Salvador Dali on game show

Here is Dali on “What’s My Line?” This was the old 1950’s American game show on which a panel of masked celebrities would have to guess the identity of another celebrity guest by asking questions.

There are a number of these on YouTube. Ronald Reagan is another, though he hams it up in a really goofy and embarrassing way. Hitchcock is another. But perhaps the oddest is Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken. In that case the celebrity panel members were not even masked, indicating that the Colonel was not yet the iconic figure with Santa Claus levels of visual recognition that he has since become.

Dali is good here, I think. Just the right attitude. Reagan was the worst, and Hitchcock was trying too hard to be witty (and I say that as a Hitchcock fan). But Dali just plays it straight, which I think is the right attitude if you ever find yourself in this situation. Being Salvador Dali on a game show is already sufficiently bizarre that you may as well just show up with a straight face. Trying to make wisecracks would be beside the point.