On Television
KITMAN, MARVIN
ON TELEVISION By Marvin Kitman Knock, Knock Who's There? Atrend is discernible in the fall tv schedule. The networks this year don't seem to be in the mood for experimenting. An old western is...
...It's hard to sell new ideas to sponsors who are set in their ways...
...Well, this is a nice surprise, Ed," Ginsberg says, offering Hoover a seat...
...He feels the show can't miss top ratings if authorities are right about the number of people on drugs today...
...Host Hoover then presents the occupant with a search warrant...
...What's going on in that room, Al...
...He's with 'Person-to-Person.' You know we're a mixed marriage, Ed...
...My guru was against the match, Ed, but we've been very happy...
...Everybody is frantically fanning the smoke or throwing packets out the open windows...
...Image-wise, the host has to project incorruptibility because the public still remembers the dishonesty of the old Murrow show...
...They listen to the mystery guests' symptoms and visions and try to guess which drug he's addicted to...
...Hirsch is also working on a pilot for a new quiz show he calls "$640,000 Question...
...Put down the sitar and finger cymbals, Peter, and shake hands with Ed...
...He's working on a new pilot which he calls "Person-to-Person...
...Allen Ginsberg interrupts his chanting of Hare Krishna to say, "Hello, Ed...
...Contestants are given that amount of money at the beginning of the program...
...What period couch is this, Al...
...On a cue from their chief a dozen technicians, also in snap-brim hats, rush into the apartment...
...Anything special on your mind...
...For the second week of the new "Person-to-Person" show, the producer is planning to drop in at the home of Candy Mossier and her nephew in Florida...
...Come right in...
...He can cry, "I take the Fifth...
...We're baking bananas, Ed...
...That's the kitchen...
...A team of Time, Ramparts and Fact magazine researchers has spent weeks investigating the background of each guest...
...Peter's a Muslim and I'm a tantric Hindu...
...Would you like to join us, Ed...
...Each time he takes that way out, however, he loses $64,000 from his pile...
...To make the concept even more exciting, he is also adding the element of surprise used so well in "Candid Camera" by dropping in at 2:00 a.m...
...Yet the networks have many old formats which have not been used in some time...
...In the background there is the sound of toilets being flushed...
...Some of the people are turning on...
...What smells so good...
...The host asks 10 questions, all of which are very embarrassing...
...I forgot you'd like to look around the pad...
...Instead of dropping in on people like the Lunts—the old Ed Murrow approach—Hirsch plans to visit the homes of real people who excite the American public's curiosity, places like Allen Ginsberg's apartment in the East Village...
...What's My Drug," another William Randolph Hirsch private affairs program, is a little like the old John Daly show cbs is dropping next season, except panelists are medical doctors, pharmacists, trained social workers and narcotics officers...
...We've been expecting you to stop by sooner or later...
...I'm sorry, Ed...
...After a brief message from the sponsor, giving the production crew time to set up equipment, the program resumes with the cameras catching the Ginsberg family circle tidying up the apartment for the unexpected guests...
...No, I'd just like to ask a few questions...
...an old private eye for a new private eye, and so forth...
...But the contestant doesn't have to answer...
...Well, we just call it a mattress, Ed...
...An old western is being replaced by a new western...
...What's in here, Al...
...Over here in this room we pray for peace...
...We're trying to get Edward Anslinger as the host," Hirsch reports...
...An avant-garde tv producer named William Randolph Hirsch recently explained how some of these classic art forms can be freshened up a bit for today's market...
...Hirsch won't plan months ahead or rehearse questions and answers...
...There's a close-up shot of J. Edgar Hoover wiping his palms with a white handkerchief before shaking hands with the poet-religious leader...
...Tell me, Al, are you married...
...Everybody close to the industry knows why this is so...
...I'd like you to meet Peter," Ginsberg says proudly, taking the interviewer by the arm and steering him into the music room...
...I wouldn't go in there if I were you, Ed...
...As host for his show Hirsch wants a genial old man wearing a blue pin-striped suit and a snap-brim hat, somebody like J. Edgar Hoover...
...Just step over those mattresses on the floor, Ed," Ginsberg says cordially...
...Make yourself comfortable...
...The new "Person-to-Person" show, as the producer sees it, will open every week with a knock at the door...
...Can I get you anything to eat, a cube of sugar, a smoke...
Vol. 50 • June 1967 • No. 12
