Bill was the guest host of his I've Got A Secret colleague's daytime show during at least one of Garry's vacations. Researcher Leah Biel found this week for us, there may have been others. Scroll down to see an unusual cameo Bill made years later on Garry Moore's prime time program!
GUY LOMBARDO PRESENTS NEW YEAR'S (NBC December 31, 1955)
In an earlier time, big band leader Guy Lombardo's name was as synonymous with New Year's Eve as Dick Clark's is today. We don't have any details about this appearance, nor what Bill's role would have been in this mostly musical program, but we're guessing there was a countdown involved around midnight.
THE TONIGHT SHOW (NBC July 9-10, 1956)
In the
summer
of 1956, Tonight host Steve Allen debuted a prime time series
and
cut back his late night hosting to Wednesdays through Fridays
only.
Ernie Kovacs became the permanent Monday-Tuesday host in October, but
until
then, a number of guest hosts were used. Bill
was
one of them.
On the July 10 show, his
scheduled guests were Arlene Francis (with whom he worked extensively
in the 1950s), Jonathan Winters, jazz vocalist Chris Connor and the
piano duo Cole and Fizdale.
In the book Brought To You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream, it's said that Bill was scheduled to fill in on The Tonight Show in 1963 but had to back out due to a sponsor conflict. (Frigidaire advertised on The Price is Right while Hotpoint was on The Tonight Show.) Arlene Francis ended up hosting those shows instead.
According to some vintage newspaper articles, Bill did not enjoy the experience of hosting a talk show. "They aren't my idea of a good time," he said in a 1971 profile. "Walking out there with the thought, 'Now I have to be entertaining for the next five minutes.' Never again -- not even Carson."
BILL CULLEN TAX PARTY (WRCA March 24, 1956)
Bill hosted this
special
seen locally
on the NBC flagship station in New York City from 11:15pm until
midnight.
According to the TV Guide listing, "Four income-tax experts will answer
questions from the studio audience and from people around the city, the
latter being picked up by WRCA-TV's mobile unit."
PERSON TO PERSON
(CBS
January 18, 1957)
Yes, Bill was once profiled
on Edward
R. Murrow's Friday night interview series. Bill's interview took
up the second half of the thirty-minute program. (The first half
featured baseball legend Jackie Robinson, who had recently retired and
taken a job as an executive for Chock Full O' Nuts!) Bill was at
the peak of his professional career at the time of Murrow's interview,
with The Price Is Right, I've
Got A Secret and his daily New York radio show all going
strong.
The Person to Person interviews typically took place in the
subjects'
homes, with Murrow conducting them from his studio.
THE GARRY MOORE SHOW
(CBS April 11, 1961)
This episode of Moore's
prime time
variety hour featured a skit spoofing Bill's hit called Name the
Right
Price. Moore played the host (wearing dark-rimmed glasses, of
course) and the contestants were played by series regulars Carol
Burnett
and Marion Lorne, along with guest George Gobel. Bill made a
brief,
silent cameo appearance at the end of the skit.
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THE AMERICA'S CUP RACE (NBC September 17, 1962)
Bill teamed with Cleveland Amory and Everett Morris for this NBC News Special about the upcoming yachting competition between Australia and the United States off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island. A copy of this obscurity is in the archives of The Museum of Television and Radio in California.
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NIGHTLIFE
(April 26-30, 1965) Nightlife was a failed effort by ABC to challenge Johnny Carson in the late-night field. The show ran from November, 1964 to November, 1965 and had one of the odder production histories in late night television. Les Crane was its host for the first four months, during which time the show was essentially known as The Les Crane Show. Crane was fired in February, a victim of low ratings, and beginning March 1 the show began using guests hosts for a week or two at a time. Those hosts included funnymen Shelley Berman, Jack Carter and Jan Murray, singers Eddy Arnold and Pat Boone, former Today host Dave Garroway, and in the last week of April, our man Bill. The rotating hosts format fared no better, and in June new producers were brought in to give new life to the series. One of their first moves was to rehire Crane, who returned to the late night show on June 28 and stayed until the show ran its course later that year.
We've even found some of Bill's guests for his week of shows:
TUESDAY: Hal March, rock & roll singer Donna Loren, actor Herwschel Bernardi and singer Al Hibbler
WEDNESDAY: Singer Gale Garnett and actor Roger Smith
FRIDAY: Producer Norman Baer, country singer Kitty Wells and bluegrass performers Flatt & Scruggs
TOURNAMENT OF ROSES
PARADE (NBC January
2, 1967)
Bill teamed with Betty White
to
provide NBC's coverage of the annual event. Pat Boone and actor
Barry
Sullivan were also on hand. As big a fan of Bill as we are, we
probably
would have been watching ABC that year. Elizabeth
Montgomery was cuter.
CAPTAIN KANGAROO
(CBS
March 8, 1978)
Yes, Captain Kangaroo.
According to a fan named Randy who signed our guestbook,
the
puppet
character
Bunny Rabbit was a contestant on Bill's fictional The
Baking Game, showing off his carrot cookies. Later,
Bill showed
up for a visit at the Captain's Place. Randy's a little fuzzy on
the details (hey, he was only six years old!), but we're grateful to
him
for filling in the details he had. Thanks also to Chris Tufts who
located the exact date of Bill's appearance in a vintage TV Guide.
DICK CLARK'S LIVE WEDNESDAY (NBC 1978)
In the late seventies, Dick Clark produced and hosted a series of specials geared to nostalgia for the fifties and sixties. Those specials led to the live variety show Dick Clark's Live Wednesday, which didn't last very long. Bill appeared in one of the first few shows of the series.
TV'S FUNNIEST GAME SHOW MOMENTS (ABC May 10, 1984)
This was the first of two specials hosted by William Shatner which looked back at some classic moments from Goodson-Todman game shows. Bill was one of several in-studio guests who chatted with Shatner and introduced clips. Despite the wealth of material to draw from, most of Bill's clips came from the recent series Child's Play.
