|
PART 2 AUDIO ARCHIVES Power of 10 millionaire Jamie Sadler That's the Question! host Bob Goen Jeopardy Summer Teen champion Meryl Federman Camouflage host Roger Lodge Jeopardy! College Champ Cliff Galiher $343,000 1 vs. 100 winner Barry Lander Player of the Year Michele Falco Scott St. John, Executive of the Year Richard Hayes of The Baby Game Ira Skutch, Match Game producer Miguel Ferrer of Celebrity Jeopardy! Geoff Edwards of Treasure Hunt and Jackpot! Bob Harris, author of "Prisoner of Trebekistan" Johnny Gilbert of Jeopardy! Bob Goen of That's the Question Ken Jennings, author of "Brainiac" Sara Bronson of Deal or No Deal $1.86 Millionaire winner Ed Toutant Network TV's top winner Dr. Kevin Olmstead Kathy Garver of Family Affair Burton Richardson of Family Feud Dylan Lane of GSN's Chain Reaction Author Wesley Hyatt on Emmy-winning game show players Laird MacIntosh of Treasure Hunters Ricki Lake of Game Show Marathon Wink Martindale Michael Davies Peter Marshall Lin Bolen |
---Garry Moore  With the vast accomplishments----Emmy-winner, one of the most critically acclaimed variety series in television history, 12 years with I've Got a Secret, eight with To Tell the Truth and for six years doing four hours of television every week----one could easily be considered audacious to call Garry Moore a forgotten emcee.Consider the following: Garry's last regular appearance on television was more than 30 years ago and GSN has not repeated his color To Tell the Truth episodes on a conventional schedule in almost a decade. When Moore left TV, he pulled the Johnny Carson---he left. The only times he showed up after retiring to Hilton Head Island, S.C., was for a retrospective special of Goodson-Todman classics on ABC in the mid-1980s and for Carol Burnett's induction into the Television Hall of Fame in 1985. As pop culture of the last 20 years has decreed, out of sight more than three years, one is completely out of mind. No other explanation can be offered as to why Garry is rarely on any of the top 10 of all time lists of emcees. What other reason could exist? He only hosted two game shows on TV and only managed to stay with them for 20 years. He was only called "the best emcee there ever was" by the late Goodson-Todman senior executive Gil Fates in his book, "What's My Line?" Moore's rich broadcasting history drifts back to the golden days of radio when he teamed with Jimmy Durante (another performer who draws a "who?" from today's generation). Yet, he was one of the hosts of Take It or Leave It, the show that offered "the $64 question." When Garry made the plunge into television in 1950, CBS could not determine what to do with him. Initially, The Garry Moore Show was on at 7 in the evenings, then at 1:30 in the afternoon for an hour, then sliced to a half-hour. In 1954, when CBS moved the show to the anchor slot in the morning at 10 a.m., Garry blossomed as Arthur Godfrey's lead-in. Godfrey took Fridays off, so Moore became the first performer in daytime history (aside from Dave Garroway on Today) to do a full 90 minutes, expanding from 10 to 11:30 on Fridays. In 1952, when comedian Allan Sherman created I've Got a Secret for Mark Goodson as a knockoff of Goodson-Todman's own What's My Line?, Moore was tapped as the host and launched a long-running relationship with the game show producers. It almost fizzled fast. The opening show cast Moore as a judge and the panel as barristers interrogating contestants as to their secrets. The format was excoriated by critics. The second week, Garry and his panelists were dressed conventionally and aside from a few variations ($80 as the top prize and question time limits, rather than quizzing to a "no" answer), the game settled into a clone of Line, only Garry and the guests were stage left and the panel was screen right. "Garry Moore could have met a rattlesnake and made him feel at home," the late Bill Martin, former University of Georgia media professor said in 1976. "He may have been the friendliest host in the history of television and you had the idea he'd be the same way if he dropped by your house." In 1954, CBS scheduled its promising Don Fedderson anthology drama The Millionaire as the lead-in for Secret in the Wednesday 9-10 p.m. hour. Both shows zoomed in the Nielsens. Secret, settling in with a panel of Bill Cullen (Moore's best friend), Jayne Meadows, the irascible Henry Morgan and Faye Emerson, began a four-year run in television's top 10 and surpassed Line in popularity. Last year, Betsy Palmer---who replaced Emerson on the panel in 1958----reflected on Moore on The Stu Shostak Show. "Garry, Garry, Garry," she said. "One of the sweetest men who ever lived and there was nothing he wouldn't try if it made the show more entertaining." In fact, one segment in 1961 had the country on edge. Moore crawled into a compartment about the size of a doghouse while swords were being driven through the sides. Garry never emerged from the house, though he could be heard begging for air as the show ended. So concerned were viewers that the CBS switchboard in New York lit up like a Christmas tree. The outburst was so extensive, CBS announcer Harry Kramer was summoned to do a voiceover during the credits of Armstrong Circle Theatre afterward to assure viewers Moore was safe and out of danger. In 1958, CBS offered Moore a budget of $100,000 a week and creative control to mount a first-class prime time variety hour. The network wanted him to continue as host of Secret and continue with his morning show from New York. After seeing the exhaustion felt by Tennessee Ernie Ford when he continued with a daytime show for two years after starting a nighttime half-hour for NBC and Steve Allen's choice to give up The Tonight Show when NBC scheduled Allen opposite Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights, Moore drew the line. Yes, he wanted to do the variety show. Yes, he would continue with I've Got a Secret (of which he was part owner with Goodson-Todman). No, he would continue in daytime. In fact, prime time or not, he was ready to give up the five-day-a-week grind. As author Wesley Hyatt wrote in "The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television," "He was sick of the overcommercialization of daytime television, having to do commercials for about 30 products versus four in the beginning." He would continue The Garry Moore Radio Show, a daily 10-minute spot for CBS Radio. In 1959, NBC launched a full-scale assault against I've Got a Secret. Scheduling Perry Como Kraft Music Hall from 9-10 Wednesdays led to dire forecasts for Secret. One magazine predicted "the murky maw of oblivion" for the seven-year-old game. By November, the gloom-and-doom was over. Como (22.8) and Secret (22.6) were in a virtual tie. Moore entered into some introspection for TV Guide in a February 1960 article. "I guess the most important thing is to have faith in what you've learned over the years and not start running around scared when the ratings slip a point or two," Moore said. With only $80 on the line and the focus on the chemistry and humor of the panel rather than on big-money winnings, Secret and its Goodson-Todman brethren survived the quiz scandal era. In an inimitable Moore quip, he told TV Guide he was embarrassed Secret was not investigated by a federal grand jury. "Apparently they figured that as only $80 was given away on our show, we were too cheap to be crooked. They were right," Moore said. What many viewers did not know is because of Garry's past radio history with Take It or Leave It, he was the prime candidate to host The $64,000 Question. As Garry confirmed for TV Guide and years later on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow, he had a key reason for saying no. "Long ago I discovered that on television you can't live by adrenaline," Moore said. "If you give away big money on a show, you're playing God. I figured that on (Question), I wouldn't be a host at all. I'd be a croupier." Garry's variety show began to soar on Tuesday nights with the popularity of comedy regular Carol Burnett. So popular was the combination that Moore and Burnett were the first two celebrities to play CBS's nighttime Password in 1962. They did two encores for the new word game. By 1963, Secret---now entrenched on Monday nights as a one-two combination with To Tell the Truth---was doing well but The Garry Moore Show, having lost Burnett to a Broadway career and a contract for CBS specials of her own, was beginning to slip. When deliberations began for the 1964-65 season, Moore went to CBS programming chief James Aubrey with a proposal for a drastically reformatted show. Known as "The Smiling Cobra" in the industry, Aubrey---according to Robert Metz's book "CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye"---looked Moore coldly in the eye and declared, "Not a chance." Admitting to being physically tired after 14 consecutive years on network television and juggling two shows a week for the past 12, Garry made the decision to give up television altogether. That included I've Got a Secret. Moore's business investments had made him a wealthy man and his part-ownership in Secret would provide him a solid income for as long as the show continued. He wanted to take his wife on a leisurely trip around the world. On his last Secret episode in September 1964, his successor Steve Allen sat at the desk with Moore for the entire half-hour in a carefully-planned outing. Part of it was ostensibly to show Allen the ropes and part to pass the baton for viewers. What those viewers long had forgotten (and so had Allen, admitting to TVgameshows.net in a 1999 interview): Allen had actually subbed for Garry on Secret in the summer of 1952 during the show's first months. In his farewell to viewers, Garry offered the trademark smile and said, "I hate long goodbyes, so as we've said for years, be very kind to each other----and goodbye out there." Ann Cullen told TVgameshows.net her husband missed those weekly get-togethers with Moore. "Bill knew Steve for years and liked him. He'd been on the panel with (Allen's wife) Jayne for years," Ann Cullen said. "But Bill and Garry were so close and you couldn't have that kind of relationship and work together for so long without feeling like something was missing." Moore was as good as his word. He stayed away from television for more than a year but the landscape at CBS was changing. Aubrey, the executive who dared to look Jack Benny in the eye and say, "You're through," was fired after a series of erratic and abrupt programming moves in 1964-65 that arrogantly ignored advertising agencies and CBS affiliates. The new regime was warm to a Garry Moore comeback. Coaxed with the idea of bringing along a troupe of fresh, younger performers (including John Byner and Chuck McCann), Moore agreed to return and managed to cajole old sidekick Durward Kirby to leave Candid Camera to join him. On the other hand, CBS did Moore no favors. Handed arguably the most difficult slot in television, Garry had the task of having to challenge television's number one show, Bonanza, on Sunday nights in September 1966. In the previous five years, the NBC western had mowed down G.E. Theatre, The Real McCoys, General Electric True, The Judy Garland Show, My Living Doll, The Joey Bishop Show, Bill Shatner's courtroom drama For the People, two weak game shows and the venerable Perry Mason. The victims were resembling a cemetery. Garry accepted Allen's offer to return to I've Got a Secret as a guest the Monday before The New Garry Moore Show premiered. In the last black-and-white episode of Secret (and the final show before an ill-fated move of the game to 10:30), a huge roar went up when the curtain opened and Moore appeared. For more than 30 seconds, the audience engaged in sustained applause before Garry could say, "Hello, I'm Garry Moore and I've got a secret!" During his segment, Moore answered written questions from the audience. He said he had no intentions of returning to I've Got a Secret. As for the variety show: "We know Bonanza is the number one show on television and it's a wonderful program. But we have a lot of new, young talent and a lot of fresh ideas and we think there's room for both of us." Moore should have said, "We hope there's room for both of us." Unfortunately, The New Garry Moore Show went the same route as the vast majority of shows in television history with The New in its title. Immediately, comparisons came from critics to the original Garry Moore Show. The broadcast was missing a strong female lead as both Burnett and Dorothy Loudon brought to the earlier series. In 17 weeks, The New Garry Moore Show was gone. In scattered newspaper interviews, Moore was philosophical. "We put on a show that people just didn't want to see on Sunday nights against Bonanza," he told one New York newspaper. At 52 and financially set for life, Garry made noises of a permanent retirement. He made one exception: he and Kirby agreed to guest shots on a first-season edition of The Carol Burnett Show, his protege's first attempt at her own prime time variety hour. The landscape of network television changed in the same season as The New Garry Moore Show expired. CBS canceled all of its four remaining Goodson-Todman prime time game shows, as well as Kirby's old mainstay Candid Camera. Perhaps the theory may have been true: could television have passed Garry Moore by? Then, in April 1969 came the stunning announcement: based on the first-year performance of Goodson-Todman's What's My Line? in syndication, fledgling distributor Len Firestone would pitch stations on a revival of To Tell the Truth. Only one year removed from its erratic final season on CBS daytime, Truth still had a built-in brand name but viewers reacted adversely to the drastic changes demanded for its last year on CBS by daytime programming chief Fred Silverman. Firestone and Goodson-Todman promised a return to the classic format and three of the panel favorites---Orson Bean, Peggy Cass and Kitty Carlisle---had signed. The expectation was Bud Collyer would return as host. In May 1969, stations were given a second surprise. Agreeing to a 39-week contract, Garry Moore would host To Tell the Truth and his old buddy Bill Cullen would join him on the panel. The accelerated taping schedule would allow Cullen to continue emceeing other network shows. For Moore, the pace only required one day a week in the studio. Station managers gave an immediate thumbs up. Garry had been the first choice of a number of big-market station managers to host What's My Line? in syndication. More than 125 stations signed on for the first year. In a summer 1969 issue of TV Guide, Moore explained his reasoning for coming back. "It doesn't require the amount of work we used to do for the old Tuesday night show and I've always liked the game," Moore said. "If it doesn't work, I'll just go back to my boat and enjoy the fish." It worked. While nationally, the ratings for To Tell the Truth were only slightly better-than-average, Moore's popularity in the hinterlands was huge. In Savannah, Ga., the game immediately soared to a 47 percent share at 7 p.m. and attracted local sponsors who demanded billboards in association with the show. Atlanta's WQXI originally aired the show at 4 p.m. but a 1971 move to 7:30, paired after Line, resulted in a strong combination for four years. Cleveland, Raleigh and Washington, D.C., enjoyed long runs with Truth. WRBL in Columbus, Ga., slotted Truth at 6:00, opposite the market's ABC affiliate news. The late George Gingell, former general manager of WRBL, said: "Our national ad rep (Blair Television) told us, 'Don't mess with it.'" Instead of the classic opening with three challengers appearing in silhouette and Johnny Olsen saying, "Number one....what is your name please?," the new Truth only needed one intro. "Ladies and gentlemen......GARRY MOORE!," intoned Olsen as Moore strode briskly from offstage. Abandoning his traditional crewcut, Moore's longer hair was more appropriate as the '70s approached but the psychedelic set still draws gasps from many who catch an occasional glimpse of an early episode. "It