The Modesto Bee from Modesto, California • 47

Critic Calls Gleason's Drunk Humor Flat You Can't Buy Newer TV! balls and the air of command and raffish authority The jokes were at least as outrageous But somehow it come off Perhaps it was Art Carney we missed Or maybe and 1 prefer to believe this just because this was the first show and all a little edgy and over expectant not only Gleason but the rest of us By John Crosby Special to The Bee NEW Jackie first sketch on his return show last week involved my favorite among all his personalities Reggie Van Gleason who used to break me into little pieces This is the monstrously rich guy who was heralded on this show as a guy wants to buy out the Atlantic Ocean and close it to the In a courtroom scene this character is asked where he was on the night of August 12 1956 and he says he was coming home from a New Eve party Well that is the sort of wildly exaggerated drunk humor that used to make me come unstuck but it fizzled badly on the opening show The beautiful blonds were there Gleason himself was there with the manic eye- Low As 200 Per Week No Cash Required with trade Up to 24 mo to pay! had lunch with Gleason a few days before the show and he was raving about Buddy Hackett his new side-kick who is taking the place of Carney the greatest that he raved man alive And going to give him a chance just to be himself Nobody else has ever let him just be himself which is the best thing he Hackett was introduced in the first sketch but he seemed pretty much like all the other Buddy Hacketts we have seen on television Of course here he was playing a character Fritz the Chinese houseboy and just possible Gleason has other more grandiose projects in mind later Hackett is a funny fellow though and I have high hopes second major operation of the evening was with another of his characters Fenwick RabbitL This is a mild pop eyed befuddled character who perennially walks tilted It was one of those old Charlie Chaplin type sketches where the guy is supposed to take the fur off the mannequin on the moving platform climb a ladder get another 'box put a new fur on the mannequin put the fur in another box as bells ring and pandemonium ensues mad exuberant humor and I love it a bit After all Gleason has been off the air for a couple of years It takes awhile I asked him what been up to while he was away recording quite a lot just finished recording the whole of Tale Of Two Cities with a great cast of characters The thing will be scored by the Philadelphia Orchestra going to be great I think books are being read so recording them Word for word You can listen while It sounds like an awful idea so I switched to comedy Has he seen any good new comedians? Bygraves in London just gorgeous He knows everything He knows how important it is to have the right kind of material and the right kind of curtain behind him been a lot of talk that everyone is too touchy so that you make fun of any person or profession or race I said "I never liked to reap laughs and said Gleason I do think because of the touchiness of the public there are a lot of things I do that I would like to I can do a great version of de Kingfield or of Burt Williams in blackface but I dare It was never the bus drivers who raised a stink about the Honeymooners it was non bus drivers who were afraid I was offending the bus drivers The bus drivers loved it a member of their union bothers me that all the comedians want to be nice guys Why a guy be a schnook? Look at Fields He was great You believed him because you thought he really acted that way at home He really kicked babies and drank booze by the gallon So when he did it on the screen you laughed got a couple new characters this year got Rum Dum a guy who is maggotty drunk all the time and is always getting kicked out of bars You never see him take a drink He in a place long enough before he gets kicked out all in pantomime also got a brother in law situation comedy thing where I play the obnoxious brother in law and Hackett plays Herbert Hobbs not a Casper Milquetoast but somebody who is funny because so Copyright 1958 New York Herald Tribune Inc Swivel ScrMK Pedsatil Consol PHI LCO 4654 NEW STAR Ty Hardin former cowboy and Texas football player is seen in the role of Bronco Layne in The Cheyenne series aired every other Tuesday at 7:30 PM on KOVR (13) KJEO (47) and KGO (7) The score for the half hour was not good and I know why exactly but I expect things will iron out after PREDKTA TELEVISION TV TODAY FROM THE WORLD OF TOMORROW I exciting different 1965-new Philco Television you can own and enjoy now! New Philco Semi-Flat 21' (overall diagonal measurement) picture tube is completely separated from its cabinet it swivels at a touch completely sealed in its own Safety Case! The slender Pedestal Cabinet takes least space of all even fits into comers All front controls Big 8' speaker SERVICE Service VVliat We Sell and Other Makes As Factory trained technicians plus 11 service trucks plus over 18 years experience equals the finest Fastest Most Reliable Service obtainable! We have It! Call LA 3 9051! