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As a result of this chance meeting, a business deal ensued in which
Consolidated Cigar/Dutch Masters became the sole sponsor of Ernie's newest idea for a television series. In the show itself, Ernie performed in many Dutch Masters commercials, usually presented as yet another type of "blackout gag"
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Some of the people who were the focus of the guessing game were ordinary people who had experienced an extraordinary event, recently been in the news, or enjoyed a distinction of some kind. A panelist would be awarded one point if they guessed the person's identity/secret. At the end of the show,
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Season 1 consisted of 39 episodes, from
October 22, 1959, to July 21, 1960. Season 2 was far shorter, airing just 14 episodes between October 27, 1960, and February 9, 1961. Twenty episodes were repackaged for syndication in September 1978. In October 2017, all 49 surviving episodes were made
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to write and consult on screenplays – but no television series of his own. At that time, sponsors did not buy commercial time on a television shows as a commodity; rather, a sponsor would produce a television program in its entirety and present it to a network for broadcast. While visiting a
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ten times as a guest panelist (July–November 1957) and twice as the show's
Mystery Guest (September 6, 1956 and September 7, 1957) produced and hosted a format similar to those shows: a panel of celebrities attempted to guess a secret about a seemingly ordinary person brought onstage.
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shown during the show and themselves unique due to being done completely in pantomime and directed by Kovacs himself. The
Congress of TV Editorial Writers was impressed enough with the silent commercials to award Kovacs with their Madison Avenue Award in 1960.
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In early episodes, the clues were presented by way of props and short video clips that had no cast, but eventually the show switched to using films of short comedy blackout gags starring Kovacs and a regular cast of
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Hollywood movie set, Kovacs happened to meet a cigar company executive who was impressed that Kovacs continually smoked a cigar. Ernie was impressed that this corporate executive was carrying a book on
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First appearing on television in 1951, Kovacs was an extremely prolific producer of television comedy throughout the 1950s. As a result of the critical success of his 1957 NBC special
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prizes would be awarded to the home viewer represented by the panelist with the most points.
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Encyclopedia of
Television Series, Pilots and Specials
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63:Presented by
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561:Silent Show
344:Janet Leigh
336:Jack Carson
317:Carl Reiner
209:Silent Show
111:Maury Cohen
95:of episodes
56:Barry Shear
53:Directed by
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578:Characters
354:References
348:Jim Backus
328:Jane Wyatt
301:Edie Adams
202:Background
160:1961-02-09
150:1959-10-22
123:25 minutes
103:Production
84:of seasons
58:Joey Behar
45:Created by
37:Edie Adams
332:Mort Sahl
295:Panelists
176:game show
108:Producers
478:21 March
455:21 March
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143:Release
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419:ISBN
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184:ABC
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