Saturday, August 10, 2013

Ya hockey puck

With game show news slowed to a trickle, it's time to rummage through the black and white archives on YouTube.

To Tell the Truth was never my favorite Goodson and Todman panel show. But the format did manage to last through many versions spanning six decades. No less than Mark Goodson himself allowed that it was his personal favorite among all his shows. YouTube offers many clips from the show, but I couldn't resist this one with NHL legend Jean "Le Gros Bill" Béliveau. Maybe it's because I vaguely remembered one of the impostors telling the panel that, if we had any brains, we wouldn't be hockey players.

As the comments on the YouTube clip point out, an NHL star like Béliveau couldn't appear "in the open" on a contemporary version of TTTT. After all, the NHL has gained in popularity in the U.S. over the decades. And sports cable channels have metastasized to the point that athletes in all sports are media celebrities as never before.

One other comment points out that the $500 earned by the three players on the show would have meant something to Béliveau, considering the salaries in the NHL back then. Times have changed in that regard, too. Sidney Crosby will earn $12 million for the 2013-14 season.

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