resembles a baroque LSD trip," wrote Paul Jones, television editor of The Atlanta Constitution and a fan of the show. For eight years, Moore navigated To Tell the Truth through three presidents, Watergate, the collapse and return of the New York Yankees, the end of rural television on CBS and the mass influx of female co-anchors on local news. Tom Kennedy was recruited to join the panel once for a week and told us the experience was one of his choice memories: "Those were my heroes. Bill, Peggy, Kitty and Garry. That was the royalty of panel shows on television. I'll never forget it." During the run of syndicated Truth, Moore engaged in arguably the most courageous act of his entire professional career. He joined more than 40 other performers and politicians in a forum to publicly announce they were recovering alcoholics. Garry was a committed member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The event was staged as a public "if I can do it, you can do it" extension to grass roots people battling the bottle. One of his treats during the Truth years was a segment featuring his son, Thomas Garrison Morfit II, as a central character. The younger Garry was an entrepreneur in coverting unconventional facilities, such as old railroad cars, into restaurants. Cullen had to disqualify himself, so familiar was he with the entire Moore family. Midway through the 1976-77 season, Garry went into a hospital for removal of polyps from his throat. The growths were brought on by a combination of years of "flipping those Winstons," as his colleagues once said, and the wear and tear career broadcasters often encounter in the vocal cords region. Sportscaster Tim Brando had similar surgery several years ago. For the remainder of the season, Cullen and sportscaster Joe Garagiola traded weeks at the emcee desk. During his recovery period, Garry decided the time was right. After two false starts, he was ready for a permanent retirement. With homes in the Bahamas and off the coast of South Carolina and a full recovery anticipated, he and his wife Betsy wanted to enjoy the private life away from the demands of show business. Despite some misgivings, Moore was coaxed to come back to To Tell the Truth for one show to officially pass the baton to Garagiola as the new host for the show's ninth and final season. With an extra enthusiasm, announcer Bill Wendell said: "From New York City......ladies and gentlemen, GARRY MOORE!" Much as occurred 11 years earlier when he walked back onto the Secret the audience reaction was overwhelming. Garry walked out in a suit but with deck shoes, the kind he would have worn on his Hilton Head yacht. "Everybody who had been connected with the show while Garry was on it showed up in the studio just to be there," Fates later wrote. "He has that effect on people who know him." After an opening game, the second segment was devoted exclusively to Garry. He explained to viewers what had happened since he left the show and that rumors of his impending demise were merely exaggerations (in fact, Garry had 16 more years left). In a joyous exchange with Cullen, Carlisle, Cass and Garagiola, Moore enthusiastically paved the way for the former catcher as his permanent successor. With the exception of the return for the ABC retrospective special several years later and the Burnett induction, Moore was true to his word. He had retired. Not until Game Show Network opened shop with long-dormant kinescopes of I've Got a Secret each night in December 1994 would viewers ever be treated to Garry's charm, wit and telegenic personality. In mid-1990, Garry went to the phone to take a call. At the other end was Ann Cullen. The news was not good. Eighteen months earlier, Bill Cullen was told he had terminal cancer. He had beaten the initial forecasts by a year. Ann was calling to tell Garry of Bill's passing. As she told TVgameshows.net four years ago: "Garry said, 'I'm glad you called, Ann. Now, if you'll excuse me, I just have to go somewhere and cry.'" Garry Moore died in 1993 at the age of 78. The New York Times and The Washington Post both afforded him proper tributes but no one at CBS offered more than a 15-second mention on The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. To the network, Moore was a fleeting memory of a long past era. Despite the recent brief overnight run of Garry's I've Got a Secret episodes, his work has largely been quiet during visible hours on television for nearly a decade. The most recent experiment several years ago of a weekday run of his Truth shows did not result in enough ratings to justify their continuance. Perhaps that absence explains why Moore is not on most of the elite lists of emcees, even though Fates referred to him as "the best program host in television." The current culture takes a cruel attitude toward those who paved the way for the celebrities of today. If the name is not Lohan, Spears, or Cyrus, names that will probably be long gone within a decade, they are not relevant. To those who lived the era, he was a congenial fellow with a mowed head, a bowtie and a smile that resonated. Perhaps the most important memory we all should take is the phrase he gave us at the end of most of his broadcasts: "Be very kind to each other."  Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller © Copyright 2008 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
 |