Phil Rizzuto - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• On February 2, 1950, Rizzuto was the very first mystery guest on the 1950–67 Goodson-Todman Productions game show What's My Line? hosted by John Charles Daly. Rizzuto made four more appearances on the program, three as a guest panelist in the 1956-1957 season following his retirement, and one in 1970 as the Mystery Guest on a later incarnation of the quiz show. Rizzuto also made various television appearances on programs such as CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show, To Tell The Truth and The Phil Silvers Show.

• Rizzuto is the announcer who provides the play-by-play commentary during the long spoken bridge in Meat Loaf's 1977 song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Ostensibly an account of a baseball sequence, it actually describes the singer's step-by-step efforts to lose his virginity. When Rizzuto recorded his piece, he did not know the double entendre nature of his spoken contribution. He reported that he kept asking Meat Loaf about the song but Meat Loaf playfully put him off. When the song broke, Phil said his parish priest called him in shock. "Phil was no dummy," said singer Meat Loaf. "He knew exactly what was going on, and he told me such. He was just getting some heat from a priest and felt like he had to do something. I totally understood." Years later, Rizzuto would laughingly retell the story saying he got snookered by Meat Loaf, but he had a good attitude about it and when Meat Loaf asked him to go on tour with him, Rizzuto was flattered but declined, jokingly saying that Cora would "kill him" if he did. Phil was given a gold record for the album.