To Tell the Truth

This article is about the game show. For other uses, see To Tell the Truth (disambiguation).

"TTTT" redirects here. TTTT may also refer to the video game Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

To Tell the Truth
File:To Tell the Truth 2000-2002.jpg
Genre	Game show
Created by	Bob Stewart
Presented by	Bud Collyer (1956–68) Garry Moore (1969–77) Joe Garagiola (1977–78) Robin Ward (1980–81) Gordon Elliott (1990) Lynn Swann (1990–91) Alex Trebek (1991) John O'Hurley (2000–01) Anthony Anderson (2016)
Narrated by	Bern Bennett (1956–60) Johnny Olson (1960–72) Bill Wendell (1972–77) Alan Kalter (1977–81) Burton Richardson (1990–2001)
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	12 (1956–68) 9 (1969–78) 1 (1980–81) 1 (1990–91) 2 (2000–01)
Production
Running time	22–26 minutes
Production company(s)	Goodson-Todman Productions (1956–81) Mark Goodson Productions (1990–2001)
Distributor	Firestone Film Syndication, Ltd. (1969–78) Viacom(1980–81) Pearson Television (2000–01)
Release
Original network	CBS (1956–68) NBC (1990–91) Syndicated (1969–78, 1980–81, 2000–01)
Original release	December 18, 1956 (1956-12-18) – December 14, 2001 (2001-12-14)
External links
[{{#property:P856}} Website]

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. Along with The Price Is Right, Let's Make a Deal, The Newlywed Game, and Jeopardy!, it is one of five game shows in the United States to have aired at least one new episode in at least six consecutive decades, with a seventh decade version slated in 2015 (matched only by The Price Is Right). A total of 25 seasons of the various versions of To Tell the Truth have been produced, tying that of What's My Line? and surpassing the 20 of I've Got a Secret.

The show features a panel of four celebrities whose object is the correct identification of a described contestant who has an unusual occupation or experience. This central character is accompanied by two impostors who pretend to be the central character; together, the three persons are said to belong to a "team of challengers." The celebrity panelists question the three contestants; the impostors are allowed to lie but the central character is sworn "to tell the truth". After questioning, the panel attempts to identify which of the three challengers is telling the truth and is thus the central character.

Game play

Three challengers are introduced, all claiming to be the central character. The announcer typically asks the challengers, who stand side by side, "What is your name, please?" Each challenger then states, "My name is [central character's name]." The celebrity panelists then read along as the host reads aloud a signed affidavit about the central character.

The panelists are each given a period of time to question the challengers. Questions are directed to the challengers by number (Number One, Number Two and Number Three), with the central character sworn to give truthful answers, and the impostors permitted to lie and pretend to be the central character.

After questioning is complete, each member of the panel votes on which of the challengers they believe to be the central character, either by writing the number on a card or holding up a card with the number of their choice, without consulting the other panelists. Any panelist who knows one of the challengers or has another unfair advantage is required to recuse ("disqualify") himself or herself which, for scoring purposes, is counted as a "wrong vote."

Once the votes are in, the host asks, "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?" The central character then stands, often after some brief playful feinting and false starts among all three challengers. Occasionally, the central character would be asked to do something else related to their story instead of standing up. The two impostors then reveal their real names and their actual occupations. Prize money is awarded to the challengers based on the number of incorrect votes the impostors draw.

History

1956–1968, CBS

To Tell the Truth was to have premiered on Tuesday, December 18, 1956, on CBS in prime time as Nothing But The Truth, but the program title was changed to To Tell the Truth the day before the show's debut. (Both of the titles derive from the standard English court oath "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.") The series was recorded in New York City; initially at CBS-TV Studio 52, moving to Studio 50 late in its run. The existence of an audience ticket for a taping indicates that the show originated in color at the CBS Broadcast Center in late 1966.

