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Show . ONCE OVER Starts the Day With Garrovay By H. I. Phillips LATEST THING on the airwaves is a video program which runs two hours. A nonstop telecast from 7 to 9 a.m. during the shave-shower-coffee-and-early-housework period. Its aim is to combine news, music, weather dope, the right time, gags, global pictorial recordings and what-have-you. A sort of global cafeteria of dissa and datta. Dave Garroway is the star. What he did to bring the heavy sentence down on his head is a mystery. If he is not a superman he will petition the guvnor for an early pardon. ing allowances for a noble effort, is like a trip on a flying carpet in your pajamas, with no time for orange juice and with frequent stops at a madhouse to change pilots. The plot is by Joe Cook, the settings by Rube Goldberg and tho direction by Abbott & Costello. You get the same Impression you would get if asked to read the papers pa-pers during a Winter Garden Olsen and Johnson show or get a briefing on global affairs in a subway rush. When you get out of bed with a new Indo-China crisis, take a shower with telescopic views of Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles, brush your teeth with the United States Weather Bureau, dress at Grand Central and dip into your bacon and eggs while dipping into a shipwreck off the Azores, fresh snafu at Pan-munjom Pan-munjom and a couple of book reviews, re-views, brother, you are conducting a volunteer experiment in dizziness. No airwave program should run two hours. Unless the idea is to make it tougher to take than the commercials, which seem always to run three. Here is our verdict: Either Garroway will have to give up the program or we will have to give up shavir", bathing, dressing ; and getting ready for work with the video on. The human system can't absorb so many things so early in the day. You can have Vish-insky, Vish-insky, Bill Douglas, Churchill, Tito, Acheson, the Manchurian maps and "The Sugar Foot Rag," before breakfast. We wiU just take buttered toast, coffee and the usual worries. The program called "Today," but which with us will always be "Atta-way "Atta-way with Garroway," has everything every-thing but wrestling and cooking recipes. Garroway omits only Margaret Mar-garet Truman, Ezio Pinza and Senator Sen-ator Tobey. These omissions will be remedied soon, no doubt. (We would not be surprised to see the trend wind up with a six-hour video program pro-gram in which Jimmy Durante would give the weather forecast, Helen Traubel deliver a message on the state of the union, and Vish-insky, Vish-insky, Anthony Eden and Harry Truman Tru-man alternate in giving the correct time at one-minute intervals.) Novelty marches on. "Today," mak- Mr. Garroway, a notable success in video, is a talented worker whose personality combines the features of Peter Lind Hayes, Jules Verne, Ed Wynn, Aladdin, Puss-In-Boots and the Forepaugh Brothers. His vitality on this program is terrific. He begins at 7 a.m. with the sun hardly up and when he stops you know you are late for work. We listened for four mornings. Now we get the same effect by playing a harmonica, doing a toe dance and studying maps of Formosa while we drink our coffee. Not that 'Today," isn't a great "try." But all those views of rooftops, roof-tops, commuters arriving at railroad rail-road terminals and the Pentagon at dawn seem less than vital to our 7-to-9 welfare. And to see all those video people working in the studio all snarled up in wires, gadgets, etc., so early makes us depressed. |
