Such Sweet Sorrow

There was scarcely a dry eye last week on a trio of radio & TV shows. On CBS, Funnyman Red Buttons' career came to a halt almost as suddenly as it began. Two years ago Buttons came from nowhere (small parts in show business) to rank in the first five of TV's most popular shows. This year his rating dipped sharply and, though it strengthened in the past few months, Sponsor Maxwell House Coffee decided to drop him for a completely new show this fall.

Buttons will undoubtedly be back, but the award-winning Your Show of Shows said goodbye forever. The five-year-old revue was one of the few shows to run 1 1/2 hours and was notable for raising Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca to stardom, for television pioneering in ballet and opera, for its parodies of U.S. and foreign films, and for pantomime sketches. Both Caesar and Coca will appear next year in their own separate TV shows, while veteran Producer-Director Max Liebman will take on the new job of overseeing NBC's big color TV spectacles planned for fall.

The breakup of Your Show of Shows caused a major displacement of the venerable Voice of Firestone, whose semiclas-sical music has been heard for 25 years over NBC radio and for five years over NBC-TV on the same day and time (Mon. 8:30 p.m.). NBC pre-empted the Firestone time period for its forthcoming Sid Caesar show and was hopeful that Firestone would drop the Voice and sponsor Caesar. Instead, Firestone stubbornly insisted on staying with its old format of orchestra and opera singers, whose opening theme ( If I Could Tell You) and closing theme (In My Garden) were both written by Idabelle Firestone, wife of the founder of the company. Firestone also refused alternate time periods suggested by NBC. After both sides read polite but edgy announcements over the air, Firestone this week took its radio and TV business to rival ABC, where the Voice will continue to be heard, as usual, on Monday nights at 8:30.

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