The Week in Review

U.S. television last week stirred up more excitement overseas than it did at home. To begin with, J. Fred Muggs, the 31-lb. chimpanzee who earns $500 a week for co-starring on NBC's Today with Dave Garroway, stopped traffic in Paris, Rome, Cairo and Tokyo on a whirlwind round-the-world tour. London was skipped because NBC felt that British memories might still be green about Muggs's narrowly stealing the coronation telecast from Queen Elizabeth. NBC Pressagent Mary A. Kelly, one of Muggs's entourage of five, wrote home excitedly that Parisians were exclaiming, "Regardez la petite bete!" and that "even Robespierre would have admired the mobs in our wake."

At Home Abroad. The Italians proved rather difficult by not permitting Muggs to be photographed in front of national monuments. He was refused a seat on an Italian train, although the Italian airline was delighted to have him. At the Rome Zoo, troubles mounted: Egypt's exiled King Farouk would not pose with Muggs. and a rogue elephant ate the chimp's shoes. In Cairo Muggs scratched the nose of a somnolent camel, while in Tokyo 70 reporters and photographers met him at the airport and 15 geishas fanned him while he napped. The Paris press ignored Muggs; the Japanese papers raved about him; Italian newsmen were both kind and critical.

A typical man-in-the-street opinion was voiced by an elderly Roman lady who has never forgotten the horrifying occasion in 1944 when a U.S. War Relief organization tried to feed her canned clam chowder. Said she: "I never thought that I would live to see the day when a chimpanzee earned more money than most humans and was sent on a grand tour. But then, what can you expect of a people who make soup out of shellfish and boiled milk?"

Meanwhile, in London, a weighty if irascible voice was raised in defense of U.S. broadcasting. Testy Sir Thomas Beecham took four columns in the Sunday Times to tell his countrymen what was right about U.S. radio-TV. Musically, he said, the U.S. was far ahead, with weekly broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera six months a year and "the opportunity of hearing and seeing the great majority of the famous violinists, pianists, cellists, etc. of our time, whose respective fees are beyond the means of any other system outside the U.S.A.'' Conceding that these blessings were accompanied by "a good deal of rubbish," Sir Thomas nevertheless pointed out that there was so much to hear and look at that "you can spend the time agreeably in picking out that which you like and dodging that which you don't."

But Sir Thomas gave some American readers pause when he plumped for wrestling as his favorite television fare. Seemingly unaware that U.S. wrestling is as well rehearsed as a Sadler's Wells ballet, Sir Thomas rhapsodied: "I know of little more virile and exciting than the sight of one gentleman weighing about 17 stone-picking up another of similar avoirdupois and throwing him over his head with as much facility and address as if he were handling bales of cotton or sacks of coal. I enjoyed other truly masculine and adult exhibitions of a similar sort which find place rarely in our one and only monopolistic institution."

The Swift & the Strong. If it had not been for sports, most TV sets could have been turned off last week with little loss. Dragnet, Mr. Peepers, Groucho Marx and a dozen other shows were still show ing repeat films to whoever happened to have missed them in the winter months. Sir Thomas Beecham would have been happy watching Light Heavyweight Archie Moore club Harold Johnson into submission (see SPORT), or seeing the professional Detroit Lions give the College All-Stars a painful football lesson, 31-6, on one of the largest radio (670 stations) and TV (160 stations) networks ever put together.

The most unusual note in the week's scheduling occurred at 11 o'clock one morning. Housewives tuning in on Wednesday's Home program were handed a full-fledged battle instead of Arlene Francis and her pots and pans. Called "Operation Threshold," the program was telecast from Maryland's Fort Meade, and was aimed at showing how headquarters could watch its units on TV as they charged up an enemy-held hill. If perfected, combat TV could conceivably eliminate noncoms and junior officers, and foot soldiers would get their orders--and criticisms--direct from the commanding general seated before a TV set in a well sandbagged dugout.

When the televised sham battle was over, Major General George I. Back, chief signal officer, hailed it as the beginning of a new era: "Just as the introduction of gunpowder . . . revolutionized the weapons of ground warfare, television will inject an entirely new concept into military communications." Also on hand was Brigadier General (ret.) David Sarnoff, whose Radio Corporation of America had collaborated with the Signal Corps in developing combat TV. Sarnoff also saw "a new era in tactical communications . . . which will enable a commander to keep a watchful eye on every section of the battlefield." General Matthew B. Ridgway, Chief of Staff, seemed a little less certain that the millennium was at hand. He observed that the Army "is exploring to the fullest extent possible every scientific or technical advance as it occurs," but warned that "we are not interested in gadgetry as such . . ."

You're Another. Controversy raged as usual throughout the week, with the accepted number of politicians and experts appearing on forums and giving in most cases simple answers to complicated problems. Some of the week's best debates took place off the air. CBS President Frank Stanton protested the ban on TV coverage of the forthcoming McCarthy investigations. When reporters pointed out that CBS had not bothered to televise the Army-McCarthy hearings, Stanton argued that it was the principle that mattered: "We want the same access to the hearings as is given the press. Like the press, we then reserve the right to use our editorial judgment as to how much of the hearings we will carry, and when we will put them on the air, if at all."

In Chicago, Admiral Corp. announced that this fall, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's Life Is Worth Living would be seen over 60-odd TV stations instead of last year's total of 169. In Manhattan, Bishop Sheen appeared unperturbed by his sponsor trouble. Explaining that he had been deluged by letters from his fans protesting the decision, the bishop said: "I am sure that when we return to the air in November we will be on more stations than ever before--close to 200."

In Manhattan, tempers were short as George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor, announced the firing of Frank Edwards, the union's $35,000-a-year radio news commentator. Reason: Edwards' failure to make clear what was news and what was personal opinion. Commentator Edwards, who sometimes referred to the Administration as "the happiness boys in Washington," and who often seemed more interested in flying saucers than union problems, promptly cried censorship.

In the Wings. One of the reasons TVmen give for the summer doldrums is that they need the time for planning and preparing the big shows for fall. In Hollywood, TV producers were busy this week grinding out the reels that will make up 80% of the new season's film entertainment. Best of the new crop may be Medic, which takes a microscopic view of such medical problems as the birth of a baby and the operational cure of a cleft palate, and Hey, Mulligan, a new series starring Mickey Rooney as an NBC page boy.

Were any of the sustaining summer shows good enough to carry on into the fall as sponsored programs? The trade magazine Tide asked the question of more than 3,000 industry executives, found three shows in front by a wide margin: The Marriage, starring Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn; Adventure; and Shakespeare on TV, featuring Southern California's Professor Frank C. Baxter.

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