Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

IN REVIEW ANTARCTICA— THE THIRD WORLD EVEN IF OTHERS in NBC-TV's highly-ambitious This Planet Earth teledocumentaries should turn out to be only half as good as the first — Bill Hartigan's photo-essay on the land of the penguin — the firm of Weaver & Co. can be mighty proud of itself. What could have easily been an innocuous travelogue (. . . "and as the sun sets slowly in the west . . .") instead turned out to be a neatly edited, compact and compelling record of man's hardships in exploring the unknown. Mr. Hartigan — an NBC-TV cameraman attached to the U. S. Navy's advance task-force participating in the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year — has already aired his Antarctica dispatches on a number of NBC programs, yet nothing did his remarkable reportage as much credit as the sharply-edged, colorful and dramatic hour-long exposure on the network. If reporters are to be judged by their candid admissions to human frailty, then Bill Hartigan is every inch a great reporter; surely his fearshaken comment on the thought of being isolated and engulfed by the great ice-cap will go down in journalistic history as one of the best man has ever delivered on man's insignificance on earth. Unfortunately, the Powers That Be at Radio City saw fit to go Mr. Hartigan one better. They could hardly have been more wrong: such pontifications as Chet Huntley's "the common language of these men is a scratch on a piece of smoked glass" might better have been left on the cutting room floor. Production costs: Approximately $15,000. Telecast Sun., Feb. 26, as a special broadcast, 4-5 p.m., on NBC-TV. Producer: Reuven Frank and the NBC News Dept.; film editor: Constantine S. Gochis; cameraman: William B. Hartigan; narrators: Chet Huntley and Hugh Downs. PANORAMA IF the view on NBC-TV's "Panorama" a week ago Sunday was disturbed somewhere along mid-point of the 90-minute program by an immovable mountain of drabness, the fault could hardly be that of Imogene Coca's. As a matter of fact, she was off-stage during 17.5 minutes of a song & dance routine which can best be described as monotonous. Billed as a spoof on tv, "Panorama" got off to a rousing start with a very funny bit on credit-rollmania in which dancers collapsed all over the stage while a mile-long credit drum spun out such gems as "trencbcoat by . . . cigarettes by . . . matches by . . . etc." Following this, co-star Tony Randall — a very engaging fellow whose past performances on tv and the legitimate stage have singled him out as a most capable performer — joined hands with Miss Coca to parody such NBC-TV stalwarts as Producers' Showcase, Your Hit Parade and Wide Wide World (". . . and now our cameras take us to Havana via an airplane circling overhead, two small boys on a raft and the rest of the way by taxicab."). For all practical purposes, the show ended at 8:16 p.m. What followed then was the tedious "Salute to Forgotten Songs" featuring singers Alan Dale, Johnny Desmond, Bill Hayes, Eileen Barton and dancers Bambi Linn and Rod Alexander; the disappointing "Merriest Widow" and Miss Coca's inevitable "tramp" routine. Production costs: $145,000. Sponsored by U. S. Rubber Co.. through Fletcher D. Richards Co., N. Y.; Lewis-Howe Co. (Turns) through Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sam ple. N. Y .: American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp. through BBDO, N. Y., and the Maybelline Co. through Gordon Best & Co.. Chicago, once-every-fonrth Sunday. 7:309 p.m. EST on NBC-TV. Producer-director: Max Liebman; assoc. producer-director: Bill Hobin; writers: William Friedberg, Neil Simon; choreographer: James Starbuck; music: Charles Sanford; costumes: Paul DuPont: scenery: Frederick Fox: host: Art Linkletter. SEEN & HEARD ON FEB. 25, George Gobel was to have given us an annual treat — his one-man show. The advances said he would appear accompanied only by his guitar, one song from Peggy King and a brief appearance by John Scott Trotter. Sometime between the program's conception and the time it went on the air someone managed to squeeze into the plot an NBC page, an Eskimo, a Civil War soldier, a plumber, and at least one other character whose identity was too vague to be remembered. The only one missing from the show's regulars was Jeff Donnell, George's on-air wife. The promised 30 minutes of the full-strength Gobel humor turned out to be a watered-down hodgepodge. MITCH MILLER's Sunday night radio show (CBS, 9:05-9:55 p.m.. EDT) must be the most underrated in the industry. The program, originally starring Rudy Vallee, features a different set of entertainment figures in an unrehearsed talkfest. Crisp, bright, unguarded comments by people full of vitality make the series top-notch, but blockbuster tv competition has left Miller relatively unnoticed. BOOKS THE PACKAGE DEAL, by Willis T. Ballard. Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc., 35 W. 32nd St., New York 1, N. Y. 280 pp. $3.50. HOLLYWOOD'S purported vice and lack of business ethics have always provided fiction writers with fodder to vicariously fascinate. Mr. Ballard switches slightly into Hollywood tv with pretty much the same formula. In recounting events as "three people scramble for power," the book becomes enmeshed in an unending series of business double-crosses and boudoir antics as a television production company strives to put across its new network show. Producers, writers, sponsors, agency executives and talent agents, almost with no exception, are involved in passionate pursuit of either a woman or the other fellow's job. THIS IS NEW YORK, by Andrew Hepburn, with the assistance of Bill Leonard. Travel Enterprises Inc. Distributed by Houghton Mifflin Co., 2 Park St., Boston, Mass. 128 pp. Paperbound. $1. SEVERAL years ago, when the American Travel Series published a guide to New York City, Bill Leonard recommended the book to listeners of his This Is New York program on WCBS New York. He also recommended changes and additions, notably the description of good restaurants, in the volume, which resulted in the publication of this special This Is New York guide. Pictures of Mr. Leonard and other WCBS radio stars are included in the volume, along with the more usual photographs, maps and descriptions of the city's landmarks and high points. Native New Yorkers will find this book as interesting (and possibly as informative) as will visitors, for whom it will be an invaluable aid in planning their sight-seeing time to the best advantage. TOTAL is NOW j $ 56,000.oc Tel r. #18 thon Ted Worthy appeal, Guests aplenty, All those intros, A strain — mentally ! BUT not with * TelePrompIer Jha£iu wfa^ — ADVERTISERS PREFER TelePrompTer stations like WBTV Channel 3 Charlotte, N. C. KSL-TV Channel 5 Salt Lake, Utah Q Other Patents Pending TsLIPrompkr Corpora/ion 300 W. 43 St., New York • JU 2-3800 LOS ANGELES CHICAGO WASHINGTON TORONTO Broadcasting • Telecasting March 5, 1956 • Page 15