Kids, I have a fondness for gameshows. 1970s gameshows to be exact. This started out with Match Game, which remains and always and forever favorite for yours truly. However, my love of Gene Rayburn and his “blanks” eventually led me down a dangerous and delightful path… Tattletales.
Tattletales initially ran between 1974 and 1977. Hosted by Bert Convy, it featured a panel of celebrity couples tasked with guessing how their significant other would answer a number of silly, intimate and often very “1970s” questions. Just wait.
I can’t get enough. It’s a guilty pleasure that I will not apologize for.
This page is going to feature a compilation, all the weird, wacky and shag carpet favored wackiness I find on Tattletales. Consider this my study of Tattletales.
It’s small now, but hopefully someday mighty.
Tattletales currently airs on Buzzr.
Overheard on Tattletales:
October 21, 2025:
The Couples: Charlie Brill & Mitzi McCall, Martin & Judy Milner and Gary Collins & Mary Ann Mobley.
Notes: So, in the previous entry, I mentioned Patti Deutsch & Donald Ross as one of my “Spirit couple”? Well, Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall are the other. My love for their over-the-top wackiness knows no bounds. Though, anyone who’s hung around for any length of time knows my adoration of Martin Milner.
Tonight though, I couldn’t help but wonder if Brill & McCall were there to play a role. They had to keep up the energy. The Milners and Collins and Mobley are so, so, so sedate. .
This episode peppers the women with some deeply challenging questions:
Convy: Men are always advised to sow their wild oats when they’re single. Ladies, do you wish you’d sown more wild oats?
Mary Ann Mobley, in particular lets her guard down often throughout the episode and it’s honestly, a bit heart breaking. She answers, “I was the oldest, living, ex-Miss. America unmarried. No.” — She married Collins in 1967. She was thirty.
Convy: Ladies, do you spend more time improving your looks, or your mind?
Mobley is once again painfully honest. “Well, they’re both disastrous. I took the path of least resistance because the mind is a total washout. I’m ashamed to say that I spend more time trying to diet and exercise.”
Mary Ann Mobley was Miss. America 1959.
October 20, 2025:
The Couples: Patti Deutsch & Donald Ross, Barbara McNair & Rick Manzie and Rick & Pamela Barry.
Notes: Friends, Deutsch & Ross are my spirit couple of choice. they delight me to no end and this (of course!) is the same this time around. This episode is notable for a fairly lengthy discussion of Deutsch recent pregnancy and the recent birth of their son Max.
Convy: Since you’ve been married to your wife, have you become more attractive to other women?
Deutsch: Other women are starting to look awfully good to him. It’s only been five weeks since I had the baby. I loaf of bread is starting to look good to him.
True crime readers out there might find some interesting reading on Rick Manzie. This was a story I was unfamiliar with until I started digging into the names, but he passed away just a year after this episode aired in what the Mob Museum in Las Vegas describes as a still unsolved gangland hit.
October 17, 2025:
The Couples: Shecky Green & Nalani Kele, Bobby Van & Elaine Joyce, and Greg Mullavey & Meredith MacRae.
In one particularly… eyebrow raising… question, Convy asks:
“What do do you appreciate more about your wife– her mind or her body?”
I can hear you wincing out here. Luckily, this 1975 episode doesn’t see this question go as off the rails as it is potentially able.
The question is posed to the women who, after some hemming and hawing answer “their mind”. And luckily, two of the husbands are on the same page.
For those keeping score… It’s Greg Mullavey who chooses his wife’s body over her mind… so many fights could be had.
Notable Quote: “He’s going to say he likes my mind. It tells my body to do all the things he likes!” — Elaine Joyce.
