Gloria Swanson

 What's My Line? - Bennett Cerf's first show! - Gloria Swanson (Oct 15, 1950)

What's My Line? is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelists to question contestants in order to determine their occupation, i.e. their "line of work". The majority of the contestants were from the general public. However, there was one weekly celebrity "mystery guest" for which the panelists were blindfolded. It is on the list of longest-running U.S. primetime network television game-shows. Originally moderated by John Charles Daly and most frequently with regular panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, and Bennett Cerf, What's My Line? won three Emmy Awards for "Best Quiz or Audience Participation Show" in 1952, 1953, and 1958 and the Golden Globe Awards for Best TV Show in 1962.[1][2]

Some nostalgia writers have used the adjective live to describe the series as it existed for 17 years, but in fact during the last eight years many episodes were videotaped weeks or months in advance of their telecasts.[3] The show’s announcer acknowledged this fact during the closing credits of every “prerecorded” episode.

More than 700 episodes exist as kinescope recordings (filming a television screen in 16mm), which was the only way moving pictures and sound from spontaneous, unscripted television shows could be preserved on a long-term basis before the digital era.[4] Many early episodes were lost because of economic decisions made by CBS executives between 1950 and 1952. Every episode between July 1952 and September 1967 existed for a long time in the archive of producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, but some of these were lost in 1975.[5]

After the Sunday-night series’ cancellation by CBS in 1967, it returned in a syndication package for local television stations that committed to airing it five days a week.[6] This version originally was hosted by Wally Bruner and later by Larry Blyden. It was seen by viewers from 1968 to 1975. There have been a dozen international versions, radio versions, and a live stage version. Revivals in the United States were proposed several times, but all of them failed to go past the planning stages.[7] New episodes have not been created for American television since December 12, 1974.[8]

In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #9 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.[9]