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The CREAM
of CROSBY
With the keen blade of wit, but modestly withal, John Crosby first pierces then lifts the veil of enchantment surrounding television, then with taste and discernment proceeds to prune the great industry, until we wonder will anything but the skeleton remain!
by JOHN CROSBY
Year End Report
1952 is with us. In retrospect, let's examine 1951. I have during the year jotted down on the head of a pin a few of the more profound happenings of the year, a disconnected diary. Let's see now. I suppose the most important of these jottings came from "Variety" which lamented that television had run through material in eighteen months that it took radio twenty-five years to exhaust and asked: "Where do we go from here?"
There were signs of an approaching shortage of marimba players, indicating that Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and Horace Heidt might have a hard time finding winners next year and might have to settle for losers. In Detroit a husband charged that television had ruined his marriage. Said his wife stayed up so late looking at it she wouldn't get out of bed in the morning and cook his breakfast. She wasn't alone, either. A survey indicated that many, many people who used
to be in bed by 1 1 were staying up till all hours with their TV sets, a deplorable trend.
There were some grievous losses. Sam Levenson, a fine gentle humorist, disappeared from TV though he's still on the CBS payroll and will be back eventually. So did Jack Haley, Dave Garroway's evening show and the Goldbergs. "Kukla, Fran and OUie" were cut to fifteen minutes, causing sincere mourning from the Atlantic to the Pacific. "Mr. I. Magination," one of the best of the children's shows, was cancelled, breaking the hearts of thousands of small fry.
There were some pretty fine things, too. Toward the end of the year, Edward R. Murrow unveiled "See It Now," conceivably the most literate and intelligent and moving news show ever to come along on television; earlier he had given us another fine radio show of the same ilk called "Hear It Now." Both shows were greeted with enthusiasm by all critics. Lilli Palmer, a beautiful vixen with pointed
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