On Television
KITMAN, MARVIN
ON TELEVISION By Marvin Kitman At this time of the year it is my custom to give out awards. The tv season has been so mediocre, however. I haven't been able to single out the 10 worst shows of...
...If you can believe Dino, and I do, he spends six days a week at the golf course and drops in on his show just in time to go on the air...
...Fishbein clearly states that alcohol can have a serious effect on people suffering from ulcers, gastritis, rosacea, gonorrhea, nephrosis and pregnancy...
...Fishbein diagnosed these symptoms as Parkinson's Disease...
...This lip got me in 29 movie pitures...
...Or the alarming sophistication of advertising agencies, traditionally a bad influence in the television industry...
...Dino's voice hasn't changed much from 1966 to now...
...The day before Dean Martin went on the air with his impersonation of a stoned second-rate singer, viewers in the New York metropolitan area had the pleasure of watching W.C...
...I don't have any hard facts to support this view, nor am I about to waste my valuable time getting them...
...True, on his December 26 show Dino so overacted the friendly drunk (squeezing comedienne Barbara Heller at inappropriate moments and mumbling his lines with Lena Home and Buddy Ebsen), he shook even my conviction that this was just a tasteless performance...
...One has only to look at the Dean Martin Show (nrc, Thursday, 10 p.m., est) to sec how depressingly thin the field of terrible shows has grown...
...When we came to 10 minutes later, he was lecturing those who had not passed out about the role of gospel music in rock-'n'-roll...
...Whatever the reason, the bitter truth is that really embarrassing bad shows are as rare today as good shows...
...Where will the new bad shows come from to replace the void left by the rise of Dean Martin...
...Don't laugh...
...As a modern education program The Bank Dick has only one defect: Much of the action takes place in what Fields calls "The Black Pussy Cafe," and that sort of double entendre, while commonplace on the Dean Martin Show, is jarring on a Christmas morning...
...Indeed, the host and his guests generally appear to have been working together under the careful eye of a merciless director for 70-80 hours before the final taping...
...David Sarnoff and the stockholders of the Radio Corporation of America would sit idly by watching a $34-million investment drink himself to death every Thursday evening—unless, of course, their property was covered by a workman's compensation insurance policy in excess of that amount, (nbc refused to discuss this with me, claiming it was against the network's corporate policy...
...Drunks can be charming on television...
...The singer wore a leather suit, sweated like a dog under the hot lights, and got down on his knees to sing a song which began, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog...
...In the Golden Age of Dean Martin ('67) the star could always be counted on to accidentally place his hand on some actress' behind or breasts—a gesture that always made for an embarrassingly bad program...
...I have always had the highest regard for the man personally...
...Then he broke into a temperance lecture which would not be out of place on Dino's show: "I used to smoke and drink/and dance the hootchy (mumble) Now I'm saved (mumble) I used to lie and cheat and step on people's feet/Now I'm standing at the door of salvation's (mumble) I'm saved, Oh yeah...
...The production errors come to seem so routinely programmed that they might just as well be inserted by a computer...
...Predictably, the Dean Martin Show has finally lost some of its freshness...
...I saw one earlier last month (December 3) that seemed to have a lot of potential, an nbc special featuring a new fellow I had never seen on television with the improbable name of Elvis Presley...
...I haven't been able to single out the 10 worst shows of 1968...
...The ironic result is artificiality...
...Something wrong with my lip...
...Other television variety shows are tightly strung together, with everybody seeming to know their places, cues and lines...
...Tell me...
...Elvis wiped his face with a handkerchief he grabbed from a girl in the audience...
...There has been much discussion in television circles about whether Dean Martin really drinks before he goes on the air...
...In such a sweeping generalization, of course, I would not include educational television...
...The secret of Martin's success in presenting the worst show of '66 and '67 was his spontaneity...
...that is Dino's Rise to Mediocrity in a class by itself...
...Fields belt a few in The Bank Dick (wor) . It was Christmas morning, an excellent example of timely programming: It prepared the youngsters for the behavior of adults later in the day...
...Its new slickness makes it virtually indistinguishable from the other variety shows, with one exception—Dino himself...
