The Name's the Same
Encyclopedia
The Name's the Same is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

 that was produced by Goodson
Mark Goodson
Mark Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.-Life and early career:...

-Todman
Bill Todman
William S. "Bill" Todman was an American television producer born in New York City. He produced many of television's longest running shows with business partner Mark Goodson.-Early life:...

 for the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 television network from December 5, 1951 to August 31, 1954, followed by a run from October 25, 1954 to October 7, 1955.

It was alternately sponsored by Swanson
Swanson
Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American market. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Pinnacle Foods, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company...

 and Johnson Wax for the majority of its run. It was also sponsored by the Bendix home appliance division of Avco
Avco
Avco Corporation is a subsidiary of Textron which operates Textron Systems Corporation and Lycoming.-Brief history:The Embry-Riddle Company created the Aviation Corporation in 1928 as a holding company tasked with acquiring small airlines...

 early in its run, and Clorets
Clorets
Clorets is a line of chewing gum and mints made by Cadbury Adams. It was introduced in 1951. Clorets gum and candy generally contains the chlorophyll substance which acts as an active ingredient to eliminate mouth odors. Clorets was originally owned by The Warner-Lambert Company under its Adams...

 and Chicken of the Sea
Chicken of the Sea
Chicken of the Sea is a brand of canned tuna produced by a company owned by Thai Union Group.-Company:Based in San Diego, California, the company markets a variety of other seafood items under the Chicken of the Sea brand name, including clam, crab, mackerel, salmon, sardines and tuna...

 tuna midway through its run. The show's final sponsor, Ralston Purina, also sponsored Ethel and Albert
Ethel and Albert
Ethel and Albert was a radio and television comedy series about a married couple, Ethel and Albert Arbuckle, living in the small town of Sandy Harbor...

, the program that replaced The Name's the Same on the ABC schedule.

Moderators

Robert Q. Lewis
Robert Q. Lewis
Robert Q. Lewis was an American radio and television personality, game show host, and actor. Lewis added the middle initial "Q." to his name accidentally on the air in 1942, when he responded to a reference to radio comedian F. Chase Taylor's character, Colonel Lemuel Q...

 was the original "host and moderator" from December 5, 1951 to August 31, 1954. During three separate personal vacation breaks, in 1953 and 1954, Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...

, Brian Aherne
Brian Aherne
Brian Aherne was a British actor of both stage and screen, who found success in Hollywood.-Early life and stage career:...

, and Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Fadiman
Clifton P. "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.-Literary career:...

 substituted for Lewis. After Lewis' final show, where he implied the show's future was in doubt, The Name's the Same went on hiatus, giving Lewis more time to devote to his variety shows on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

. (Announcer Lee Vines continued with Lewis on CBS.)

The Name's the Same returned on October 25 with a new set and Ralston Purina joined as the sponsor. During this 39-week run the moderators changed three times. Dennis James
Dennis James
Dennis James was an American television personality, actor, and announcer. He is credited as the host of television's first network game show, the DuMont Network's Cash and Carry in 1946...

 hosted for 18 weeks, through April 4; Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as...

 shared the moderator's duties for 10 weeks, from April 11 to June 21; Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Fadiman
Clifton P. "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.-Literary career:...

 returned to the emcee's chair on June 28, hosting for 11 weeks through the final episode on October 7.

Panelists

The only panelist to remain for the show's entire run was New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

-based actress and socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 Joan Alexander
Joan Alexander
Joan Alexander was an American actress known for her role as Lois Lane on radio's The Adventures of Superman from the early 1940s to 1951.-Early life and career:...

. The original two co-panelists with Alexander were comic Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows was a Tony and Pulitzer-winning American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage.-Early years:...

 and composer Meredith Willson
Meredith Willson
Robert Meredith Willson was an American composer, songwriter, conductor and playwright, best known for writing the book, music and lyrics for the hit Broadway musical The Music Man...

. Burrows left the show in November 1952 and comedian Jerry Lester took his seat, followed by comedian Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...

 on April 14, 1953. Willson stayed on until July 1953, and his place on the panel was taken by ABC sportscaster Bill Stern
Bill Stern
Bill Stern was a U.S. actor and sportscaster who announced the nation's first remote sports broadcast and the first telecast of a Major League Baseball game. In 1984, Stern was part of the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame’s inaugural class which included sportscasting legends Red...

