The show launched the careers of cast members Don Knotts, Tom Poston, Louis Nye, Pat Harrington Jr., Tim Conway, Bill Dana,[1] and, near the end of its run, Jim Nabors.

[3] The show's most popular sketch was the "Man on the street" which featured Knotts as the nervous Mr. Morrison (whose mannerisms Knotts would later use for Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show), Poston as the man who could not remember his own name, Harrington as Italian golf player Guido Panzini, Nye as the smug Gordon Hathaway, and Dana as José Jiménez.

The show presented Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Louis Jordan & The Tympany Five, The Treniers, The Collins Kids, and The Three Stooges.

[8] Some have erroneously suggested that the "Hound Dog" performance was intentionally disrespectful, and emblematic of Allen's disdain for rock 'n' roll.

The Trenner orchestra included some of the finest West Coast jazz musicians, among them guitarist Herb Ellis, trombonist-scat vocalist Frank Rosolino and saxophonist-trombonist Bob Enevoldsen.

The Allen Westinghouse Show is considered a classic of American late-night talk shows today, given its professed influence on a number of comedy greats including David Letterman, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Harry Shearer and others impressed by its wild, anarchic style, complete with outdoor stunts staged near the Hollywood Ranch Market, not far from the studio.

The show's guests included such Southern California eccentrics as health food enthusiast Gypsy Boots, popular TV physics professor Julius Sumner Miller, Miles Davis and his group (1964), Lenny Bruce, Peter Sellers, Jackie Vernon (in his first television appearance),[13] and a young Frank Zappa, who appeared as a "musical bicyclist."

In April 1968, a year after I've Got a Secret ended its run, Allen returned to syndicated nightly variety-talk with another new series, this one distributed by Filmways.

Allen also introduced Albert Brooks and Steve Martin for the first time to a national audience on the Filmways series, which ran until November 1969.