Showbiz could profit from a real Hall of Fame, some form of Pulitzer award for individual performers.  Unfortunately, the title is once again being used as a come-on to "ennoble" only the actual broadcast and the trade paper that's paid to suggest the acts.  Several years ago the sponsor of this program suggested such a Hall of Fame thru its publicity agent, Tom Fizdale, and the sheet that is now part of the broadcast presentation took the idea apart in a big way.  At that time they saw all the gimmicks in the idea.  Everything is apparently different now that there is a largesse from the job for the sponsor instead of being free to editorialize upon it.  Also, if this reviewer's memory is correct, all the Halls of Fame are dedicated to the dead, or at least to the inactive.  That goes for the Hall of Fame at New York University, as well as the Baseball HOF at Cooperstown, N.Y., and the other tributes to immortals which are scattered around the world.

     For the record, there were no dead ones on the premiere broadcast, which was entertainment out of the drawer on top of the top drawer.  The hour was full of fast-moving microphone-worthy diversion, well routined and socko.  From the climax of Broadway's Winged Victory, with the original AAF cast, to the sign-off by Bob Hope, there wasn't a dull moment, except perhaps some of the Deems Taylor song and dance spiels.  Taylor was, to say the least, a longhair lost behind the mike.  George Faulkner, scripter who strung the words together for the RHOF, hasn't written for the Taylor type before and so may be excused if his words didn't "flow" for the annotator.  However, Faulkner must be warned that despite the fact the hour is a salute, the best salvo is still the performance, not the treasurer's report.

     Only one performer on the program came from radio's "First Fifteen" (Hooperating or CAB); that was Bob Hope.  The other personalities--Hildegarde, Jimmy Durante, Maurice Rocco and Quentin Reynolds--are on the air but none of them has been able to sell his "unique abilities" consistently thru broadcasting.  They were at their best on the RHOF, which may indicate that they're just natural guest artists.  When nitery personalities air, perhaps it's best that they test-sample their wares, rather than star on a program.  Hildegarde and Durante topped their usual air stints, altho Schnozzola milked his Umbriago clarinet routine so that there wasn't any cream in the last few toots.  Someday they'll build a microphone able to deliver Jimmy at his best and then the audiences will be happy.  As it is now, he's still a shouting personality and mikes are still whispering mediums.

     The dramatic interlude, the Winged Victory climax, was superb air-stuff and was just as superbly done by Lee J. Cobb, Mark Daniels and Edmund O'Brien.  Some legit excerpts, in fact most of them, fall flat on their face in a radio program, but not only did Victory clear this hurdle, but it took the program by its bootstraps into the realm of things as we'd like to have them.  It rated the $25,000 donation which Philco presented to the Army Emergency Relief.  The Winged Victory chorus was thrown in for the 25Gs.

     Deems Taylor announced that there'd be a "new" name presented each week to RHOF audiences.  The tee-off's new name was Maurice Rocco, straight from the Club Zanzibar and the Capitol Theater.  Rocco did his usual boogie-woogie, sans a piano stool.  It's good visual stuff but Philco didn't have its television station skedded to scan the program and what came into the home was just fair pianistics.  Rocco is a likeable performer who has never pictured himself a great air personality and his "discovery" on this program won't rate the "talent selector" any laurel wreath.

     Paul Whiteman is a natural for the podium, and besides he's the musical director of the Blue Network over which the program is heard.  He has the background, personality and authority that gives a stable quality to the show.  When he paid tribute to Sgt. Dave Rose, who arranged and directed the music for Winged Victory the recognition meant something to listeners who know that in the popular field, there's no one who pretends to top P.W.  The piece given the palm was Holiday for Strings.

     The program topper was, of course, Bob Hope (piped in from Hollywood), who seems to come thru every time.  He didn't have a new one to tell--but how he told his old ones!  Typically Hope, he ran overtime, so that the final Hope gag topped the final Whiteman fanfare as the program signed off.  Hope has made the permanent Radio Hall of Fame in the hearts of his listeners.  He doesn't need a bogus Hall to tell the fact to the world--but anyone who brings him to the air rates a long deep salaam.

     Forgetting the bogus pitch, the new Philco show is the best that has occupied the Sunday 6 to 7 slot since broadcasting began.  The combination of DeVere Engelbach, producer, and George Faulkner writer, is almost unbeatable, given a reasonable amount of talent with which to play.  At this hour the show has no competition.  At its midway mark it hits The Great Gildersleeve.  Hal Peary's show has been gathering a bigger audience each week.  The first RHOF show neatly by-passed the dial twisters by spotting the Winged Victory spot so that it ran from just before the half hour to 6:40, thus making it tough to tune away from the Blue Net at the time that Gildy went on the air.  If they're able to do that every week, they're going to make Peary's hair turn white with loss of Hooper and Crossley points.

     Credit the premiere of Fame with another first.  Neither the Blue nor the Philco prexy labored verbally on the program to produce a pipsqueak.  As a matter of fact, except for the Deems Taylor words, there was less non-show business gab on this hour than any of the other recent commercial debuts.

     If they can keep the pace, Radio Hall of Fame will establish a hard-to-follow standard for all Sunday evening slot-fillers.  It's a shame, however, that they had to put a false front on a great show.  Some day someone is going to produce a typical Palace Theater program on the air, without an alibi, or a formula, and it's going to be a success because it has the necessary talent.  After it's a success everyone's going to say, "We knew all the time that all you needed on the air was a great show."

     Lacking a sock line-up every week, they are going to need a personality to emsee the show.  Deems isn't it.  He's been annotating all his life and he's still doing it, and an annotator is at the best a bridge for a stage wait.

     A Radio Hall of Fame ought to pay tributes to the stars it enshrines.  It's a shame that this great show has to packhorse its formula and its talent picker.  It deserves better.

Joe Koehler.

Text from DigitalDeli