Who's Whose was brought in to replace The Goldbergs, which was dropped by its sponsor (General Foods) when its creator Gertrude Berg refused to fire the blacklisted actor Philip Loeb.
Packaging was the common practice dating back to the days of network radio, whereby an outside entity such as an advertising agency would assemble the various production elements, including a commercial sponsor, which are needed to bring about a show.
[6] General Foods picked up sponsorship of the show in order to advertise its Sanka coffee brand, which it was already selling on The Goldbergs.
This was also a common practice which also dated back to the days of network radio, where a single sponsor would pay the full costs for a certain timeslot and thus be given a great deal of leeway in determining what ran during that period.
Today, rising commercial rates have made this practice usually too expensive for any one sponsor to afford (in any event, regulations following the 1950s quiz show scandals discouraged networks from ceding that much power to advertisers).
It was described at the time as "one of the most poorly produced TV shows yet to hit our living room screen"[7] and "a miserable flop".
[8] Rex Lardner, columnist for The New York Times Book Review, wrote that the show was "the worst ever to hit television" and called for the return of The Goldbergs.
[9] Reviews reported that the program was lacking in production, that the four panelists played the game poorly, and emcee Phil Baker was uncomfortable and clumsy.