Bud Collyer was the show's host (Mike Wallace hosted the pilot); recurring panelists by the 1960s included Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, and Kitty Carlisle. (Cass and Carlisle stayed on as panelists for most subsequent editions.) Earlier regular panelists had included Johnny Carson, Polly Bergen, Jayne Meadows, Don Ameche, Hy Gardner, Dick Van Dyke, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze, and Ralph Bellamy. Bern Bennett, Collyer's announcer on Beat the Clock, was the inaugural announcer of To Tell the Truth in the 1950s. Upon Bennett's transfer to CBS's Los Angeles studios, Johnny Olson, who in time became the best-known of all Goodson-Todman Productions announcers, joined the show in 1960 and remained through the end of its CBS runs.

Three games were played per episode. Each wrong vote from the panel paid the challengers $250 on the prime-time run, for a possible $1,000; a consolation prize of $150 was awarded if there were no wrong votes. A design element in the set for this series was a platform directly above and behind the emcee's desk. The contestants stood on this platform during their introduction allowing the camera to pan directly down to the host. They then traveled down a curved staircase to the main stage level to play the game.

On Monday, June 18, 1962, a daytime five-day-per-week edition was introduced, running at 3 p.m. Eastern, and 2 p.m. Central. The daytime show, also hosted by Collyer, featured a separate panel for its first three years, with actress Phyllis Newman as the only regular. The evening panel took over the afternoon show in 1965; in early 1968, Bert Convy replaced Poston in the first chair.

The daytime show was reduced to two games to accommodate a five-minute news break towards the half-hour mark. On the CBS daytime run, each wrong vote paid the team $100. During the show's final year and a half, the studio audience also voted, with the majority vote counting equally with that of each of the celebrity panelists. If there was a tie for the highest vote from the audience, that counted as a wrong vote.

The original daytime panel with Bud Collyer. From left: Sam Levenson, Mimi Benzell, and Barry Nelson. The fourth panel member was Sally Ann Howes.

One CBS daytime episode featuring Dorothy Kilgallen, best known as a regular panelist on What's My Line?, was broadcast on the East Coast on Monday, November 8, 1965, as news of her sudden death was circulated by wire services. The breaking news story prompted CBS newscaster Douglas Edwards to announce her death immediately after To Tell the Truth ended. She had videotaped the program six days earlier, according to the New York Herald Tribune. The newspaper added that Kilgallen and Arlene Francis both pretended to be Joan Crawford while sitting next to the real Crawford in a celebrity segment that the daytime series featured regularly starting in 1965. The episode was one of the large majority of To Tell the Truth daytime episodes that were destroyed because of the common practice of wiping videotape prior to the invention of the videocassette. This was a different half-hour telecast from the 1962 prime-time episode on which Kilgallen can be seen and heard as one of the panelists. GSN repeated that episode decades later.

The prime-time show ended on May 22, 1967, with the daytime show ending on September 6, 1968. The show was replaced by the expansions of Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light to 30 minutes, in a scheduling shuffle with The Edge of Night, The Secret Storm, and Art Linkletter's House Party.

Metropole Orchestra leader Dolf van der Linden composed the show's first theme, "Peter Pan," used from 1956–61. From 1961–67, the show switched to a Bob Cobert-penned theme with a beat similar to "Peter Pan," and then to a Score Productions tune during its final CBS daytime season.

Most episodes of the original nighttime run of the series were preserved on black and white kinescope, along with a few color videotape episodes. Only a handful of shows remain from the CBS daytime series' first three years because of a then-common practice of wiping videotapes and reusing them to save money and storage space. Many daytime episodes (including some in color) from 1966–68 exist, including the color finale.

Reruns of the black and white kinescopes are currently running on the Buzzr channel.

