This week in TV Guide: October 30, 1954

Robert Montgomery is a man of many talents: noted film actor, producer and director (including two nominations for Best Actor), Tony Award-winning director, twice president of the Screen Actors Guild, host and occasional star of Robert Montgomery Presents, one of the longest-running and most prestigeous of the early drama anthologies, and if that weren't enough, father of Elizabeth Montgomery. And now, add to that: presidential advisor. 

Late last year, Montgomery was invited by old friend Jim Hagerty—who also happens to be President Eisenhower's press secretary—to breakfast at the White House with Ike and a half-dozen other Republican operatives. They discussed effective communication on television; after breakfast, the meeting moved to the Oval Office. At the end, he was offered the position as a staff consultant to the president. The position includes an executive office in the White House, along with a secretary; he spends a couple of days a week at the job. 

Montgomery stresses that he is not, as he has been referred to in the press, Eisenhower's "coach." He hasn't tried to change or "glamorize" the president, or to change his gestures or mannerisms. "Mr. Eisenhower," he says, "is a public figure, not an actor. He has a right—and an obligation—to appear to the public as he is; not as someone else wants him to appear." His job, he says, is to "help project Mr. Eisenhower’s own personality and thoughts in as natural a manner as possible."

Montgomery spent three months studying the president's habits off-camera. "All right, these are the methods he, as an individual, ordinarily uses to convey what he wants to say." Montgomery's job is to incorporate those methods to television, to not worry about what he's been told to do, but to do what he finds easiest and most comfortable. When Eisenhower voiced concern about inconveniencing cameramen, Montgomery told him, "Whatever you want to do, Mr. President, do. It’s the technicians’ obligation to make you comfortable."

   The student and the teacher

Over the past year, Montgomery has worked to raise the lecturn when Eisenhower addresses Congress, so that Ike didn't have to bend over, and to give the television audience a better look at his face. He changed the president's glasses from heavy, horn-rimmed to a more flattering shape and lighter rims. When Montgomery noticed that Eisenhower frequently paced back and forth behind his desk and occasionally wen to the front to sit on the edge, he suggested that he do the same when making informal talks on TV. He had a layer of felt placed over the president's polished desktop to keep lights from reflecting into his eyes, and he coordinates the president's wardrobe to make sure it stands out from the backdrop from wherever he's speaking. He checks camera and light locations, does sound checks, and makes sure that stand-by cameras and audio are ready. He also recommend that Eisenhower use a teleprompter, but only on certain occasions; ideally, he uses a cue sheet with only about 40 words in his notes for a 30-minute speech. 

For all this, Montgomery accepts no salary or expenses. He considers working with the president to be "his most exciting assignment and the high point of his career." Mr. Eisenhower, he says, is a man of wisdom, ability, integrity, and modesty; "It’s important that these qualities be projected to the people who have elected ohim." He concludes, "If you believe so thoroughly in a man and his program, how much better can you do in point of service?" I think there are more than a few candidates out there who could benefit from Montgomery's council. 

l  l  l

Let's stay in the political arena; Tuesday is election day, and even though it's a mid-term election, with the presidency not at stake, all three networks plan to cover the vote-counting at least until control of both houses of Congress has been decied. 

Cronkite and crew during 1952 coverage 

On CBS (beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET), Walter Cronkite heads a team of veterans from the 1952 election, including Edward R. Murrow, Douglas Edwards, Charles Collingwood, Eric Sevaried, Ron Cochran, and others. Included is the Univac computer, "the electronic brain that calculates and projects the trends," first introduced with "some success" in 1952. The network plans cutaways to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. 

Over at NBC (9:30 p.m.), Dave Garroway, "who can be counted on to remain cool amidst the most hectic proceedings," will anchor the coverage, aided by John Cameron Swayze, Roy Neal, David Brinkley, Joseph McCaffrey, Ray Scherer, and others. They'll have remotes from Republican and Democratic national headquarters. Both CBS and NBC will break for local updates for the last five minutes of each half-hour.

