Hal Block

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Harold "Hal" Block (August 2, 1913 – June 16, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois) was an American comedian, author, songwriter and television personality.

Block started as a gag writer, and in 1940 wrote the musical "I'm Nobody's Sweetheart Now." he toured with Bob Hope during World War II, entertaining troops. Block is best known for his bombastic 1950-1953 stint as a panelist on the long-running game show What's My Line?, where he mugged, delivered broad puns, and exuded a raucous, girl-crazy attitude. After Block left the program, costar Bennett Cerf covered some of the same comedic ground, albeit in a more genteel style.

Reportedly, Block was an uneasy fit on What's My Line? Cerf considered him to be "a very vulgar fellow," and the show's producer Bill Todman said of Block, "Hal was never able to live with the idea of being a celebrity. When he started the show, he had no trouble at all. But after a little publicity…"^[1] In April 1953, the Chicago Tribune reported that Block had been fired for "pulling a Harpo Marx chase act on an attractive female guest after she had revealed herself to be a Baptist minister,"^[2] but it is more likely that Block's dismissal was the result of a series of conflicts, rather than one.

What's My Line?s producer Gil Fates wrote about Block in 1978:

Hal Block...was a strange man. He was rumored to have come from a very wealthy family in Chicago, where he wrote material for some of the stand-out, stand-up comics in the business. He was stocky with curly black hair, heavy lips, and rather bulging eyes. He wore bow ties, stood around with his hands clasped behind his back, and smiled most of the time. He seemed completely uninhibited by either sensitivity or propriety. He referred to Ethel Barrymore as "you doll" and planted big wet kisses on both Sister Kenny and Helen Hayes as they passed down the panel to say goodbye. For our deodorant sponsor he gratuitously coined the phrase, "Make your armpit a charmpit."

Hal was totally oblivious to the panel's distaste for his jokes or to the icy correctness with which John Daly would greet one of his appalling observations.

"You're the prettiest nun I ever saw," he once complimented a Dominican Sister in full habit.

"So what was so wrong?" he asked in defense. "She was a real doll."

You couldn't teach the meaning of good taste to Hal, any more than Star Kist could teach it to Charley the Tuna. Hal's relationship to the show was much like that of the small-town, stay-at-home wife to her rising young corporate executive husband. Hal had served his purpose when the program was young but now that we were a class product, his gaucheries were no longer tolerable.^[3]

Block also wrote a column for the Chicago Daily News.