Kitty Carlisle (Hart) is usually known for three things:

• Being the wife of playwright Moss Hart;
• Appearing as the female lead in the Marx Brothers’ “A Night at the Opera“;
• Her many appearances as a panelist on one of my all-time favorite shows, “To Tell The Truth.”

Mark Evanier, in blogging about Mrs. Hart’s passing, suggested that GSN (formerly Game Show Network), which often selects game show episodes to show in tribute to fallen celebrities, honor Mrs. Hart with one particular episode of “To Tell The Truth.”

No less than five hours later, he was able to post that GSN has, in fact, scheduled that particular episode to run in the wee hours of Monday morning. He doesn’t claim that his blog post had anything to do with it, but who knows?

Anyway, the episode sounds like a lot of fun, and I’m going to tape it. Spoilers follow after the break:

SPOILER ALERT

Occasionally on “To Tell The Truth,” the contestants (a person with an interesting story or occupation, plus two impostors also claiming to be that person) would be heavily disguised or made up. For example, the segment might be about working as Frankenstein on the Universal Studios tour, and so all three of the contestants come out in Frankenstein masks and costumes.

The producers would sometimes take this opportunity to sneak someone into one of the costumes who, if he or she were not costumed, the panel and/or home audience would recognize immediately. I remember that Orson Bean, a frequent celebrity panelist on the Garry Moore version of TTTT — which is the version I grew up with — turned up as a disguised impostor once. None of the panel, all of whom had worked with him many times before, recognized him until he was unmasked.

Anyway, the episode that Evanier wanted, and which GSN is planning to show, includes such a ruse. When the costumed impostors were, at last, revealed, the first one turned out to be the son of panelist and former baseball player Joe Garagiola. Kitty Carlisle then, according to Evanier’s description, needled Garagiola good-naturedly about not having recognized his own son. His own son!

So you can guess whose son the other impostor turned out to be. Evanier writes that Kitty’s reaction is just priceless.

GSN will run this episode at 3:30 a.m. Eastern / 2:30 a.m. Central on Monday morning. Just prior to it, at 3 Eastern / 2 Central, they will air Kitty’s very first appearance on TTTT, from 1957. That was the Bud Collyer version, which was before my time.