The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn TV: Horse Operas And Soap Operas At 10 PM ON TUESDAY evening, June 21, over the National Broadcasting System, the television art and industry had on its best bib...
...Instead of giving a dull, point-by-point account as most newscasters do, they dramatize their performances, make the viewer feel that he is on the spot seeing a touchdown or home run...
...Their blessing of eternal life must be the minor reward for all their slow-dragging pain...
...Perhaps it is because I am getting old and easily satisfied, but it seems to me that the average television programs are slowly improving...
...And in addition to such performers, who have primarily made their reputations in different fields, there are still others, like—let us say—Art Carney, who have developed their personalities on the TV stage itself...
...And the show as a whole presented stretches of charming entertaining— and some fun that was really funny...
...And my heart really bleeds for the faithful souls who write, produce, direct and act Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light...
...If I had time to go back over old programs, I think I could prove my point...
...The advertisers did show their cloven hooves and horns now and then-pathetically urging us to patronize push-button permanents and safe, rapid, comfortable and toilet-provided Greyhound buses— but somehow the commercials seemed less crude and disturbing than usual...
...What tears they have called forth from sympathetic eyes—and possibly from their own...
...The presiding geniuses were two of my favorite people: Fred Astaire and Arthur Godfrey...
...And as we move onward, our standards will inevitably improve...
...If they were not a sure judgment of quality, they were a fair measure of popularity—which is something...
...They know the history and all of the fine points of their sports...
...Those chaps are experts in every sense of the word...
...Little works of art to adorn their mantelpieces would be but a formal reward, yet they would furnish something by way of comfort for bruised and weary hearts...
...This neglect seems to me especially unfortunate...
...The awards had been made by the votes of the 6,000 Academy members...
...The National Academy, with its 6,000 performers, writers, managers, composers, musicians, directors, etc., etc., must pretty well cover the whole business, but all of the thousands were by no means represented by the awards handed out...
...If we can achieve this much, we can do more...
...Another conspicuous group of performers which was overlooked was the dancers...
...As far as I can make out he was the only horseback artist who was accorded that honor...
...And though I did object to the commercials, I appreciated the fact that the managers gave us some of the best humor I have ever heard on TV and it was distributed through the program with the obvious purpose of humanizing its formal features...
...they rank higher than the singers or actors...
...Richard Boone, of Have Gun Will Travel, was recognized...
...I should explain that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was handing out its "Emmys" for notable achievements...
...THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn TV: Horse Operas And Soap Operas At 10 PM ON TUESDAY evening, June 21, over the National Broadcasting System, the television art and industry had on its best bib and tucker and sported its most laudable set of company manners...
...For an hour and a half I was almost persuaded that by way of the magic screen we get only the best actors, writers, humorists, directors and entertainers...
...One feature strikes me as queer...
...Years have passed and their eternal characters have continued through their endless treadmills of love, loss, sickness, hospitals, divorce and misunderstanding...
...And what about the sports reporters...
...In the course of time, television will furnish us with a national stage more extensive and inclusive than any country has ever had...
...That will be something to see...
...If someone at our house just absent-mindedly turns on the television, he runs a 50 per cent chance of striking a Western or a soap opera...
...Yet not one of these expert and talented men received so much as a mention...
...Laurence Olivier, Ingrid Bergman, Leonard Bernstein —these and others who received Emmys, and many who did not— are among our highest-ranking artists...
...I am not, however, entering a complaint...
...As a performing group, the dancers are among the best television artists...
...If the men who describe football and baseball are not as good as anyone else, then there's something wrong with my eyes and ears...
...Some of them are real artists in description and narration...
...The writers, managers, directors and performers of these shows probably pay their dues as members of the great Academy as promptly as anyone else, but in the great court where the heroes and heroines advanced to receive their rewards, those hardworking and popular performers were virtually absent...
...for me these boys can hardly do wrong...
...There were only 22 categories and really not enough of the little statues to make it possible to award one to each deserving contestant...
Vol. 43 • July 1960 • No. 27
