Nothing But The Truth

This is chronicling the pilot show called Nothing But The Truth which would ultimately become To Tell the Truth.

The game is basically the same, except aside from the title, there was a different host which was Mike Wallace.

Game format
To start, three contestants all of whom claim to be the same person introduced themselves (most of the time the contestants are of the same sex, on rare occasions there would be a mixture of both sexes), then the host read the sworn affidavit of the real person. After the affidavit was read and when the challengers went over to their desk, the panelists one by one asked a series of questions to the challengers based on the affidavit in some way for an unmentioned amount of time. The impostors were allowed to lie, but the real person was game bound to tell the truth (hence the name of the show). Once one panelist's time was up, another panelist started questioning. Once the entire panel's time was up, they started to vote for whoever was the real person. Each panelist showed his/her vote, and regardless of whoever they voted for, the appropriate panelist's vote for the appropriate contestant was signified by an "X". Unlike the series however, each panelist gave his/her vote to the host who would then reveal them one at a time himself. Once all the votes were cast, the real person then revealed himself/herself by standing up by virtue of the host saying "Will the real (insert person's name) please stand up?". After the real person revealed himself/herself, the impostors told everyone their real names & occupations; then there was a brief chat (sometimes a stunt) to the real person. Also unlike the eventual series, the team of challengers do not share the prize money. For each incorrect vote, the team of challengers won $100 each for a possible grand total of $1500 ($500 for each player).

Panelist's Disqualification
Sometimes, a panelist would recognize or actually know one of the challengers, not necessarily the real person. If and when that happened, the panelist can disqualify himself/herself causing an automatic wrong vote and giving the challengers money for that vote.

Audience Vote
The audience got in on the fun by making a vote themselves. Here in this pilot, instead of pressing 1, 2 or 3, they voted by virtue of a call be host Mike Wallace. The challenger with the majority vote got that vote. In case of a two-way or three-way tie, it worked the same as the panelist's disqualification; for that vote was considered wrong and the challengers picked up the $100.

Panelists

 * Polly Bergen
 * John Cameron Swayze
 * Hildy Parks
 * Dick Van Dyke

Links (The Full Pilot)

 * YouTube
 * Internet Archive