Today, Thursday May 21, marks the return of ABC’s To Tell the Truth. The game show, hosted by black-ish star Anthony Anderson, is starting its fifth season. Overall, the show has bounced around broadcast network schedules for nerly 30 years.
This version boasts Anderson mother, Mama Doris, as a permanent guest judge. It otherwise sticks to the same basic formula first seen in 1956 when bow tie-wearing Bud Collyer hosted the original Goodman-Todson game show: three people stand on a stage, each claiming to be the same person. A panel of judges ask a series of questions and then try to determine if the real person is No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3. The “classic” panelists back in the Collyer days were Tom Posten, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle.
On Anderson’s Truth, different celebrities appear as judges each episode. Betty White was one of the first (she was also on the original edition); others have included Anderson’s black-ish co-star Tracee Ellis Ross and former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Sure, you go ahead and lie to hm!
The real mystery person is asked to stand up and after some bobbing and weaving he or she steps forward and the other two cop to who they really are.
Here’s a fun fact: way back in the black and white days, there was a Canadian version of this series. I know because my mom was on it.
The Canadian To Tell the Truth aired between 1962 and 1964. It was shot at what was then the brand new CFTO Studios in Agincourt in Toronto.
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My mom, Margaret, still with us at 95, was a real Lucy Ricardo. She was not shy about wanting her 15 seconds of TV fame. Being Scottish she also dearly wanted to win prize money. On To Tell the Truth, any wrong guesses by the judging panel at the end of the show won you twenty-five bucks Canadian. This was a woman who would dent cans at the supermarket to save three cents. She applied through a newspaper ad and was chosen to go on the show.
I was very young, maybe five, and, probably because she couldn’t get a sitter, mom took me to the taping. I sat in the bleachers and watched, fascinated, with the rest of the studio audience. The host of the Canadian show was Don Cameron and the panelists were Toby Tarnow (also a princess on the Canadian Howdy Doody), Robert Hall, Dorothy Cameron and Stan Helleur.
Mom got at least one guess, maybe two, earning a cool fifty bucks. I learned a valuable lesson that day from my mother: lying pays.
5 Comments
Great article! Brings back memories, as I used to watch To Tell The Truth as a kid in the 1970s… it was hosted by Gary Moore at that time (Carol Burnett was actually discovered on his variety show) and I remember the panelists were Bill Cullen, Kitty Carlisle, Peggy Cass, and an additional rotating panelist such as Nipsey Russell, Soupy Sales, etc.
And the production company was actually Goodson Todman (I think you accidentally typed Goodman Todson). I may forget where I put the car keys, but “This is Johnny Olsen speaking for the Price is Right. A Mark Goodson – Bill Todman Production” has been permanently etched in my mind after hearing it for decades… haha
To Tell The Truth back in the ’50s and ’60s showed how invisible the NHL was in the US
I give you Red Kelly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4egSgRMHWuM
Then a player who wore #4 for Montreal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZfEjKZgyms
and some obscure Red Wings player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLC_1YWYWBc
Things improved in 1973
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0BaPo9JhVE
Damn Kevin, that was fantastic. Thank you for such an amazing comment. I think I’m going to steal your great hockey and game show links and turn them into a post!
Bill I was on the show in 1964 and on the same nite trudy Metcalf president of Canada Beatles fan club was on also ! I had bowled a perfect game in tenpin as the youngest at the time to do that ! I would love to get the b+w taping of that show to show my grand and great grandkids! Any help would be greatly appreciated
Sorry for not responding earlier to your comment Robert. Thanks for filling in a few more details as to who was on the show. I wish I had some inside track as to where or if any episodes survive but so far there are no leads I’m afraid. If anything soes surface I will let you know.