1969–1978, syndication

To Tell the Truth returned only a year later, in autumn of 1969, in first-run syndication. During the early years of its run, the syndicated Truth became a highly rated component of stations' early-evening schedules after the Federal Communications Commission imposed the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971, opening up at least a half hour (a full hour, usually, on Eastern Time Zone stations) to fill with non-network fare between either the local or network evening newscast and the start of the network's primetime schedule for the evening. Other stations found success running the program in place of a daytime network game or soap opera, or in the afternoon "fringe" time period between the end of network daytime programming at 4:30/3:30 Central and the evening newscasts. This edition of the show was again based at the New York CBS-TV Studio 50 until 1971, when it moved to NBC Studio 6-A in Rockefeller Center.

Each incorrect vote in this version was worth $50 to the challengers. Fooling the entire panel won the challengers a total of $500. There were two games per episode, and there was often a live demonstration or video to illustrate the contestant's story after many of the games.

The show was first released to local stations on September 8, 1969. A total of 1,715 episodes of this version were produced, with the series ending on September 7, 1978. Some markets that added the series after its 1969 release opted to carry the show for another season or two in order to catch up on the episodes that had not aired in their viewing area.

According to Garry Moore, who had hosted I've Got a Secret in its original run and who had been retired from television at this time, the first choice of producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman was the host of the original version of the show, Bud Collyer. He declined due to his ailing health, saying "I'm just not up to it," and would pass away on the same day that the revival premiered. Goodson and Todman then paid a call to Moore, who accepted, emerged from retirement, and hosted the program until 1977. Regular panelists included Orson Bean during the first year, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle and Bill Cullen, who substituted for Moore when needed. Many regulars from the original run appeared, including Tom Poston and Bert Convy.

In late 1976, Moore was diagnosed with throat cancer, and originally, Cullen took his place. However, Mark Goodson noted how Cullen's serving as host, rather than as a panelist, hurt the chemistry he'd shared with Cass and Carlisle. Joe Garagiola was then hired and took over on an interim basis, stating that he was "pinch-hitting" for Moore. Moore appeared for one final time on the premiere episode of the ninth season to explain his sudden absence, banter with the panel after the first game, and formally hand the show over permanently to Garagiola, who hosted for the remainder of what proved to be the last season of the series. Moore's introduction that day prompted a loud applause and standing ovation.

Johnny Olson stayed with To Tell the Truth when it moved to syndication. He left in 1972, when he moved to Los Angeles to announce the Goodson-Todman revivals of The Price Is Right and I've Got a Secret. NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell replaced Olson from 1972–77, with Alan Kalter taking over during the final season. Don Pardo, also an NBC staff announcer, served as backup announcer to Wendell and Kalter.

To Tell the Truth used three distinctive sets throughout its nine-year syndicated run. The first, designed by Theodore Cooper and dubbed by some as the "psychedelic" set was used for the first two seasons and the first four weeks of the third; with one man on the door a toned-down set with two additional men added on the door was used from the fifth week of the third season through the first 30 weeks of the fourth. The longest-lived set — a blue-hued, gold-accented, block-motif set — was used for the remainder of the run, also designed by Cooper. The show was the only edition of Truth to feature a theme song with lyrics. The theme was written and composed by Score Productions chief Robert A. Israel and Truth producer Paul Alter, along with veteran theme composer Charles Fox. The bulk of this version is intact. However, the current status of the first season is unknown, and is presumed to be lost to wiping. GSN has never rerun the first season of the show, and had always begun with the second season. One episode from the first season exists in the UCLA Television and Film Archive.

1980–1981, syndication

On September 8, 1980, a new To Tell the Truth series premiered in syndication. The new series was recorded at the same studio at NBC's Rockefeller Center complex that the previous series had, and Canadian TV personality Robin Ward served as the host with Alan Kalter returning as announcer. A new theme and set were commissioned for this edition of Truth and although previous regulars Bill Cullen, Peggy Cass, and Kitty Carlisle made frequent appearances, there was no regular panel for this edition. The new Truth aired for one season in syndication and aired its final episode on September 11, 1981.

Two games were played, and each wrong vote paid the challengers $100; $500 was paid if the entire panel had been fooled.

After the second game, a new game called "One on One" was played with the four impostors from earlier. One fact had been purposely withheld from the panel about one of the impostors and it was up to the panelists to determine correctly to which of the impostors it applied. One at a time, each panelist would be given twenty seconds to question the impostor sitting directly across from them and would then say whether he/she believed the fact applied to that impostor. Wrong votes still paid $100 with $500 paid if the panel did not correctly determine to whom the fact pertained.

The 1980 edition of To Tell the Truth was a rarity in that it was still based in New York while nearly all television game show production had moved to California. Both To Tell the Truth and The $50,000 Pyramid (which debuted at the midpoint of the 1980–81 season and taped at ABC's Studio 15) were the last two broadcast (non-cable) television game shows to emanate from New York until Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? came to television for the first time in 1999 and taped at the ABC Television Center in Lincoln Square. Millionaire continued to tape in New York until 2013, with production moving to Stamford, Connecticut in 2014.

1990–1991, NBC

To Tell the Truth returned again for a run that lasted just nine months from September 3, 1990 to May 31, 1991. After spending many years originating from New York, the show originated for the first time from California at NBC's Burbank studio complex. The show's theme music was an orchestral remix of the 1969–78 theme (minus the lyrics), and the show utilized the block-letter logo from 1973–78. All episodes of this series exist and have aired on GSN in reruns.

The series' two pilot episodes were hosted by actor Richard Kline with Charlie O'Donnell as announcer, and one of these was accidentally aired on September 3, 1990 in the Eastern Time Zone markets. When the show first made it to air, A Current Affair reporter Gordon Elliott was the emcee with Burton Richardson announcing and O'Donnell serving as his substitute. After eight weeks, a dispute with Elliott's former employers in Australia forced him off American television altogether and he was replaced with then-frequent panelist Lynn Swann. Swann, in turn, left due to his own conflicts as he was a reporter for ABC Sports at the time and Alex Trebek was brought in to be the permanent host. When Trebek took the position on To Tell the Truth he was already hosting Classic Concentration on NBC and Jeopardy! in syndication. This made him only the second emcee after Jim Perry to host three nationally televised game shows simultaneously and the first to do it entirely in the United States; Perry hosted a pair of Canadian-based game shows, Definition & Headline Hunters, while hosting Card Sharks in the United States from 1978 until 1981.

The celebrity panelists for To Tell the Truth during this period included several of the '70s panel stalwarts including Kitty Carlisle, who appeared on a majority of the shows taking the fourth and most upstage seat. The first seat, furthest downstage, saw Ron Masak and Orson Bean alternate on the panel for 34 of the 39 weeks the series was on air. The chair next to that was occupied by rotating guests, although voice actress Dana Hill appeared in the seat most often. The third chair most often featured David Niven, Jr. as a panelist, although Masak and Bean would also sit there if both were to appear on the same program. Polly Bergen and Peggy Cass, who began appearing on the original series, would appear from time to time, and other frequent panelists included Vicki Lawrence, Cindy Adams, and Betty White. The panelists were introduced in twos with the male panelists escorting the female panelists down the staircase, followed by the host. For one week, Monty Hall (then hosting the 1990 version of Let's Make a Deal, taking over for Bob Hilton on a permanent guest host basis), sat in the first seat.

Two games were played with two sets of impostors. Any incorrect votes up to two paid $1,000. If three of the panelists had voted incorrectly, the players split $1,500. On the pilot, each incorrect vote earned $500. If the panel was fooled entirely, the players split $3,000.

After the second game, a new version of the "One on One" game from the 1980 series was played. A seventh civilian player was brought out with two stories, and a member of the studio audience was given an opportunity to win money by trying to figure out which of the two stories were true. Each panelist was given the opportunity to ask the contestant one question for each story, and after both stories had been presented the audience member chose which one he/she thought was the truth. After the choice was made, the contestant revealed the right answer and if the audience member came up with it, he/she won $500. If the contestant stumped the audience member, that player won $1,000.

