.
As they did in the syndicated series, this version did away
with any sort of scorekeeping mechanism.
Contestants were presumably compensated for their time and their travel,
but no mention of such was made on air, and there was no reward, monetary or
otherwise, for stumping the panel.
We have the original two pilots, an audio recording of the
fourth and final episode, and vague childhood memories of the third one.
Episode One June
15, 1976 (Recorded September 28, 1975)
Elaine Joyce, Richard Dawson, Pat Collins, Henry Morgan
Three-year-old Jessica Santos: “I was charged with being
nude on a public beach”
Little
Jessica is joined at the desk by her lawyer Richard Ansell, who answers the
panel’s questions on behalf of his client.
Jessica took off her swimsuit on a New Jersey beach on a hot July night
last year. A prudish elderly couple
reported her to the police and an overzealous public servant issued a summons
for her heinous misbehavior. When her
case came to trial a month later, the Seaside Park attorney quickly moved to
dismiss the case, much to the amused disappointment of Ansell, who was looking
forward to having his day in court. He
said to reporters, “We wanted to have some fun with this case, and we were
prepared to call psychologists and psychiatrists to testify.”
Curtis Ezelle of Wauchula, Florida beat out 23 women in a
county-wide contest to win the title: “Mother of the Year”
Ezelle’s wife died in 1966, leaving
him to raise a teenage son and daughter alone.
His daughter Carmen, while a college student in 1974, entered dad in the
contest put on by the Wauchula Herald-Advocate newspaper. Her heartfelt letter (which Bill reads here)
touched the judges, who at first were going to give Ezelle a special citation,
but in the end decided to honor him with the award itself.
Special Guest Buddy Rich: “I’m going to play the drums while
hanging upside down”
Which he does, with the help of a
special harness. Rich is considered one
of the preeminent jazz drummers of his generation, and his skills and colorful
personality made him a frequent TV guest.
He performed “drum battles” with everyone from Desi Arnaz Jr to Animal
from The Muppets. Not as well known to
TV audiences was a massive ego and notorious (to his peers) temper. Rich is joined in his inverted jam session by
longtime Secret music director Norman Paris on piano, Ben Brown on bass guitar,
Steve Marcus on saxophone and Richard Hurwitz on trumpet. All but Paris were members of the Buddy Rich
Big Band. Marcus would stay with Rich
for over a decade, and would take over the band after Rich’s death in 1987,
renaming it “Buddy’s Buddies”
Episode Two June
22, 1976 (Recorded September 28, 1975)
Elaine Joyce, Richard Dawson, Pat Collins, Henry Morgan
Six unrelated youngsters from the New York area whose
grandmothers have all been studying: “Belly dancing”
The grandmothers are taught by Christine Busini from the
Serena Studios in New York City. Busini
and the grandmothers all perform.
Dr. E.D. Mitchell from Palm Beach, Florida: “I walked on the
moon (Apollo 14)”
Edgar Dean Mitchell, usually known by his first name rather
than his initials, was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 14 and spent more than
nine hours on the moon’s surface. Apollo
14 is probably best remembered as the mission during which Alan Shepard played
golf on the moon, making Mitchell (as he says here) the moon’s first
caddie. Although his mission was only
four years earlier, general interest in the space program waned after Apollo
11, and Mitchell was not one of the better-known names in the program (this was
his only spaceflight). Bill plugs
Mitchell’s book Psychic Explorations: A Challenge for Science (Perigee
1974). Mitchell’s interest in paranormal
activities, including his strong belief that UFOs are really visitors from
alien worlds, would become a controversial hallmark of his post-NASA career. He
remains one of only twelve men who have walked on the surface of the moon.
Kennita Moyer from Pricetown, Pennsylvania: “I knitted the
world’s longest scarf (504 feet)”
Kennita is 16 here, and set her record in 1974 when she was
14. It took her just under a year to
complete. She had not knitted at all
before undertaking this task. She just
took it on as a challenge.
Special Guest Rodney Dangerfield brings along Vance Colvig,
a musician with an unusual instrument: “He plays his head”
Sure enough, Colvig pounds on his head and changes the shape
of his mouth to create odd, hollow sounds that resemble music. Colvig was the first Bozo the Clown in Los
Angeles, playing the character from 1959 to 1964. He also provided voices in TV
cartoons. His distinctively rubbery face
would later appear in a wide variety of odd, brief supporting roles in 1980s
films and TV, often as a bum or hobo.
After his performance, a second entertainer named John Twomey uses the
squeaking sound of squeezing his hands together to perform a John Philip Sousa
march. Twomey’s skills as a “manualist”
(his term) first gained national attention with appearances on The Tonight
Show Starring Johnny Carson. Trained
as a lawyer, Twomey’s preferred career as an entertainer would keep him busy
for decades. Music director Norman Paris
is on hand (uncredited) with a small combo to make sure everything stays
vaguely musical.
Episode Three June 29, 1976 (Recorded June 18, 1976)
Phyllis George, Richard Dawson, Pat Collins, Henry Morgan
Special Guest Charles Nelson
Reilly conducts a group of people gathered on stage. When they sing their
own names, it sounds like the lyrics to Yankee Doodle Dandy.
This
popular Secret game was first played back in 1963 (
E518
) with Meredith Willson
and the song "In the Good Old Summertime." Secret producers
went back to the basic idea a few times in the years that followed. In
1976, America was in the throes of celebrations for the Bicentennial of
American Independence. This show aired just five days before the Bicentennial date itself, making this choice of song particularly
appropriate. One of the assorted folks onstage was Sam Unker, who
naturally sang his name as "Unker, Sam."
Episode Four July
6, 1976 (Recorded June 18, 1976)
Phyllis George, Richard Dawson, Pat Collins, Henry Morgan
(We only have audio for this episode, so Secrets are not exact quotes.)
Marine Corps Lieutenant Art Nolls brings with him a small
bag, which contains: “The world’s smallest rideable bicycle”
Nolls designed and built the five-inch-high bicycle himself
while still a midshipman at the US Naval Academy. A recent graduate from Annapolis, he would serve
22 years in the military, most of that time as a pilot, before retiring from
service in 1998. As a civilian, he would
continue to indulge his interest in aviation by restoring and flying unusual
aircraft. Today he continues to be a
popular figure at air shows in the US and Canada. (Also see
E435
and E545)
Napit Kennedy from Topeka, Kansas: “I have a twin sister…we
are separated Siamese twins”
Napit and her sister were born in a remote Thailand village
in 1953. They were joined at the abdomen
and shared a liver. Given up by parents who wouldn’t be able to afford their
care, they were adopted by an American
couple living in Bangkok, who took them to the United States where they were
successfully separated in 1955. It was
one of the first such surgeries done successfully. (The show incorrectly calls it the very
first.) Sister Prissana Northington and mother Florence
Atkinson are on hand to fill in the details.
In 1987, Prissana would reunite with her biological parents on a trip to
Thailand. “Siamese twins” was a term
popularized by the fame of Chang and Eng Butler, brothers exhibited as
curiosities in the 19th century. Though the term is still used often
today, “conjoined twins” is the more proper medical term.
Special Guest
Loretta Swit answers a set of rapid-fire biographical questions from Bill, then
quizzes the panel about her answers in a memory test.
Swit is about to
enter her fifth season as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on M*A*S*H. The show would become a television classic,
running for eleven seasons on CBS and earning her two Emmy Awards for her
role. This memory game featuring
biographical information about the guest had been played several times in the
original series.
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