And then there's ABC. While WFIL, the ABC/DuMont affiliate in Philadelphia, plans to break into local programming to cover the results in the East, the network plans to deliver "complete nationwide returns" beginning at midnight, with John Daly anchoring from ABC's New York studios. It's ironic: even though ABC's news division was widely derided for most of its existence (at least up until the late 1970s), their mode of limited coverage of events such as political conventions and elections has become the norm for networks nowadays. Of course, that's not what they intended at the time . . . 

l  l  l

It's remarkable just how much you can talk about Barry Nelson without actually talking about Barry Nelson. What do I mean about that? Point #1: Nelson is on the cover of this week's issue, along with Joan Caulfield, with whom he co-stars Saturday nights on CBS in the sitcom My Favorite Husband. Now, if that show sounds familar to you, it's probably because My Favorite Husband was a radio comedy, airing from 1948 through 1951, starring Lucille Ball as a "slightly zany housewife" married to bank executive Richard Denning, and that series eventually evolved into I Love Lucy. While both the network and sponsor Jell-O wanted Denning to continue on the show when it moved to TV in 1951, Lucy insisted on casting Desi Arnaz as her on-screen husband. The show lost Jell-O as a sponsor, but gained television immortality, which I would figure as a pretty good trade-off. The actual My Favorite Husband, with the original radio premise, finally made it to TV in 1953 with Nelson and Caulfield, running for two-and-a-half seasons. That's a good-sized paragraph about Barry Nelson that actually has very little to do with him.

Point #2: Nine days prior to this issue—that is, October 21—Nelson starred in the third episode of the mystery anthology series Climax!, "Casino Royale," co-starring Peter Lorre and Linda Christian. If that sounds familiar to you, it should: it's based on the novel of the same name, written in 1953 by Ian Fleming, and Nelson plays Fleming's hero, James Bond. Yes, that James Bond. In this version, Bond is an American agent, working with a British contact named Clarence Leiter, to subdue arch villain Le Chiffre, played by Lorre. Nelson thereby became the first actor, of any nationality, to play Bond, and if he seems somewhat miscast in the role, I don't think he can be held to blame. (But you can watch it here and decide for yourself.) No adaptation that features "Jimmy Bond" is going to capture the essense of the Bond we've all come to know and love. Despite its proximity to the Climax broadcast, the TV Guide article doesn't even mention "Casino Royale." Granted, the Bond stories didn't really become popular in the United States until JFK mentioned how much he enjoyed them, but it's still funny to think of it flying so far under the radar.  That's two paragraphs about Barry Nelson, and still we haven't really talked about him.

So: we're told that Barry Nelson looks a lot like "an aging Tom Sawyer," but doesn't act like one. He's "actively intelligent," devoted to acting as a profession in which "he knows he is competent, hopes to improve, and works constantly toward bigger and better things." Following his discharge from the Army, he made his mark on the stage, culminating with three years on Broadway in "The Moon Is Blue." But "An actor can't afford to stay very long on Broadway," he says. "In order to become known, he must appear on the mass media—on television or in pictures." With that in mind, he made the move to TV and My Favorite Husband. He finds live television "too much of a grind" and calls the process "a dull, tedious business, but he says this without rancor or complaint—it is, for a professional actor, simply a fact.

Nelson maintained an active and varied career throughout his life: returning to Broadway as both actor and director (including a Tony nomination), was one of the regular panelists on To Tell the Truth, served as a host on NBC Radio's Monitor in the mid-60s, acted in several movies (including Airport and The Shining), and was a guest star on many television series, with his last coming in an episode of Murder, She Wrote in 1989. He died in 2007, shortly before his 90th birthday, with a pretty good career to his name. 

l  l  l

Speaking of television as we were—which is not surprising since this is a television website, after all—Frank De Blois is complaining that Hollywood movie studios are taking away too much talent from TV: female talent, to be specific. It's not surprising in a historical context, given that television in its early days was, by-and-large, populated either by former movie stars who'd maxed out their stardom, or up-and-coming talent looking to make it big in the movies. (There's also a select group of visionaries who, seeing television's potential, got into it early on, from the production side as well as acting. But since that doesn't fit into this story, we'll just pretend they don't exist.)

MGM, Paramount, RKO, and Columbia have already made off with "choice properties" who made their start on TV: Grace Kelly, Anne Francis, Rosemary Clooney, and Betsy Palmer, to name a few. For example, just two years ago, the future Princess of Monaco was one of the "bright stars" on television, having made her mark on Studio One, Suspense, and TV Playhouse. She then headed for Hollywood, promising to return to TV "after a picture or two." Since then, she's made High Noon, Mogambo, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window, and she'll win a Best Actress Oscar for the about-to-be-released The Country Girl. I wouldn't look for her to return to television any time soon.

