[1][2] More than 700 episodes exist as kinescope recordings, filmed in 16mm, which was the only way moving pictures and sound from spontaneous, unscripted television shows could be preserved on a long-term basis prior to the emergence and subsequent widespread use of videotape.

At that time, the immediate concern of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman was that John Daly, anchor of the ABC network's nightly newscasts, would be allowed to visit Moscow to cover, in that capacity, a breaking news story.

On the initial program of February 2, 1950, the panel comprised former New Jersey governor Harold Hoffman, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, poet Louis Untermeyer, and psychiatrist Richard Hoffmann.

Fred Allen was not replaced on a permanent basis, and for the majority of the show's network run, between 1956 and 1965, the panel consisted of Kilgallen, Cerf, Francis and a fourth guest panelist.

Panelists adopted some basic binary search strategies, beginning with broad questions, such as whether the contestant worked for a for-profit corporation or non-profit organization or whether a product was alive, worn, or ingested.

On those occasions, to provide the audience an opportunity to see the guest play the game, the panelists and host would typically allow questioning to pass around at least once before coming up with the correct guess.

Most notably, the mystery guests ran the gamut of show business's most legendary icons, including Jack Benny, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Ella Fitzgerald, Ava Gardner, Joan Crawford, James Cagney, Julie Andrews, Jack Lemmon, Jackie Gleason, Steve McQueen, Alfred Hitchcock, Doris Day, James Garner, Ronald Reagan, Jane Russell, Rosalind Russell, Fred Astaire, George Raft, Edward G. Robinson, Gene Autry, Lena Horne, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Andy Griffith, Harry Belafonte, Ginger Rogers, Roy Rogers, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Sean Connery, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Salvador Dalí, Aretha Franklin, and many more.

A Community Chest Special, completely separate from the regular production of episodes, was broadcast live on all the major networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, and DuMont) on the afternoon of Sunday, September 27, 1953.

(For the first few telecasts, the contestants signed their names on an artist's sketch pad; but when the brightness of the studio lights made it difficult for the signatures to be seen clearly by the viewers, the white sketchpad was replaced by a black chalkboard.)

Daly would then usually ask where the guest lived and, with a woman, if she should be addressed as "Miss" or "Mrs." Early in the show's run, the panel was allowed to inspect contestants, studying their hands, or label on their suit or asking them to make a muscle.

However, despite frequent requests by the panel, particularly Arlene Francis, such demonstrations rarely occurred as according to executive producer Gil Fates, Daly was not fond of this practice.

In his last years, Cerf explained to interviewer Robbin Hawkins that Montenier was ultimately ruined by his refusal to abandon or share sponsorship as the show entered new markets and became too expensive.

aired on September 3, 1967; it was highlighted by clips from past telecasts, a visit by the show's first contestants, a challenger from the New York unemployment office, and the final mystery guest, who was John Daly himself.

This version became a staple of local stations' afternoon and early evening schedules, especially from the 1971–72 season onward, when the FCC forced networks to cede one half-hour to their affiliates.

As they had with the original series, Goodson-Todman went to ABC News to seek a host, whose title had ceased to be that of "moderator," and hired Wally Bruner to take over for John Charles Daly.

Other panelists included Alan Alda, his father Robert Alda, Joanna Barnes, Joyce Brothers, Jack Cassidy, Bert Convy, Joel Grey, Elaine Joyce, Ruta Lee, Sam Levene, Meredith MacRae, Henry Morgan, Jerry Orbach, Gene Rayburn, Nipsey Russell, Gene Shalit, Dana Valery and Anita Gillette.

The set, designed by veteran Goodson-Todman art director Theodore Cooper, was predominantly blue and featured walls behind the panel and host areas tiled with illustrations representing various occupations.

As Blyden explained before introducing mystery guest Paul Lynde: "It's time to tell the audience and the members of the panel, especially those watching the program over the last 22 years, about a new development known as Fates' Law.

He could identify even the most obscure comic or nightclub singer despite the most bizarre vocal disguise... [the new rule] cut down a bit on the number of instant solutions, not only from Soupy but also from other panelists who had a tendency to guess.

According to Fox's book, Killing Me Softly: My Life in Music, Bob Israel of Score Productions paid him a buyout fee of $1,000[citation needed]) for the work.

: TV's Most Famous Panel Show, to send a form letter response to fans who had written complaining about the late Bennett Cerf's failure to disappear, some saying the television stations were using poor taste.

As he wrote in his book, Fates knew, but did not tell viewers, about the production costs that would have gone to waste had his company acceded to the demands, some coming from station managers, to scrap the Cerf videotapes.

New versions of WML were planned as early as 1981, then in 1996, the show was going to be revived by a joint venture between All-American Television and Miramax Films (which also would have been Miramax's first foray into television game shows) as it was being described as "a new model" that would have blended the original features such as having a celebrity panel question contestants in an effort to guess their occupation and also having the panel blindfolded to guess the identity of a famous person, with contemporary "special effects" and "interactive twists."

[58] Just days after disbanding their technical crew, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman pitched the idea of a retrospective network special to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program's CBS debut, called What's My Line at 25.

In producing the special, the only existing master 16 millimeter prints of the original series kinescope films were removed from storage and brought to a Manhattan editing facility that Goodson-Todman Productions rented.

From November 2004 to July 2006, Jim Newman and J. Keith van Straaten produced one-hour live stage versions of the show at the ACME Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles, California, titled What's My Line?

Panelists have included Jonathan Ames, Joy Browne, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Frank DeCaro, Michael Riedel, and original TV version veterans Betsy Palmer and Julia Meade.

In Los Angeles, panelists have included Carlos Alazraqui, Alison Arngrim, E. G. Daily, Andy Dick, Paul Goebel, Danny Goldman, Annabelle Gurwitch, Mariette Hartley, Elaine Hendrix, Marty Ingels, Cathy Ladman, David Lander, Kate Linder, Ann Magnuson, Jayne Meadows, Lee Meriwether, Patt Morrison, Rick Overton, Jimmy Pardo, Lisa Jane Persky, Nancy Pimental, Greg Proops, Mink Stole, Nicole Sullivan, Marcia Wallace, Matt Walsh, Len Wein, Wil Wheaton, Gary Anthony Williams, Debra Wilson, April Winchell, and Andy Zax.

Mystery guests have included Ed Begley Jr., Stephen Bishop, Mr. Blackwell, LeVar Burton, Brett Butler, José Canseco, Drew Carey, Andy Dick, Michael and Kitty Dukakis, Hector Elizondo, Nanette Fabray, Peter Falk, Bruce Jenner, Larry King, Kathy Kinney, Bruno Kirby, Tara Lipinski, Lisa Loeb, Shelley Long, Leonard Maltin, Rose Marie, Wink Martindale, Sally Struthers, Rip Taylor, Judy Tenuta, Alan Thicke, Dick Van Patten, Lindsay Wagner, Wil Wheaton, Noah Wyle, and Sean Young.

[citation needed] Non-celebrities include the lifelong Los Angeles-area resident who challenged the panel with her line, afterward reminiscing how 43 years earlier she had traveled to New York, where Arlene Francis identified her as a meter maid.