. On September 15, 1953, Reiner left Alexander and Stern were joined by New York radio personality Gene Rayburn
Gene Rayburn
Gene Rayburn was an American radio and television personality. He is best known as the host of various editions of the popular American television game show Match Game for over two decades....

.

On February 9, 1954, the panel's makeup was adjusted. Bess Myerson
Bess Myerson
Bess Myerson became the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America pageant in 1945. She appeared on various television shows in the 1950s and 1960s...

, Miss America 1945, was added to the panel to replace Bill Stern and a fourth panelist was added to the game. That fourth panelist was originally Sherlock Holmes portrayer Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...

, but he left on April 6 and was replaced by Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr...

 regular Arnold Stang
Arnold Stang
Arnold Stang was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type.-Career:...

. Stang then left on May 18 and was replaced by humorist Roger Price
Roger Price (comedy)
Roger Price was an American humorist, author and publisher, who created Droodles in the 1950s, followed by his collaborations with Leonard Stern on the Mad Libs series...

, who stayed on until the final episode.

In January 1955, Rayburn and Meyerson left the panel and were replaced by The Jackie Gleason Show
The Jackie Gleason Show
The Jackie Gleason Show is the name of a series of popular American network television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970.-Cavalcade of Stars:...

s Audrey Meadows
Audrey Meadows
Audrey Meadows was an American actress best known for her role as the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners.-Early life:...

 and New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...

 columnist and future To Tell The Truth
To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication...

 regular Hy Gardner
Hy Gardner
Hy Gardner was a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, host of The Hy Gardner Show, and a regular panelist on the first incarnation of To Tell The Truth. In 1957 Gardner also appeared on the show made up as a clown along with guest challenger Paul Jung...

. Gardner was replaced by actor Walter Slezak
Walter Slezak
Walter Slezak was a portly Austrian character actor who appeared in numerous Hollywood films. Slezak often portrayed villains or thugs, most notably the German U-boat captain in Alfred Hitchcock's film Lifeboat , but occasionally he got to play lighter roles, as in The Wonderful World of the...

 in March of 1955, who in turn left in July due to a timeslot switch. Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace (journalist)
Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....

, then a fledgling journalist, took over as the last permanent panelist.

Many familiar faces of the era were guest panelists, including Bill Cullen
Bill Cullen
William Lawrence Francis "Bill" Cullen was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades...

, Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.-Early life:...

, Dane Clark
Dane Clark
Dane Clark was an American film actor who was known for playing, as he labeled himself, "Joe Average".-Early life:...

, and Hans Conried
Hans Conried
Hans Georg Conried, Jr. was an American comedian, character actor and voice actor.-Early years:He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland to Hans Georg Conried, Sr. and Edith Beyr Gildersleeve. His mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna,...

.

Gameplay

Each standard round featured a contestant who had a "famous name": the contestant's full name was the same as either an actual person ("Jane Russell," "Abraham Lincoln," "Napoleon Bonaparte"), a place ("Virginia Beach," "Monte Carlo"), a thing ("A. Lap," "A. Table," "Ruby Lips"), or an action ("I. Draw", "Will Kiss"). The contestant was introduced and referred to throughout the game as "Mr. X" (or "Mrs./Miss/Master X"). A small curtain was opened to the audience, showing a placard with the contestant's name, along with a drawing depicting the namesake; famous people were often caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

d.

The panelists were allocated 10 questions each, with the number remaining denoted in running tally on the wall behind them. The questions had to be "yes or no" questions, and were posed to the contestant as if they were the person, place, or thing their name represented with the contestant answering as their namesake. The panel could pass to save some of their questions for later on in the game. Any member of the panel who failed to identify the contestant's name wrote the contestant a check for $25, meaning each contestant won either $50 if their name was guessed by a panelist, or $75 if it was not. When a fourth panelist was added in early 1954, the check amounts were decreased to $20 per panelist, making the prizes $60 for a correct guess and $80 if the panel was stumped.

Many of the contestants' names lent themselves to comedy. Robert Q. Lewis would always call on Carl Reiner first when the mystery name was a thing: Reiner's innocent questions always took on funny meanings, followed by Joan Alexander straying even farther away, to the studio audience's delight. For "A. Harem," Reiner asked, "Is this thing used for recreational purposes?" and Alexander pursued this: "Do fat men use this to reduce their weight?" Lewis would enjoy these detours as much as the audience. It was then left to Bill Stern, a veteran reporter, to zero in on the actual name with serious, shrewd questioning.

