Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Helffrich's pet uplift project is mental health. With blue pencil and scissors he tries to keep old, dangerous cliches about mental illness off our screens. A basic TV rule, as legislated by Helffrich, is: Robert Montgomery can say it, but Sid Caesar can't. This means that a cuss word used flippantly on a comedy show is bad taste, while in the proper context it can heighten good drama. A Case in Point On one occasion, Montgomery came to Helffrich with a problem. The word "damn" had never been allowed on television, but Montgomery was about to put on Scott Fitzgerald's play The Great Gatsby, a study of Long Island society. At the climax of the drama a char- acter says to Gatsby: "Jay, you're better than the whole damn lot of them!" Helffrich pondered and pondered and finally gave Montgomery his now momentous "O.K." "Damn" has since been allowed on television a few dozen times; and "hell," another former taboo, about as many. The censor's perennially persistent critics are the special interests. "It seems that nothing can go on tele- vision that doesn't annoy some industry, product or pro- fession," he says. Cigar Makers, Florists and Dentists Cigar manufacturers squawked some months ago when the victim in a play was asphyxiated with cigar smoke. The warehouse people wanted to know why the respectable warehouse had become a TV rendezvous for killers. Alarmed florists frantically complained about a line in another show wherein a new widow sent out cards: "Please omit flowers." Some special interests, however, do get through Helf- frich's tactful exterior. Dentists complained that a patient yelling "ouch" in a dentist's chair on TV keeps thousands from seeking needed care. So now Helffrich has passed the word along that all is to be smiles in the dentist's chair. In the matter of commercials, Helffrich would just as soon do without toilet tissues and athlete's-foot cures. All athlete's-foot commercials are carefully edited and scheduled for showing at other than mealtimes. And TV can sell toilet tissue only if the camera avoids the actual toilet. Little escapes the tasteful censor's eye. His office has rewritten numerous pop and rock 'n' roll tunes to make them palatable for TV. Greats like Cole Porter, a master of the sexy sentimental lyric, are treated more gingerly, but even two of Porter's tunes have had the "good taste" treatment. Programming for Mature Audience Some critics maintain this good taste is a bit over- done, but the censor (he winces but doesn't disown the word) feels he operates with a modern attitude toward the job. "I personally think the TV audience is a ma- ture one and getting more so all the time," he says. "They will accept broader programming than ever before." As examples, he cites the showing of Sinclair Lewis' Dodsivorth on the "Producers' Showcase" in the face of anticipated protests. The story shows divorce as one solution to marital difficulties. He is also proud of the passage of films of Osa and Martin Johnson despite the nakedness of the African natives. The censor has long since learned that, no matter what he does, he'll never please everybody. The lesson was brought home graphically recently when he opened his morning's mail to find a pair of letters commenting on a Perry Como show. "It had a variety of wholesome entertainment," said one. The other complained that it wasn't fit fare for children because "it was a slinky night-club-type thing." Stockton Helffrich, Director of Continuity Accept- ance and guardian of good taste, threw up his hands: "See what I mean?" Carl Watson, Manager of Continuity Acceptance, dis- cusses a code interpretation problem with staff editors. July 1957 25