Occasionally, celebrities whose faces were not well known would attempt to stump the audience during this part of the game. For example, Hank Ketcham, the creator of Dennis the Menace and a challenger on the original To Tell the Truth in May of 1962, tried during one episode to convince an audience member that he was really the songwriter to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (Johnny Marks had actually done this), but was unsuccessful in doing so.

2000–2001, syndication

The show then had a two-year run in syndication starting in 2000 with John O'Hurley hosting, and Burton Richardson returning as the announcer. The series was again produced at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Gary Stockdale supplied the music for this edition.

Actor Meshach Taylor was the only regular to appear on every episode of this edition, while Paula Poundstone was a regular during the first season. Following Poundstone's departure, several actors sat in Poundstone's former chair, including Kim Coles, Jackée Harry, Mother Love, Liz Torres, and Hattie Winston. The show's website touted Coles and Brooke Burns as regulars for season two, though neither panelist was featured in every show that year. Kitty Carlisle appeared as a panelist for one episode of the series, making her the only panelist to have appeared on all five incarnations of this show, spanning six decades. It was Carlisle's last appearance on the franchise; she died in 2007.

This edition of To Tell the Truth brought back the audience vote that the original series had last used. Their vote was revealed after the panel had cast their votes, just before O'Hurley asked for the subject to identify themself. Each incorrect vote paid $1,000, with a maximum of $5,000 available if the challengers managed to completely fool both the panel and the audience. In the first several weeks of shows, a game that resulted in five incorrect votes was worth $10,000 for the challengers.

According to Steve Beverly's tvgameshows.net, this edition of Truth never received a rating higher than 1.8. It was cancelled on December 14, 2001, only 65 episodes into its second season. However, repeats continued to air through March 15, 2002. All episodes of this series exist and have aired on GSN in reruns.

Upcoming ABC version

A six-episode version, to be hosted by Anthony Anderson will air on ABC. The episodes were taped in July 2015, but no intended dates of airing have been announced as of yet. Panelists named include Betty White and NeNe Leakes. White will have appeared on all three broadcast network versions of the show.

Additionally, this version of Truth will make it one of only two American game shows to have been produced at some point since the 1950s and 2010s (The Price is Right being the other, debuting in 1956; The current version of that series, debuting in 1972, is still in production to this day).

Notable contestants

A number of notable contestants have appeared on the show during a time when they, or at the very least their faces, were not well known. Some celebrities have also dressed up as impostors. Soupy Sales, Bill Todman, Tom Poston, Henry Morgan, Joe Garagiola Jr., Christopher Hewett and Rip Taylor all dressed up in costumes.

