Show Business: Casualty List

The television scorecard that promised so many hits in September by last week read like a list of amateur-night losers. Latest Nielsen ratings reported only one this-season entry among the top ten: ABC’s oater. The Rifleman. All the rest of the top ten are oldtimers, and apart from the Danny Thomas Show, they are all westerns. Reaching charitably down into the top 30, Variety records a few new “nervous” hits, e.g., Peter Gunn, The Texan. But TV’s winter statistics make up a sad list of dead and dying shows.

Singing contestants and sagging ratings killed the quizzes. Twenty One, The $64,000 Question, The $64,000 Challenge, and half a dozen other intellectual pretenders are buried. The fancy “Fantastics” that were supposed to herald a trend —Invisible Man and World of Giants—have yet to find sponsors. Patti Page and Buddy Bregman, with their variety shows, will be dropped in March; Man with a Camera, a freelance photographer’s adventures, was a flop from the start, will also disappear next month. Behind Closed Doors, a cloak-and-daguerreotype, is almost sure to follow. Even laughter is losing out in a dreary season: by May, Uncle Miltie Berle and the Kraft Music Hall part company as planned. George Burns, George Gobel. Ed Wynn, Jackie Gleason will be gone too.