In retrospect, though, I'm not sure that Grace wasn't the exception, rather than the rule. Anne Francis had a hit in Forbidden Planet, but a diet of low-budget movies saw her return to television, which I think really suited her better. (Honey West, anyone?) Rosemary Clooney started out with Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan, and had a smash with White Christmas, but that was it; her greatest success came as a recording star, with a few guest spots on TV. Likewise, Betsy Palmer is far better known as a regular on I've Got a Secret and The Today Show and for her appearances on stage; there is, of course, Friday the 13th, but that's a ways in the future. Other names, such as Rita Gam and Joanne Jordan, never achieved megaton stardom, and Eva Marie Saint (who'd win an Oscar for On the Waterfront and would win hearts in North by Northwest) never planned on a long-term film career; she preferred "a voice in her own future as an actress." Still, there's plenty of talent out there, and as long as they continue to succeed, Hollywood will continue to come calling.

l  l  l

It's a quiet week on the old tube, with election coverage being the dominant feature, but there's always something worth mentioning. For instance, on Saturday, the college football game of the week features a matchup from a time when the Ivy League was still relevant in major college football: Penn State at Penn, from Franklin Field in Philadelphia. (2:00 p.m., ABC) Penn State was well on its way to becoming the dominant team in the East, while Penn played a schedule that included teams like Army, Navy, Duke, and Notre Dame. Not a surprise that the Quakers would finish the season 0-9, losing to Penn State 35-13 in one of their better outings.

Sunday, Hallmark Hall of Fame (5:00 p.m., NBC) presents a story we'd probably never see today: "The Path to Peace," newspaper editor Horace "Go West, Young Man" Greeley's drive to have former Confederate President Jefferson Davis freed from federal prison. You'll notice that title again: reconcilation is always a path to peace, but unfortunately, too many people today seem to think that reconcilation only goes one way—theirs. Coincidentally, tonight's You Are There (6:30 p.m., CBS) tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's selection as the Republican candidate for president in 1860. 

Speaking of Robert Montgomery as we were, it would be wrong to neglect this Monday's Robert Montgomery Presents, "The Gentleman" (9:30 p.m., NBC), the story of "A man . . . obsessed with the way things used to be. Rather than accepting and appreciating the present, he sadly retreats to living his life in the past." It sounds like the story of this blog, doesn't it? Otherwise, Benny Goodman and his quintet have the joint jumping on (Sid) Caesar's Hour (8:00 p.m., NBC), with regulars Carl Reiner and Howard Morris.

Tuesday provides us with a final bit of politicking, albeit in a non-partisan vein; The Morning Show (7:00 a.m., CBS) presents a filmed message from President Eisenhower urging people to get out and vote, regardless of which party they support. For those of you too young to remember, there was a time when everyone voted on the same day unless they could demonstrate they'd be out of town on Election Day, in which case they got an absentee ballot. I kind of miss those days. . . Later, on The Garry Moore Show (10:00 a.m., CBS), Garry interviews his congressman, played by Durward Kirby.

On Wednesday, it's the second-ever episode of Disneyland (7:30 p.m., ABC), and Walt has a treat in store: the television premiere of Alice in Wonderland, the 1951 animated feature film with a wonderful list of voice talent, including Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, Jerry Colonna as the March Hare, and J. Pat O'Malley as Tweedledum and Tweedlede. Sure, it's abridged, and it's shown in black-and-white, but it's probably still the best show on TV tonight.

Thursday's highlight can be seen on Climax!, the show that gave us "Casino Royale" a couple of weeks ago. This time, it's an adaptation of Lucille Fletcher's1943 radio thriller Sorry, Wrong Number (8:30 p.m., CBS), starring Shelley Winters in the role played by Agnes Moorhead in the original broadcast and, perhaps more famously, Barbara Stanwyck in the 1948 movie adaptation (for which Stanwyck was nominated for Best Actress). Fletcher, who also wrote the movie screenplay, did the television adaptation as well, so I have great confidence the quality remained high. (Orson Welles called the original "the greatest single radio script ever written.") Fun fact: the music for the TV version was composed by Fletcher's former husband, Bernard Herrmann.

We'll stick with radio—kind of—to end the week: on Friday's Today Show (7:00 a.m., NBC), Dave Garroway's guest is "the father of radio," Lee DeForest. It's said that they'll be discussing DeForest's lastest invention; now, I haven't found any info as to what that might have been, but I can imagine Garroway enjoying the interview immensely. Besides the fact he started on radio, he would have been fascinated by the science and technology of radio, not to mention the other areas in which DeForest worked.

l  l  l

At some point along the way we apparently decided to become a completely homogeneous culture. There are exceptions, of course, some natural resources and local landmarks unique to a given area, but for the most part we seem determined to make every city in every region of the country look identical—and identically bland—to every other city in every other region: the same chain stores in the same strip malls designed in the same architectural style.

