Four celebrity panelists are presented with three contestants (the "team of challengers", each an individual or pair) and must identify which is the "central character" whose unusual occupation or experience has been read aloud by the show's host.

Earlier regular panelists included Johnny Carson, Polly Bergen, Jayne Meadows, Don Ameche, Hy Gardner, Dick Van Dyke, Faye Emerson, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze, Betty White, and Ralph Bellamy.

The daytime show, also hosted by Collyer, featured a separate panel for its first three years, with actress Phyllis Newman as the only regular.

One CBS daytime episode featuring Dorothy Kilgallen, best known as a regular panelist on What's My Line?, was broadcast in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones on Monday, November 8, 1965, as news of her sudden death was circulated by wire services.

The breaking news story prompted CBS newscaster Douglas Edwards to announce her death immediately after the episode ended.

The latter was replaced by the expansions of Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light, the last two remaining 15-minute programs on daytime television, to 30 minutes apiece, in a scheduling shuffle with The Edge of Night, The Secret Storm, and Art Linkletter's House Party.

From 1961 to 1967, the show switched to a Bob Cobert-penned theme with a beat similar to "Peter Pan", and then to a Score Productions tune during its final CBS daytime season.

[2] Only a handful of shows remain from the CBS daytime series' first three years because of the then-common practice of wiping videotapes and reusing them due to their high cost and limited storage space.

During the early years of its run, the syndicated Truth became a highly-rated component of stations' early-evening schedules after the Federal Communications Commission imposed the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971,[4] opening up at least a half hour (a full hour, usually, on Eastern Time Zone stations) to fill with non-network fare between either the local or network evening newscast and the start of their networks' primetime schedules for the evening.

Some markets that added the series after its initial 1969 release opted to carry the show for another season or two after 1978 in order to catch up on the episodes that had not aired in their viewing area.

[6] Regular panelists included Orson Bean during the first year, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle and Bill Cullen, who was also the designated substitute host whenever necessary.

Semi-regulars during the 1968–73 time period included Gene Rayburn, Joe Garagiola, Alan Alda, Tony Roberts and Nipsey Russell.

[7] A decision was made to have Cullen return to the panel permanently and give semi-regular panelist Joe Garagiola the hosting position.

Using a baseball term for "substitute," Garagiola stated that he was "pinch hitter" for Moore, who returned to the series for a farewell performance on the ninth-season premiere in 1977.

Moore explained why he had left the program, then after presiding over one last game, announced his final retirement from television and handed the host position to Garagiola permanently.

NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell succeeded Olson from 1972 to 1977, with Alan Kalter taking over during the final season.

The third—and longest-lived—set, which Cooper also designed, was a mostly-blue block motif with gold accents, and included a large on-stage representation of the show's new logo, which made use of stacking and interlocking letters, behind the panel.

On the October 5, 1973, episode, one of the challengers was Georg Olden, who disclosed that he was the graphic designer who created the "To Tell the Truth man" icon that was used during the 1956–1978 seasons.

The new series emanated once again from Rockefeller Plaza in New York, and Canadian TV personality Robin Ward served as the host, with Alan Kalter returning as announcer.

The 1980 edition of To Tell the Truth was a rarity in that it was still based in New York while nearly all television game show production had moved to California by this point.

The $50,000 Pyramid, which premiered at the midway point of the 1980-81 season, was the other; the series was taped at ABC’s Studio TV-15, the former Elysee Theater, on West 58th Street.

A dispute with Elliott's former employers in Australia temporarily forced him off American television altogether; his replacement was then-frequent panelist Lynn Swann.

Alex Trebek was brought in as his replacement for the remainder of the run (February 4 to May 31, 1991), at the same time he was hosting Classic Concentration on NBC and Jeopardy!

The first seat, furthest downstage, saw Ron Masak and Orson Bean alternate on the panel for 34 of the 39 weeks the series was on air.

For one week, Monty Hall (who would later replace Bob Hilton as a permanent guest host on the 1990 version of Let's Make a Deal) sat in the first seat.

For example, Hank Ketcham, the creator of Dennis the Menace and a challenger on the original To Tell the Truth in May 1962, tried during the show's Christmas Day episode to convince an audience member that he was really the songwriter to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (Johnny Marks had actually done this), but was unsuccessful in doing so.

Panelists appearing in at least six weeks of episodes included Brooke Burns, Dave Coulier, Brad Sherwood, Traci Bingham, Kim Coles, and Cindy Margolis.

Starting with the August 11, 2019, episode, panelists who earn a perfect score win the "Doris Award," a gold-colored bust of Bowman.

To date, three panelists have won the Doris Award: Oliver Hudson, on September 22, 2019; Deon Cole, on June 25, 2020; and Michael Strahan, on August 6, 2020.

During the run of the 2000 version, a single-player online game was offered by the short-lived website Uproar.com, and promoted by host John O'Hurley at the end of each episode.