...Every time he swallows a shot, he takes off his gloves and dips his fingers neatly in the chaser...
...Morris Fishbein's Modern Home Medical Adviser: Illustrated (along with The Home Book of Surgery it should be in every television den...
...Frankly, I am not qualified to discuss crooners, given my lack of a musical background...
...In fact, it could never have been achieved without Dino's philosophy of not rehearsing...
...Few of us are, even in these days when a dollar doesn't go as far as it once did...
...the annals of television criticism are filled with cases of critics who have lost their perspective, as well as their minds...
...I want them to learn how to hold their liquor like a Fields rather than the sloppy Martin...
...Or the emergence in the 1960s of David Susskind as a major source of inspiration at the networks...
...I got news for you...
...According to that reporter at TV Guide, it took him "ten months, two weeks and three days" to get into Dino's dressing room to ask a series of probing questions, which began with...
...This must come as bad news for the television industry, which lives for recognition...
...My guess is that Dino is a strict teetotaler...
...There is a streak of honesty in Dino that is unusual in television...
...He still sounds like, well, Dean Martin...
...Since I've been drinking myself for years...
...Goin' do one more song," he said cruelly...
...This program was my nominee for the worst show of 1966 and 1967, but I never mentioned it in print before because I was afraid Dean Martin's friends would "get me...
...But I consulted a leading medical authority during the commercial, Dr...
...I told my wife to pass out...
...W. C. Fields is required viewing for my children...
...This man with the odd name and animal magnetism is a born leader, I thought, as I rolled on the floor saving myself...
...If they have to drink...
...This special effect was not accidental...
...Last fall, when he found it inconvenient to appear at a New York benefit," TV Guide reported authoritatively, "he wired Sinatra, 'My ulcer is acting up.' " So I guess it is safe to say what I think of Dean Martin, who last year made television history by signing an unprecedented three-year, no-option nbc contract for $34 million...
...the geetar man was gone...
...Martin, is this your third or fourth season...
...The danger of this kind of craftsmanship is that it tends to develop a logic of its own...
...The singer's lip curled, and he stopped playing his "big geetar" to pull it down...
...It is also hard for me to believe that Dr...
...My own theory about why it is difficult to pick the worst shows, though, is that television has been slowly raising its standards...
...Several girls in the studio audience passed out on cue, an overtheatrical touch...
...It was the strangest hour on television last year, and I had the distinct feeling that it was either the worst thing I had ever seen or the best...
...I passed out...
...The process is largely imperceptible to the naked eye, but those of us close to the business know something has been going on...
...She passed out...
...NO, oh God, NO," we groaned all over America...
...It may be that I have become jaded over the years...
...Dr...
...A word from Frank Sinatra and the editors of this magazine might not have picked up my option, ending a promising career...
...Then it was over...
...Some people swear they can smell liquor in their living rooms as soon as they turn on nbc Thursday nights...
...The other thing Dino does on his show is act drunk...
...Lest there be any mistake about the message of The Bank Dick, Fields announces several times in the opening scenes that his name is "Souse—with the accent grave on the 'e.' " What a superb well-mannered drinking companion old man Souse is...
...I hate to be the one to say this, but Dino's hour has risen from a classically bad show to a mediocre one...
...I am not worth it...
...Somehow it doesn't seem that important to find out Dino's public position on drinking, especially when there is so much circumstantial medical evidence that he couldn't possibly be drunk on television...
...Then he started twitching uncontrollably as he went into "I'm all shook up my hands are shaking and my knees are weak...
...Now through private sources (a September issue of TV Guide) I have learned that Dino and Frank are drifting apart...
...he said, and the audience went wild...
...I recognize what a bad actor Dino is...
...for example, when he signed that $34-mil-lion contract he said, "God...
...He remains one of the most offensive $34-million performers in television...
...Perhaps it is the influence of the Public Broadcast Laboratory, which week after week since 1967 has been demonstrating the limitations of the medium...
...To begin with, Dean Martin has an ulcer (or else he was lying to Frank, and nobody lies to Frank...
Vol. 52 • January 1969 • No. 1