Television, in its role as a mirror of culture, is no different. Thanks (?) to some of our streaming providers, it's now easy to check out local newscasts from various parts of the country, and I defy anyone to find substantial differences in the broadcasts: they use the same fonts, the same color schemes, the same types of intro music, the same style of logo, the same backdrop showing their respective city skylines (themselves becoming less and less distinctive). The anchors have the same, vaguley nondescript accents, they wear the same clothes (female anchors even share cute outfits online), and they read from virtually identical scripts. 

Of all the things that used to give a station its unique identity, the station-identification slide was one of the most distinctive. This week, TV Guide shares some of those slides from around the country, as stations show off their mascots, local landmarks, regional color, and more. 

Even after the artistic renditions became more sophisticated, station IDs maintained their distinctiveness. There were specialized versions for various holidays, photographs capturing seasonal representations of local landscapes, skylines, and the like. I don't even know if there are station ID slides anymore other than at the start of the local news; it seems as if we just go from one program to another, and heaven forbid we should take any time away from commercial opportunities. There's no use crying over spilt station logos; still, it does seem as if we've lost something, doesn't it? TV  

This week in TV Guide: December 17, 1955

This week, Robert Montgomery reminds us that TV just ain't what it used to be.

We read that and we laugh. In 1955 television has been around for less than ten years, although it's been around longer than we think, and from today's perspective we look back at the years that are affectionately called Golden, and we wonder what Robert Montgomery can possibly be thinking of.

He knows of what he speaks, though. Montgomery is truly one of the pioneers of television, "the first top name movie personality to enter TV full-scale," as host and occasional star of Robert Montgomery Presents, a show which premiered in January, 1950. It is, therefore, winding up its sixth year on TV, and if there is anyone with the right to say "TV's not what it used to be," it's him. His memories constitute an encyclopedia of what can go wrong on live television (the only kind, back then): an actor who muffs his lines, forcing his co-stars to ad-lib for 10 minutes before he gets back on track; a ladder left on stage by a sloppy stagehand, requiring the cast to dodge around it for the entire act, until the next commercial; Montgomery himself muffing an interview with actress Teresa Wright, repeatedly calling her "Martha" instead.

With the logistics involved in early television, it's a wonder any of these shows ever got on the air. "We produced our show at 67th St. and Central Park West," Montgomery says; "our music came from Rockefeller Center, half a mile away; the commercials came in from Columbus Circle. We figured we were lucky if we got them all on the air the same night." Cameras quit working, lights burn out, actors freeze—and yet the only time the show failed to make it to airtime, it was because of a studio strike. Compared to those early days, the show today is "as slick and smooth as the wax made by one of its sponsors." And we'd probably consider it primitive.

Montgomery is definitely a populist when it comes to programming: "Let's let the audiences—and not just the critics—decide what's good and what's bad on TV," he says. And for the most part, there aren't any problems that a few good scripts won't cure. In other words, this is television—thus has it been, thus shall it be.

l  l  l

With one week to go before Christmas, I'll bet we can find some shows on TV—what do you think? Why yes! This is the week that many series have their Christmas episodes, and we'll run by some of them along the way.

Few entertainers are more associated with Christmas than Perry Como, thanks to his '70s-era specials from all over the world. In 1955 Perry has his own weekly program on NBC, and since next Saturday is Christmas Eve, I'm betting that's when all the holiday trimmings come out. Even so, he manages to work in a couple of Yuletide songs this week: "The Christmas Song" and "Jingle Bells." Doesn't get much better than that.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that not every program has to be Christmas-themed in order to be the kind of special that's only shown at special times of the year. Just check out this ad for Saturday's Ford Star Jubilee (8:30 p.m. CT, CBS), with Eddie Fisher, Red Skelton, and Ella Fitzgerald. (Oh, and Nat King Cole makes an appearance, too.) There are a couple of Christmas pieces in the 90-minute program, but for the most part, it's just songs. And I'll bet it was a pretty good show, too. It does prove one thing, though: if it's near Christmas and you're showing a special, just throw some decorations on the ads. It never fails.

Sunday is where it really starts to look a lot like Christmas, starting with the afternoon program Wide Wide World at 3:00 p.m. on NBC. During the 90-minute program, host Dave Garroway takes us around the world to see how different cultures celebrate the season, including choirboys singing hymns in Quebec and New York, decorations at the Tropicana night club in Havana, the Posada Christmas processing in Mexico, and decorated department store windows in New York, Dallas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Washington.* A little after an hour into the program, they'll cut away for live coverage of President Eisenhower lighting the White House Christmas tree, from his home in Gettysburg.

*Do they still do that nowadays? Do they still have department stores nowadays?

At 8:00 p.m., the husband-and-wife team of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy star in the Goodyear Television Playhouse production of "Christmas 'til Closing," which ponders the question of "whether the Yule season's emphasis has not become far more material than spiritual." In a twist, it's the couple's children, not the parents, who wonder if there's too much of a fuss being made over it all.

The Today show spends the entire week before Christmas touring various churches, most of which will have their choirs performing appropriate pieces. Garry Moore's CBS morning show has the spirit as well, featuring Christmas-themed entertainment all week, including an appearance by the famous Trapp Family Singers (The Sound of Music) on Monday. And on NBC's Home, host Arlene Francis tours the department store windows along 5th Avenue in New York. Voice of Firestone's Christmas program is Monday night (7:30 p.m., ABC), with opera star Eleanor Steber joining the Firestone orchestra for a predominantly classical Christmas.

On Tuesday Dinah Shore sings "White Christmas" on her 15-minute program that precedes the NBC evening news program, while on CBS Red Skelton celebrates the season with his traditional Freddie the Freeloader skit, in which the tramp tries to get arrested so that he can spend the night in a nice warm jail cell. And speaking of jail cells, DuPont Cavalcade Theater tells a tale of Christmas in a POW camp. Later that night, on Steve Allen's Tonight, an extraordinary program featuring survivors from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. They're appearing with Walter Lord, whose universally acclaimed book A Night to Remember, written this very year, was predominantly responsible for the resurgence of interest in the disaster—although, as the 1953 movie with Barbara Stanwyck demonstrates, it never completely went away. Think about it, though: it had only been 43 years since the disaster (which would be like 1973 to us), so it wouldn't have been all that remarkable to have had survivors still living. And technology, the great god that failed everyone in the design of the ship, leaving them alone and isolated in the darkness, is what makes it possible for viewers to see them on television this night.

Bing Crosby's brother Bob hosts his own music program afternoons at 2:30 p.m. on CBS. He's been playing Christmas music all week, and Wednesday is no exception, including one of his brother's favorites—"Christmas in Killarney." Howdy Doody's celebrating Christmas this week as well, and this afternoon he takes the NBC cameras to Santa's workshop at the North Pole. Santa's also part of The Mickey Mouse Club on ABC, in the cartoon "Midnight in the Toy Shop," and the Mouseketeers also see a film on Christmas around the world. MGM Parade, about which more later, has clips from some of the studio's holiday offerings, and Father Knows Best, Kraft Television Theater, Studio 57, Waterfront, and The Millionaire have Yuletide-themed episodes of their own.

On Thursday it's one of the most famous of all traditional Christmas episodes, Dragnet's "The Big Little Jesus" (left) at 8:00 p.m. on NBC, as Friday and Smith investigate the theft of the Child from a church Nativity. Babies are also the theme on tonight's episode of Climax (CBS, 7:30 p.m.), which tells the true story of a 12-year old orphan who spends Christmas Eve finding homes for his five younger brothers and sisters. Brandon de Wilde, Barbara Hale and Joan Evans star. Before that, Bob Cummings plays his own grandfather in an episode of his show (CBS, 7:00 p.m.) called "Grandpa's Christmas Visit." Even Johnny Carson gets into the act, on his CBS variety show (9:00 p.m.), where a fairy godfather grants him three holiday wishes.

By the time we get to Friday, practically everybody's doing Christmas: Rin Tin Tin, Ozzie and Harriet, and The Patti Page Show on ABC; Mama, Our Miss Brooks, Crusader, and Playhouse of Stars on CBS; and The Big Story on NBC. I particularly like the Patti Page touch; her program ends at 11:30 p.m. out East, just a half-hour before midnight rings in Christmas Eve.

And of course, this doesn't include all the other episodic series, Burns and Allen, Medic, and the like, that have their Christmas-themed stories. Yes, it's true that at Christmastime, everything comes to a halt.

l  l  l
There's an interesting article by Dan Jenkins (not the sportswriter) about how, in the wake of Walt Disney's spectacular television success, the rest of Hollywood finds this TV business isn't as easy as it looks.