Sometimes a contestant's celebrity namesake was brought out at the end of the round to surprise the contestant; other times, a celebrity was the guest without pretext. The celebrity then played a special round called "I'd Like To Be..." in which the panel tried to guess, in the same fashion as with civilians, who the celebrity would like to be if they could be anyone else. In late 1953, "I'd Like To Be..." was replaced with "Secret Wish", in which the panel attempted to guess something that the guest would secretly like to do or have happen (for example, Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...

 wished to coach the Vassar
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

 lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...

 team, and Van Johnson
Van Johnson
Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....

 wanted Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

 to sit on his lap). The celebrity's winnings ($50/$75, later $60/$80) went to his or her favorite charity.

A few times near the end of the run, host Clifton Fadiman would welcome the panel, then reveal the episode's guest to the studio and home audience. The curtain would pull back with the guest standing behind it in place of the usual caricature.

A typical episode contained four rounds - two standard rounds, the celebrity round, and then a final standard round; some episodes would feature one less or one more standard round. At the end of each episode, each panelist would tell how much money they "lost" followed by a good-night.

Theme

For most of the show's run, the theme for The Name's the Same was a busy string arrangement called "Shooting Star" by Sidney Torch
Sidney Torch
Sidney Torch MBE was a British pianist, cinema organist, conductor, orchestral arranger and a composer of light music.Born Sidney Torchinsky of a Ukrainian Father and an Estonian Mother in London, Torch learned the rudiments of music very quickly from his father, an orchestral trombonist...

. This was used until the program's last season, when an instrumental version of "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis
"Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis", better known as just "Meet Me in St. Louis", is a popular song from 1904 which celebrated the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, i.e., the St. Louis World's Fair. The words were by Andrew B. Sterling; the music, by Kerry Mills. The song was published in 1904 in New York...

" by Kerry Mills
Kerry Mills
Kerry Mills was an American composer of popular music during the Tin Pan Alley era. His stylistically diverse music ranged from ragtime to cakewalk to marches. He was most prolific between 1895 and 1918....

 was used (Ralston Purina
Nestlé Purina PetCare
Nestlé Purina PetCare Company is the pet food division of Swiss-based Nestlé S.A., following its acquisition of the American Ralston Purina Company on December 12, 2001 and subsequent merger with Nestlé's Friskies PetCare Company. As a wholly owned subsidiary, it is headquartered at the General...

 of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 was the show's sponsor).

Foreign versions

A UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 version was made for radio (BBC Home Service
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...

) and TV (BBC Television
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

) with British namesakes of famous people, buildings and things. It ran on TV from 1954 to 1955 with Bernard Braden
Bernard Braden
Bernard Chastey Braden was a Canadian-born English actor and comedian.Braden was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and educated at Magee Secondary School, Kerrisdale, Vancouver. He produced plays on CJOR Vancouver in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He married Barbara Kelly in 1942 and they moved...

 as the original host, later replaced by Peter Martyn.

A one-off revival edition was produced for BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

 in 2005 as part of a season of programs detailing the "lost decade".

Episode status

At least some episodes with all four regular hosts were saved as kinescope
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...

 films. Most recently, the show aired in reruns on GSN at 3:30 AM ET every morning following What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....

 in GSN's "Black & White Overnight" block. The latest run began on July 14, 2008 with an episode from August 6, 1952 and ended on December 2 with the series finale.

Several episodes rerun by GSN are available in their original, uncut form (e.g., with commercials and uncrunched credits) in the collectors' trading circuit, as well as from "public-domain" dealers like Shokus Video. One of these is from April 25, 1955, in which famous clown Emmett Kelly
Emmett Kelly
Emmett Leo Kelly , a native of Sedan, Kansas, was an American circus performer, who created the memorable clown figure "Weary Willie", based on the hobos of the Depression era.- Career development :...

 fulfills his "Secret Wish" – painting co-host Ray Goulding's face like that of a clown.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive
UCLA Film and Television Archive
The UCLA Film and Television Archive is an internationally renowned visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. It holds more than 220,000 film and television titles and 27 million feet of...

has over 40 episodes of the program from 1953-1955, including the aforementioned Emmett Kelly episode.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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