1956–1968

• West Virginia governor Cecil H. Underwood was To Tell the Truth's very first central character. He was the youngest person ever elected governor in West Virginia. He would go on to be not only the oldest person elected governor in West Virginia in 1997, but also the oldest person ever to be elected governor of any state in US history. He appeared as a challenger again five years later.
• British crime reporter and author Percy Hoskins appeared in 1957.
• Teen star Luke Halpin appeared first in March 1964 soon after his starring role in the Flipper and Flipper's New Adventure movies only months before NBC began filming the popular TV show version of the movies Flipper (1964 TV series) that he was best remembered for.
• Berry Gordy Jr., founder of the Motown Records label, appeared in 1965 and fooled the entire panel. The Supremes were there as well.
• John E. DuPont, the heir to the DuPont fortune, appeared in 1966. He was training in the sport of modern pentathlon and hoping to make the 1968 Olympics team that was to compete in Mexico City. He later gained infamy for murdering Olympic wrestling champion Dave Schultz in 1996.
• Rock and Roll impresario and deejay Alan Freed was correctly guessed by two of the panelists, including Polly Bergen, in a 1950s episode.
• Famed ice hockey player Jean Beliveau appeared on November 19, 1957.
• Irish sports commentator Eamonn Andrews made two appearances in 1957; his first was as a subject. Shortly thereafter, he appeared again as a guest panelist. He was selected as the host of the British version of the show, as well as one of the hosts of the British version of What's My Line?
• Penelope Anne Coelen, winner of the Miss World 1958 pageant, appeared as a contestant on November 25, 1958.
• Famed aviator Douglas Corrigan appeared in 1957, one day shy of 19 years after his famous flight "the wrong way" (to California) via Ireland.
• Australian entertainer Rolf Harris appeared as a contestant on December 9, 1963 and performed a verse of his hit song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", while playing his wobble board.
• Singer and future Sesame Street actor Bob McGrath appeared in 1966 due to his fame in Japan at the time. He was correctly guessed by all four panelists.
• Bud Collyer's son Michael appeared as an impostor, along with the daughter of baseball great Phil Rizzuto. His brother Richard V. "Dick" Heermance appeared as a central character.
• American author Hunter S. Thompson appeared on the show shortly after writing his book Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1968).
• Poet Rod McKuen appeared as an imposter for a gambler who never lost.
• In a 1962 episode, the panel was informed that the subject was Bob Miller, a pitcher for the New York Mets. At the conclusion of the game, the panel was surprised when two subjects stood up, leaving just one impostor. The Mets at the time had two pitchers with the same name – Robert Gerald Miller and Robert Lane Miller.
• Blues harmonica player Paul Butterfield, who played with the Butterfield Blues Band. He is famous for playing at the 1969 music concert Woodstock
• Songwriter/record producer Ellie Greenwich was the subject in a summer 1968 daytime show.
• NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle appeared as an impostor on the October 9, 1961 edition of the nighttime series. He identified himself as an insurance salesman, which was his trade during the football offseason; Bud Collyer mentioned offhandedly afterward that Tittle was also the quarterback for the New York Giants.

1969–1978

• Frank Abagnale Jr. appeared on the show years after he had given up his con artistry. The bio-pic based on his life, Catch Me If You Can, opens with his appearance on the show, featuring actors (Leonardo DiCaprio playing Abagnale) taking the place of the contestants, interwoven with footage of panelist Carlisle and host Garagiola from the original episode.
• American popcorn promoter and guru Orville Redenbacher was first seen on national television in 1973, long before his signature commercial appearances promoting his gourmet kernels. Redenbacher appeared on an episode of the show and he stumped the panelists (Kitty Carlisle, Bill Cullen, Joe Garagiola, and Peggy Cass), all of whom were shown eating and enjoying samples of Redenbacher's then "new" novelty popcorn flavors including "chili" and "bar-b-que."
• Caroll Spinney, better known as the man in Big Bird ever since the beginning of Sesame Street, appeared in 1971. Kitty Carlisle correctly identified him.
• A rare and early television appearance of Garry Trudeau, writer of the comic strip Doonesbury, was as a guest 1971, where all but one of the panelists failed to guess his identity.
• Actress Alexandra Elizabeth "Ally" Sheedy appeared in 1975, when she was twelve years old, in a story about a book that she wrote. The book, titled She Was Nice to Mice, later became a bestseller. This was well before she became famous as an actress. Later on, Sheedy even became a panelist for a few episodes.
• Mad Magazine publisher William M. Gaines appeared in 1970 thanks to Dick DeBartolo, a writer for both Goodson-Todman Productions and Mad who persuaded Gaines to come on the show. In part because the famously-casual Gaines appeared without a necktie, all four celebrities voted for a more stylishly-dressed impostor. Years later, DeBartolo remembered Kitty Carlisle telling him after the taping, "I never figured it was him. I mean look at the way he's dressed. I was looking for someone who ran a very successful magazine, so I thought it couldn't be him!"
• Roots author Alex Haley appeared as a subject on a 1972 episode. All but one of the panelists was able to identify him.
• Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye the Sailor from 1936 to 1982, was a guest in 1975. After the game ended, he engaged the audience with the signature theme "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man."
• Stan Lee, the creator and writer of many famous Marvel Comics including Spider-Man, X-Men, and Avengers, as well as the Chairman and Editor-In-Chief of Marvel, appeared twice. He first appeared in 1970, and then in 2002. In the latter, he and the other impostors all wore disguises lest the panel recognize him.
• Famous cartoonist William Hanna and Garry Trudeau appeared with other impostors in an episode from 1975, which ended with a person in a Yogi Bear costume (consultant Dick DeBartolo) picking out Hanna, and Daws Butler provided the voice of Yogi as he introduced the panel in a cartoon.
• Actor David Prowse, the British actor who wore the costume of Darth Vader in Star Wars, appeared on the show in 1977. Peggy Cass correctly identified him.
• Fine art and commercial photographer David Attie was a guest on March 20, 1978 to promote his book "Russian Self-Portraits" (Harper and Row, 1977).
• Journalist Anderson Cooper, then 9 years old, appeared as an impostor.
• After becoming the first person to base jump off the World Trade Center in 1975, Owen Quinn appeared on the show in 1978. None of the panelists guessed his true identity.