Take Warner Bros.'s foray into the small screen. They've got a series called Warner Brothers Presents, featuring a rotating trio of shows, each of which runs for 45 minutes, followed by a nine-minute "behind the scenes" film "designed to sell Warner Brothers pictures." Of the three—Kings Row, Casablanca, and Cheyenne—only the third, with Clint Walker in the lead role, will have any staying power. However, it won't be long before WB gets it figured out, and their cookie-cutter style of replicating successful shows—for example, 77 Sunset Strip, Bourbon Street Beat, Hawaiian Eye, and Surfside 6—prove successful, even though many critics accuse Warners of sacrificing quality in the process.

20th Century Fox, long before they it starts its own network, makes its first stride with The 20th Century Fox Hour which, like Warner Brothers, features a nine-minute behind-the-scenes piece to accompany its anthology format. It alternates every week on CBS with The United States Steel Hour, and while the series isn't bad, it lags behind both boxing and This Is Your Life in its time period. A similar series, M-G-M Parade (which you can see occasionally on Saturday mornings on TCM), has been a disappointment for that studio. In fact, even Alfred Hitchcock Presents has fallen short of "setting the TV audience on its ear," although it winds up being one of the most venerable, and loved, of mystery series.

One of the problems, says an ad executive, is that studios have yet to figure out that television isn't the movies. Says another executive, "Wed' like to pitch in with our own people who know television" in order to improve the quality of the shows. In fact, Otto Lang, executive producer of The 20th Century Fox Hour, acknowledges that "We have a lot to learn, I guess," and M-G-M's executive producer Les Petersen points out some of the differences the studio has already learned. "A hilarious scene from a movie is suddenly not very funny when seen by just two or three people in a living room," which has led them to experiment with the use of a laugh track. They're also not sure how to lead into and out of commercials, since those aren't found on the big screen, but he knows they'll figure it out—eventually.

l  l  l
TV Teletype has some fun items for us to look at this week.

For instance, we get the scoop that "Twelve Angry Men," the award-winning Studio One presentation from last year, is headed for the big screen. Henry Fonda's going to play the lead role, which Bob Cummings played on TV. I seem to recall that movie was pretty good . . .

And then there's this note that "TV actor PAUL NEWMAN, who played the part of a prize fighter in Playwrights 56's 'The Battler,' has won the big role in MGM's Somebody Up There Likes Me, the Rocky Graziano biography." That Newman fellow turned out to make the transition to movies without too much trouble . . .

In an effort to get consumers interested in color TV, CBS-Columbia is offering up to $400 for New Yorkers who want to exchange their B&W sets for an $895 color set. They say they'll expand the promotion nationwide if it's successful, but I think this color TV business is just a fad . . .

Finally, CBS is trying to pep up its Morning Show, competing against NBC's Today, by sending its host "on quickie weekend trips to foreign cities," where he'll shoot films that can be shown on the show when he returns the next Monday. The host is a guy named Dick Van Dyke—wonder what happened to him? . . .

l  l  l
Last but not least, As We See It has yet another story for its collection of "doctors who blame television for practically anything." In this case the doctor is Salmon Halpern, who says that "children who watch television while lying on a rug may contract an 'allergic' type of cold." He doesn't recommend, for example, that parents tell their children to get up off the floor; rather, he recommends spraying the rugs with a special solution. Methinks that the doctor might well have some kind of financial interest in that special solution, but who am I to judge?

Merrill Panitt compares Dr. Halpern to "the dentist who said children's teeth get out of whack because they lean on their chins while watching TV, the chiropractor who insists TV causes back trouble because people slump in their chairs before TV screens and the doctor who blames TV for obesity because viewers keep nibbling at snacks." These videochondricacs, as Panitt calls them, probably won't be satisfied until they've "blamed television for scurvy; that is, scurvy in children who refuse to touch food except the cereal advertised on television."

Now, I've grown up as a child of television; TV and I have been constant companions as long as I can remember. I do have allergies, although they owe more to cats than watching TV; the fillings in my otherwise excellent teeth are more the result of failing to brush than leaning on my chin; and the only way in which my chronic back problems could be related to television would be if I twisted my back reaching for the remote. I will allow as to how my weight is higher than it should; but since I can watch television on my iPhone while working out, it's probably laziness more than TV that keeps me from getting in better shape.

l  l  l
It's Christmas next week; bet there'll be some special content just waiting for you! TV