"Do You Trust Your Wife" (1956) TV series 1956-1963

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Jim Morgan

Writer:

Roy Kammerman (writer)

Release Date:

14 July 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Game-Show

Plot:

Married pairs of contestants were asked to answer questions, the husband deciding whether he or she would answer. The original emcee Edgar Bergen was later replaced by Johnny Carson.

Plot Keywords:

Question In Title | Ventriloquist | Quiz Show | Non Fiction

Cast

Edgar Bergen	...	Host
Johnny Carson	...	Himself - Host (1957-1962)
Ed McMahon	...	Announcer (1957-1962)
Bill Nimmo	...	Announcer (1957)
Edwin Reimers	...	Announcer
Del Sharbutt	...	Announcer (1962-1963)
Woody Woodbury	...	Host (1962-1963)

Also Known As:

"Who Do You Trust?" (USA) (new title)

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono

Filming Locations:

Little Theatre, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Don Fedderson Productions

Quotes:

[Firefighter describes a fire at a brassiere factory]
Firefighter (guest contestant): And you know what the smell was, Johnny? Burnt rubber.
Himself - Host: Sort of a falsie alarm?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in 50 Years of NBC Late Night (2001) (TV)

Not grammatically correct, but a good show

As was pointed out by an actor playing the role of a sound man on a promotional spot at the time, to be grammatically correct, the show should have been entitled, "Whom Do You Trust?" But Johnny Carson was aiming his tribute to Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life" at the mass audience, not school marms. As Groucho had done on "You Bet our Life," Johnny would engage in banter with two guests who didn't necessarily know each other, let slip a few mischievous double entendres which were cute, funny, and pushing the limits of TV censorship all at the same time, and then pull out his quiz cards so that the guests as contestants could now try to win some money. "The next category is famous middle names. Which of you feels confident with this category. Who do you trust? Here's the first one: Robert Louis Stevenson. Oh, sorry. I'm not supposed to say the middle name." And at Ed McMahon laughing in the wings: "Well, you try saying that name without 'Louis' in the middle!" I remember that partly because the contestant failed to get the correct answer for the name that was then substituted for the author of "Treasure Island."

The main difference to "You Bet Your Life" was that whereas the Marx show was broadcast in the evening, causing a lot of kids to beg to stay up, "Who Do You Trust" was broadcast (on the East Coast, anyway) at 3:30 PM, causing quite a few kids to get home from school early. Later, of course, prepared with his several years of seasoning on daytime television, Johnny Carson became the King of the Night and as such, according to statistical studies, was an alternative to other nighttime activities and therefore a recognized form of birth control across America.