To Tell the Truth

Gameplay

Three contestants are presented, all claiming to be the primary subject or "central character" of a human-interest story. Two are impostors, and one is the true subject of the story. The announcer typically introduces all three contestants by asking them, "What is your name, please?", after which all three in turn give the name of the story's subject. After the host and four celebrity guests are introduced, the host reads aloud an affidavit about the subject. The panelists are each given a period of time to ask questions of the three contestants. Questions are directed to the challengers by number (numbers one, two, and three from the viewer's left to right), 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 he or she believes to be the central character, typically by holding up a card with the number of the contestant whom they believe is the true subject. Any panelist who knows one of the challengers or has another unfair advantage is required to disqualify themselves from both questioning and voting.

Once the votes are counted, 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 may be asked to do something else related to his or her story. The two impostors then reveal their real names and their actual occupations. Prize money is awarded and divided among all three of the challengers, based on the number of incorrect votes received by the impostors.

History

1956–1968, CBS

To Tell the Truth was to have premiered on Tuesday, December 18, 1956, on CBS in primetime as Nothing But The Truth, but the program title was changed to To Tell the Truth the day before the show's debut. The 1956 pilot episode, entitled "Nothing But The Truth," was hosted by Mike Wallace. The panelists were Dick Van Dyke, John Cameron Swayze, Polly Bergen and Hildy Parks and can be viewed on YouTube. Both the planned and eventual 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 Studio 62 (the Biltmore Theater), then CBS Studio 59 (the Mansfield Theatre), then CBS Studio 52 (the future Studio 54), and eventually the Ed Sullivan Theater late in its run. The move to CBS Studio 52 in June 1960 resulted in the positions of the panel and challengers switched from being on the host's left and right respectively, to right and left respectively. 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 included Johnny Carson, Polly Bergen, Jayne Meadows, Don Ameche, Hy Gardner, Dick Van Dyke, Faye Emerson, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze, Betty White, 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 with the show until 1972.

On the pilot and the primetime run, three games were played per episode. For the pilot, a wrong vote from each of the four-member panel and one wrong vote derived from the majority vote of the audience (a total of five votes) paid $300, the total prize money divided among the three challengers. The studio audience also voted, with the majority vote counting equally with that of one by a celebrity panelist; thus, the maximum of five incorrect votes resulted in $1,500 divided among the challengers. If there was a tie for the highest vote from the audience, and for each panelist who was disqualified, a wrong vote was counted. There was no consolation prize for no wrong votes.

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 their networks' primetime schedules 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.

Like the network editions that preceded it, the syndicated To Tell the Truth taped its episodes in New York for its entire run. Initially occupying the same studio space at the Ed Sullivan Theater that it had for the last few years of the network series, the show would eventually move operations to NBC's studios

at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in April 1971.

Each wrong vote in this version was worth $50 to the challengers; complete stumps of 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 clip to illustrate the central character'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 initial 1969 release opted to carry the show for another season or two after 1978 in order to catch up on the episodes that had not aired in their viewing area.

To host the revival series, Goodson and Todman made a call to original host Bud Collyer; however, Collyer had been suffering from a series of health issues that led to his death on the day the 1969 series premiered, and he told them "I'm just not up to it." The next call they made was to Garry Moore, the former host of I've Got a Secret as well as the CBS variety series The Garry Moore Show. Moore had largely been away from television since his variety series was cancelled in 1964 (he left I've Got a Secret around the same time), but he decided the time was right to return and he accepted the offer to host the new series. Regular panelists throughout the show’s run included Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle and Bill Cullen, who was also the designated substitute host whenever necessary. Orson Bean was the fourth regular panelist through the ninth week of the program’s second season, after which he left the show and his position on the panel became known as “the rotating chair”. Seen most often as the fourth panelist following Bean’s departure was Gene Rayburn or Nipsey Russell. Other semi-regulars throughout the program’s run included Gene Shalit, Larry Blyden, and original series stalwart Tom Poston; Orson Bean would return as a semi-regular panelist in 1971.

1980–1981, syndication

On September 8, 1980, a new To Tell the Truth series premiered in syndication. The new series emanated once again from Rockefeller Plaza in New York, and Canadian television 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. Even though 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, but it never recaptured the popularity of the original, and aired its final episode on June 12, 1981, with reruns airing until 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. No consolation prize was given if the entire panel correctly identified the subject.

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 him or her and would then say whether he or 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 by this point. There was only one other game show in production during the run of this To Tell the Truth series that emanated from New York. The $50,000 Pyramid, which premiered at the midway point of the 1980-81 season, was the other; the series was taped at ABC’s Studio TV-15, the former Elysee Theater, on West 58th Street. These two would be the last non-cable productions to tape regularly in New York until 1999 when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? premiered on ABC.

1990–1991, NBC

To Tell the Truth returned to NBC for a run that lasted only eight months, from September 3, 1990 (Labor Day) to May 31, 1991. Unlike previous versions that originated from New York, the 1990 version was taped at NBC's The Burbank Studios in California. 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 to 1978. All episodes of this series exist and have aired on GSN in reruns.

Actor Richard Kline hosted two pilot episodes with Charlie O'Donnell as announcer; one of these was accidentally aired as the premiere episode in the Eastern and Central time zones. Australian A Current Affair reporter Gordon Elliott hosted To Tell the Truth for its first eight weeks (September 3 to October 26, 1990). The bespectacled Elliott bore a passing resemblance to former To Tell the Truth emcee and panelist Bill Cullen. A dispute with Elliott's former employers in Australia temporarily forced him off American television altogether; his replacement was then-frequent panelist Lynn Swann. Swann, the first African-American host of To Tell the Truth, hosted the show for the next 14 weeks (October 29, 1990 to February 1, 1991) until his job as a reporter for ABC Sports at the time forced him to leave. Alex Trebek was brought in as his replacement for the remainder of the run (February 4 to May 31, 1991), at the same time he was hosting Classic Concentration on NBC and Jeopardy! in syndication. Mark Goodson filled in for two episodes Trebek missed when his wife Jean went into labor during a taping with their son Matthew. The announcer for the 1990 series was Burton Richardson (O'Donnell served as his substitute).

The celebrity panelists for To Tell the Truth during this period included several of the 1970s 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 set's main staircase, followed by the host. For one week, Monty Hall (who would later replace Bob Hilton as a permanent guest host on the 1990 version of Let's Make a Deal) sat in the first seat.

2000–2002, 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. In most markets, it was paired up with Family Feud, which was then hosted by Louie Anderson; O'Hurley would eventually join that program in 2006 and host it until 2010, when Steve Harvey took over.

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. Panelists appearing in at least six weeks of episodes included Brooke Burns, Dave Coulier, Brad Sherwood, Traci Bingham, Kim Coles, and Cindy Margolis. The show's website touted Coles and Burns as regulars for season two in place of Poundstone, though neither panelist was featured in every show that year. Kitty Carlisle appeared as a panelist for one episode in the first season, making her the only panelist to have appeared on all incarnations of this show to that point. It was Carlisle's final appearance in the franchise before her death in 2007.

This edition of To Tell the Truth brought back the audience vote that the original series had last used. Its vote was revealed after the panel had cast their votes, just before O'Hurley asked for the subject to identify himself or herself. 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. (A tie in the audience vote or panel disqualification counted as a wrong vote, as they had in previous versions.) 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 January 28, 2002, only 96 episodes into its second season. However, repeats continued to air through March 15, 2002. Episodes of this series have aired on GSN in reruns.

2016–2022, ABC

ABC ordered six episodes of the show, hosted by Anthony Anderson, which taped in July 2015 and began airing on ABC on June 14, 2016. Anderson is the second African-American host of the franchise; the first was Lynn Swann on the short-lived 1990 NBC daytime version.

The new, weekly 60-minute primetime series, while maintaining the show's core gameplay elements, presented itself as more of a comedy series. Most notably, it refocused the competition on the panelists themselves, who received points for correctly identifying the central character(s) in each round; at show's end, the winning panelist was briefly recognized while the "loser" was made to suffer a small comical humiliation. No mention was ever made on-air as to compensation to the central characters or impostors.

Also appearing on the new series was Doris Day Bowman, Anderson's mother, presented as the "scorekeeper." In some cases, where a panelist knows the central character or one of the impostors, Bowman also plays on their behalf. When Anderson's family appeared on Celebrity Family Feud, the behavior of "Mama Doris" was so outrageous that the producers approached Anderson about having her on To Tell The Truth.

The first season also included a house band, Cheche and His Band of Liars, and David Scott as an offstage announcer; these were replaced in season 2 by prerecorded music and an introduction provided by Anderson himself.

In this version, most contestants introduce themselves solely by claiming the central character's story, rather than by name (e.g., "I was a Bond girl" rather than "My name is ..."); some panels have contestants of different genders. The questioning period is not split distinctly among the panelists, and Anderson and Bowman often participate in the questioning.

Five rounds were played per episode, along with one additional round entitled "Before You Go", which was played with the two impostors of the just-completed round, one of whom had their own story.

Many episodes include a demonstration by one of the central characters.

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 short-lived website Uproar.com, and promoted by host John O'Hurley at the end of each episode.

A video slot machine game, based on the 1969 version, was released to American casinos nationwide by Bally Gaming Systems in 2002.