The Troubled Air

On the air four days before Christmas, Playwright George S. Kaufman said: "Let's make this one program on which nobody sings Silent Night." Most of the estimated 18 million viewers of This Is Show Business (Sun. 7:30 p.m., CBS-TV) were used to Panelist Kaufman's curmudgeon voice and comments. Many even agreed with him. But some disagreed violently. The CBS switchboard lit up with more than 200 phone calls protesting Kaufman's "irreligious remark." Next morning several hundred more complaints hit CBS and Sponsor American Tobacco Co. Even though Show Business had but three weeks to run before the sponsor replaced it with a comedy show, Kaufman was publicly fired.

Stunned, Kaufman tried to explain that he had not been "wittingly antireligious. I was merely speaking out against the use and overuse of this Christmas carol in connection with the sale of commercial products." He soon got impressive religious support: the Rev. Dr. Truman B. Douglass, chairman of the broadcasting and film department of the National Council of Churches, declared that Kaufman's remark was "more expressive of religious sensitiveness than of any spirit of derision." Furthermore, said Dr. Douglass, "the real sacrilege is the merciless repetition of Silent Night and similar Christmas hymns by crooners, hillbillies, dance bands and other musical barbarians." The New York Herald Tribune editorialized: "If a vocal few hundred from an audience that may reach into the millions can bar a performer, no one on the air will venture an opinion ... In such an atmosphere there can be neither philosophy nor wit, and truth itself soon becomes a victim."

CBS, searching for a substitute to take Kaufman's place, was turned down by Newsman John Daly ("I think Kaufman's dismissal was both unnecessary and absurd"), Comic Garry Moore ("Responsible people shouldn't give way to the small segment of the public who are all too anxious to hunt for things to condemn"), and Veteran Fred Allen, who snapped: "This thing is ridiculous. There are only two good wits on television, Groucho Marx and George S. Kaufman. With Kaufman gone, TV is half-witted." Finally, CBS found a substitute in Steve (Songs for Sale) Allen.

At week's end, after a series of top-level conferences, CBS executives, recovering from their panic, took a deep breath and announced a decision: George Kaufman will be banned from the panel only until the contract with American Tobacco Co. runs out this month. Then Show Business will return to the air at a new time (Sat. 9 p.m.), without a sponsor, but with George S. Kaufman back in his familiar place. Said Kaufman: "It constitutes some kind of vindication, I suppose."

In Los Angeles, another TV performer was charging a sponsor with excessive timidity. J. Carrol Naish, star of Life with Luigi, complained that Sponsor General Foods last week dropped the high-rated (39.7%) show largely because two scripts had offended 1) utility companies and 2) stockbrokers. One show had Luigi pitted against a power company that wanted to cut down a tree in his backyard; the other depicted Luigi as the troublesome owner of one share of stock in a big corporation. Snorted Naish, a Taft Republican: "The idea that I would countenance any subversive ideology on my show is ridiculous. I just don't understand it. After the stock-shares show, we got a letter of praise from the head of the stock exchange."

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