1980–1981

• Cartoonist Chuck Jones appeared as a subject on the show's second episode.
• Mary Kay Cosmetics founder Mary Kay Ash was also a subject on the same episode.
• Thomas Braden, CIA operative and journalist whose book Eight is Enough later spawned a hit TV series, appeared as a subject.
• Rosa Parks appeared as a subject and stumped two of the three voting panelists. (Nipsey Russell, the fourth, knew who she was, and he disqualified himself. He explained that he had met her when they protested together in the Selma to Montgomery marches.)
• Then a small-time radio host, Larry King was a subject later in the show's run. The same episode featured future figure skating world champion Elaine Zayak in the first game.
• Former Tic Tac Dough champion Thom McKee appeared as a subject.
• John McLaughlin, future host of TV's The McLaughlin Group, was a subject.
• Tony La Russa appeared as a subject on the show. At the time, he was the manager of the Chicago White Sox and was the youngest manager in Major League Baseball. He successfully fooled all the panelists, none of whom correctly identified him.

1990–1991

• Randy West, later a well-known game show announcer, was an impostor during the show's first week in 1990.
• Exploitation film producer and pioneer David F. Friedman appeared on the 1990 edition of the show, during the release of his memoir A Youth in Babylon; Kitty Carlisle was horrified at the nature of his salacious claims to fame, though on-air she expressed her reservations as humorously as possible.
• Actress Catherine Bell appeared as an impostor on the show in 1990.
• The composer of There She Is, Miss America, Bernie Wayne, appeared in the "One on One" portion on Thanksgiving Week 1990.
• Hank Ketcham, creator of the Dennis the Menace comic strip, appeared in the "One on One" portion in Christmas 1990. He tried but failed to convince the audience player that he was the writer of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
• Original announcer Bern Bennett was a "central subject" in 1991.
• Joan Howard Maurer, daughter of The Three Stooges' Moe Howard, appeared during the Alex Trebek era in 1991.
• Doug Heir, Paralympic Champion, appeared on an episode in 1990.
• Marni Nixon (Mrs. Ernest Gold), the singer who had provided the dubbed voices for Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood and Deborah Kerr, appeared on Lynn Swann's last show in 1991.
• Cory Everson, female bodybuilder, appeared on an episode in 1991.
• Doris Tate, mother of Sharon Tate, appeared on an episode in 1991.
• Rip Taylor appeared as an imposter on a Christmas episode.
• Don McLeod, the gorilla in the American Tourister commercial, appeared in the 1991 finale.

