590
VARIETY
TELEVISION CHRONICLE
Television is definitely Pandora's
box. You open it and plagues fly
out. Or blessings. Either way, it
gives cause for hope. The lid is
wide open only thirty years after
David Sarnoff predicted "the
transmission and reception of mo–
tion pictures by radio ... 'broad–
cast movies' flashed on screens in
our homes," in the November
1923 issue of the
American Maga–
zine.
Today the rooftops are
bristling with directional antennae,
all reverently facing the Empire
State Building as the faithful of
Islam face Mecca.
If
you should roam the channels
at random, however, you may
think you're going mad. Polter–
geists assault you.
R eal
poltergeists.
Say you are watching a movie.
Without warning, a man will ap–
pear with a product, introduce
himself by name, greet you
pleasantly, insinuate himself into
your personal situation, become
your best friend, give
you
intimate
advice, attack you for being a
fool if you don't do what he says,
and at the same time grovel be–
fore what he calls your intelli–
gence-all in the space of sixty
seconds. He is a Don Juan of
salesmanship, and there are thou–
sands of
him.
The lady salesmen are more
anonymous and discreet. They
seldom give their names. They
come at you from the shower
clad in just a towel with their
hair soaped, shove a jeweled wrist
watch with an animated price at
you, or lean over through the
screen, tete-a.-tete with a big jar,
and kiss you damply.
Of course, the star program per–
formers often "do" their own com–
mercials. Lili Palmer has the same
enthusiasm for Conti Shampoo
while talking to you that she has
for Lope de Vega while talking to
Thornton Wilder. Immediately fol–
lowing a direct telecast from the
Yucca Flat atom explosion site,
Kate Smith ingratiatingly asked:
"Will you do me a small favor?
Switch to Ammident. . . ." But
you don't smell any souls burning
when the name brand is applied.
These ladies (and their male
counterparts) are the courtesans
of commerce. They are so sincere
you can hardly believe they're
paid to say what they do.
Wild juxtapositions of product
and program occur. Minipoo
(Minipoo
Dry
Shampoo) , for ex–
ample, was a sponsor of "Danger,"
a half-hour drama that one even–
ing told the story of a young
Author caught being a plagiarist.
Plagiarism, you gathered, was
something related to dope ped–
dling. His Editor found him out,
and confronted him and his wife
at their plagiarist's den, a swank
apartment. "He's a good writer,"
the wife pleaded. "He just couldn't
