Newsrooms Once Were Full of Game Show Hosts

Have you heard that Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather are each taking on additional chores at their respective networks by becoming hosts of game shows?

Yes, I'm joshing.

That the likes of Brokaw or Rather would participate in such frivolity would be unthinkable. Yet, in earlier days of television, network anchors and reporters were, indeed, hosts and panelists on game shows.

John Charles Daly was a CBS radio newscaster in the 1940s.

It was he who announced to the American public the bombing of Pearl Harbor, breaking into CBS' programming at 2:22 p.m., Eastern Time. He became a war correspondent, reporting from Europe.

From 1950 to 1967, Daly was host of CBS television's highly popular "What's My Line?" (heard on CBS radio from 1952 to 1953). He was by then known simply as John Daly, though the perennial panelist who introduced him, Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, included his middle name.

Panelists would try to guess what the contestant did for a living. There was at least one mystery guest, a celebrity whose identity was the subject of the questioning by blindfolded panelists.

Reruns of the show are aired in the wee hours of the morning on the Game Show Network (on "Black and White Overnight," featuring three vintage quiz shows, originally a half-hour each, now collectively comprising two hours, being padded with commercials and promos).

My daughter happened upon "What's My Line?" not long ago and was fascinated to see a game show in quite an unfamiliar form. Panelists and the host were in black tie, conducting themselves with formality and civility.

A contestant on the show would be asked to "sign in, please," writing his or her name on a blackboard, and then was introduced to the panel. Daly would pull out a chair for a female contestant. The contestant, when exiting, would shake hands with the panelists. "Mr. Daly" referred to "Mr. Cerf" and to "Miss Dorothy" (later "Miss Killgallen) and "Miss [Arlene] Francis."

What was astounding about Daly's weekly appearances on CBS's "What's My Line?" was that as of 1953, he was no longer a part of CBS's news team but was, rather, the anchor of rival ABC's nightly report, a role he played until 1960. More than that, he was ABC's vice president in charge of news.

I remember a show aired right before the national conventions of the major political parties got under way. The mystery guests were the CBS reporters who were about to cover those confabs. After the questioning ended, as I recall, Daly made some gracious comment about CBS's journalistic cadre, and made an oblique reference to his being somewhere else during the conventions. Checking on the Internet, I find that the show was aired Aug. 12, 1956. The CBS newsmen were anchor Douglas Edwards and correspondents Charles Collingwood, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid and Robert Trout. The Democratic National Convention started the next day.

Far less remembered or successful than "What's My Line?" was a panel game show from the same producers, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, called "It's News to Me." (Goodson and Todman spawned several other live guessing-game shows, including "I've Got a Secret" and "The Name's the Same.") "It's News to Me" was aired on CBS from 1951 to 1953, then was revived as a summer replacement in July-August, 1954. Daly was host during the initial run. Panelists tried to figure out from a clue what recent news story the producers had in mind.

One of the regular panelists the first year was radio commentator Quincy Howe. The host of "It's News to Me" during its 1954 summer reprise was Walter Cronkite.

John Cameron Swayze covered the Republican and Democratic national conventions for NBC television in 1948 and the next year became the network's first news anchor, on "Camel News Caravan." He served in that capacity until 1956, and later performed news chores on ABC news from 1960 to 1962.

Swayze, like Daly, Howe, and Cronkite, had experience on quiz shows. In 1947, then working for NBC radio, he devised and emceed a quiz show called "Who Said That?" with panelists seeking to identify the originator of a famous quote.

The show went to NBC television, with CBS radio correspondent Robert Trout serving as the first TV emcee, from 1948 to 1951, and Swayze, during that period, playing the role of a panelist.  

He was a panelist on the first episode of Goodman-Todson's CBS game show "To Tell the Truth" (on Dec. 18, 1956) and was a frequent panelist after that, assuming the role of substitute host on at least one occasion when Bud Collyer was absent.

For a couple of months in 1958, he hosted a show on ABC on which a panel of experts tried to hook up compatible singles of opposite gender in the audience. It was called "Chance of a Lifetime."