2000–2001

• Mikki Padilla later became the card dealer on Catch 21; two of the four celebrities identified her, plus the audience.
• Patti Stanger, a matchmaker for big-bucks single people who later became creator and host of Bravo's Millionaire Matchmaker, appeared in the edition for which Mikki Padilla was one of her impostors.
• Zack Hample, a collector of Major-League baseballs and the author of the book How To Snag Major League Baseballs, stumped two celebrities plus the audience.
• Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford and the author of the memoir Mommie Dearest, was a central character.
• John Peterman, the catalog and retail entrepreneur, wrote in his affidavit as a central character that the host "John O'Hurley" was an imposter, holding up a picture of him, as an inside joke in reference to O'Hurley's J. Peterman character on Seinfeld.
• Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, appeared on the February 21, 2001 episode.
• Tracy Griffith, an actress, a chef, and the half-sister of actress Melanie Griffith, stumped the entire panel (two of whom did not vote) and the audience.
• Margo Howard, past author of the advice column Dear Prudence, niece of Abigail Van Buren, daughter of Ann Landers, and ex-wife of Ken Howard, stumped two celebrities and the audience.
• Willie Aames, a former child actor, was acting out the lead character in Bibleman when he appeared as a central character, and the entire team of challengers was outfitted in Bibleman's costume to obscure their identities.
• Yvonne Craig, the actress who portrayed Batgirl in the 1960s TV series Batman.
• Todd Greene, an inventor and the founder of Headblade, was a central character; each contestant pretended to be the inventor of the head razor he invented.
• The activist Candy Lightner, who had founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, was a central character.

Merchandise

A board game was released by Lowell in 1957.

During the run of the 2000 version, a single-player online game was offered by the now defunct website Uproar.com (and plugged by John O'Hurley at the end of each episode).

A video slot machine game was released to American casinos nationwide by Bally Gaming Systems in 2002.

International versions

Country	Local name	Host	Network	Year aired
Australia	Tell the Truth	George Foster Mike Williamson	Nine Network	1959–65
		Earle Bailey	Network Ten	1971–72
Canada (English)	To Tell the Truth	Don Cameron	CTV	1962–64
Germany	Sag die Wahrheit ("Tell the Truth")	Guido Baumann Hans Sachs Wolf Mittler Hans Stotz Bernd Stephen Gerd Rubenbauer Michael Antwerpes	ARD Bayerischer Rundfunk SWR	1959–71 1986–95 2003–present
Italy	La verità ("The Truth")	Marco Balestri	Canale 5 Rete 4	1990–91 1991–95
Netherlands	Wie van de Drie ("Which of the Three")	Nand Baert Pim Jacobs Emmik Herman Flip van der Shale Fred Oster Caroline Christensen Rob van Hilst Jos Kuijer Joop Braakhekke Ron Brandsteder	AVRO RTL4 Omroep MAX	1963–85, 1994–97 1991 2010–present
Norway	På ære og samvittighet (of Honor)	Kari Borg Mannsåker Gunnar Haarberg	NRK	1958–62 1970 1986
Ukraine	Самозванці Samozvantsi ("Imposters")	Anton Lirnyk	ICTV	2011–12
United Kingdom	Tell the Truth	McDonald Hobley David Jacobs Shaw Taylor Graeme Garden Fred Dinenage	ITV Channel 4	1957–61, 1989–90 1983–85
Turkey	Üç Yalancı (Three Liars)	Cenk Koray Olcay Poyraz Üstün Savcı Göktay Alpman	TRT Channel 1	1970s

External links

• To Tell the Truth @ pearsontv.com
• To Tell the Truth (O'Hurley era) site
• To Tell the Truth on the Web - offers a look at the various versions over the years. Contains an episode guide for the 1990-91 and 2000-02 series.
• To Tell the Truth (1956–68) at IMDb
• To Tell the Truth (1969–78) at IMDb
• To Tell the Truth (1980–81) at IMDb
• To Tell the Truth (1990–91) at IMDb
• To Tell the Truth (2000–2002) at IMDb
• To Tell the Truth-related interview videos at the Archive of American Television