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CBS breaks into the Spectacular field with 14 90-minute shows, starting next month with a Judy Garland production, to be followed by three Noel Coward shows, two musical dramas starring Bing Crosby. Ed Murrow's See It Now will include TV "profiles" of New York and Paris and a camera's report on Africa. Omnibus goes musical with Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, score by Brigadoon's Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe. Also scheduled: a documentary on the Renaissance by LIFE Writer Robert Coughlan, a comedy starring British Jack-of-All-Jokes Alec Guinness, The Battle of Gettysburg by Bruce (A Stillness at Appomattox) Catton. Victor Borge in two one-man shows, Jack Benny in three original comedies, and Julie Harris in A Wind from the South. CBS viewers will also get a new cartoon series made by UPA, the producers of Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo, the new Phil Silvers show, long film dramas by 20th Century-Fox, a weekly mystery show produced by suspenseful Alfred Hitchcock, and a new children's series, The Adventures of Robin Hood.
NBC has lined up more Spectaculars (some 75) than ever, and most of them will be in color. On the list: The Skin of Our Teeth, with Mary Martin, Helen Hayes, George Abbott; a musical version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, with Frank Sinatra and Eva Marie Saint; Jerome Kern's The Cat and the Fiddle; Dearest Enemy, with a Rodgers and Hart score; a musical based on Heidi with Wally Cox and Jeannie Carson; Patrice Munsel in The Great Waltz; and Maurice Chevalier in a variety show. Straight drama also will get the 90-minute treatment from NBC. José Ferrer will put on putty for another re-creation of Cyrano de Bergerac. Eva La Gallienne will star again in Alice in Wonderland. Maurice Evans becomes a son of the American Revolution for George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. Opera will range from Puccini's Madame Butterfly through a new English version of Mozart's The Magic Flute and Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin to world premieres of two new operas: Lukas Foss's Griffelkin and Stanley Hollingsworth's La Grande Breteche. Britain's Margot Fonteyn will dance in the ballet, The Sleeping Beauty. Ex-Ambassador Chester Bowles will give an hour-long report on India, and The Constant Husband, starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Leighton, will be the first full-length movie to be presented on TV before being released to movie theaters.