Hugh Downs is a journalist held in high esteem by the public. He is remembered for his 21-year stint on the ABC news magazine, "20/20," from 1978 to 1999. He and Barbara Walters were teamed as co-hosts on that show for the last 14 years of Downs' tour of duty.

From 1962 to 1971, Downs hosted NBC's news-oriented "Today" show, taking over from NBC correspondent John Chancellor. This was an elevation from his role as Jack Paar's announcer/sidekick on the "Tonight Show" (from 1957 to 1962).

It's hard to imagine the cool and collected Downs, this scholarly and accomplished journalist and author, as a game show host. But, indeed, he did host such a program on NBC, in the daytime, from 1958 to 1968. The show was "Concentration."

Two contestants (one the returning champion) faced a board divided into 30 squares. A player would pick two squares by numbers. If both squares had the same prize behind it, the contestant would get the prize -- provisionally. If the squares had different prizes behind then, once a player picked the square with a prize that did match, that player would get the prize -- again, provisionally.

When two squares matched, they would rotate, revealing a part of a type of puzzle called a "rebus." (For example, a picture of a woman washing clothes and a weight marked "2000 lbs." would stand for "Washington" -- that is, washing and ton. A well known non-pictorial rebus is "YY UR YY UB YY UR YY 4me." It means "Too wise you are, too wise you be, too wise you are, too wise for me.") The first contestant to figure out the rebus got to keep the prizes; the other contestant was dispossessed of those he or she had collected.

Yes, people actually watched that show. I saw it a few times, but I had an excuse. I was a juvenile.

"Concentration" was aired in 1961 in the nighttime as a summer replacement, with Downs as host.

By the way, his birthday, like Jack Benny's, is Valentine's Day.

Mike Wallace has been a fixture on CBS's "60 Minutes" since 1968. Those under 45 are not apt to associate him with any other program. Well, just maybe some of the older members of the under-45 bunch will recall Mommy watching him as anchor on the hour-long CBS Morning News from 1963 to 1966.

Wallace previously made his mark in journalism as an aggressive, chain-smoking interrogator on a one-on-one show which started in New York as "Night-Beat." The show graduated to the ABC network, and soon became known as the "The Mike Wallace Interview," airing from 1957 to 1958.

He appeared for an hour each weeknight on "PM East, PM West," a short-lived syndicated show aired from 1961 to 1962 which featured Wallace in New York, followed by a half-hour segment from San Francisco with Terrence O'Flaherty. (He also was host of the original version of "Biography," a show in syndication from 1961 to 1964.)

Yes, this respected newsman, too, was a game show host. He was quizmaster on "The Big Surprise" from 1956 to 1957.

That show was intended as NBC's answer to CBS's enormously popular "$64,000 Question." When it boosted the maximum prize, it became known as "The $100,000 Big Surprise."

Wallace -- an announcer and actor in his pre-newsman days -- also emceed various lesser-known game shows. One was "Majority Rules," aired on ABC, and originating in Chicago.
Back then -- in 1950 -- the host was billed as "Myron Wallace," his true name.

He had become "Mike" by the time CBS hired him as moderator of its 1951 summer replacement quiz/audience participation show, "Guess Again." That game show was twice as successful as one hosted by Jackie Gleason 10 years later called "You're in the Picture." Gleason's show was aired once, and n'er again; Wallace's show lasted two weeks.

"There's One in Every Family" was on the air on CBS from 1952 to 1953, with Wallace as host. The CBS panel show "I'll Buy That" was broadcast from 1953 to 1954, again with Wallace officiating.

Taking over from radio news commentator Walter Kiernan, Wallace presided over ABC's "Who's the Boss" from July-August of 1954. The contestants were all secretaries to celebrities, and the panel's task was to ascertain the identity of the contestant's boss.

In similar vein was "Who Pays," an NBC panel show moderated by Wallace from July-September, 1959. The panel had to figure out what celebrity employed each set of two contestants. This was a role re-reversal for Wallace; the tormentor of interviewees the year before had reverted to the role of the genial host of a light-hearted game show.