What's My Line?: Encyclopedia II - What's My Line? - Game play

What's My Line? - Game play

What's My Line? - Standard rounds

Each episode of What's My Line? featured two standard contestant rounds, sometimes more if time permitted, and one mystery guest round. A round was essentially a guessing game in which the panel tried to identify the occupation of a contestant. The contestant would enter, sign in on a chalkboard, and his/her occupation flashed on monitors for the studio audience and television viewers to see. One panelist would begin by asking the contestant a yes-or-no question about his/her occupation. If the panelist received a "yes" answer, s/he could pose another question. If the panelist received a "no," the privilege of questioning passed to the next panelist. Questioning continued in rotation until the occupation was deduced or until the panel received its tenth "no" answer. At the end of the game the contestant won $5 for every "no" answer, thus $50 for stumping the panel.

Panelists had the option of passing instead of asking a question. The panel could also request a group conference in which the four members had from ten to thirty seconds to openly discuss ideas about the occupation or possible lines of questioning. John Daly set the conference time limit each time one was requested. Panels quickly adopted some basic binary search strategies and used initial questions to determine whether the contestant was salaried or self-employed, whether s/he dealt in a product or service, and whether the contestant's organization was profit-making or non-profit. In later seasons, the answers to one or more of these points of inquiry were provided before questioning began. Because only "no" answers were counted, panelists would often phrase their questions so that a "yes" answer would be more probable: "Is it something other than hair?"

The host acted as a moderator, cueing the panelists on their turns and flipping over cards that represented the contestant's score. The host also assisted contestants with questions and prevented them from giving misleading answers.

What's My Line? - Mystery guest rounds

Celebrity "mystery guests" appeared as challengers on What's My Line? in addition to the standard contestants. In a mystery guest round the panelists were blindfolded, and questioning was conducted in the same way as standard rounds. In the mid-1950s, panelists were limited to one question at a time before passing control to the next panelist. Of course, in the mystery guest round the goal was not to guess the occupation, but rather the identity of the guest. Mystery guests would try to conceal their identities by disguising their voices, much to the amusement of the studio audience.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Game play", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki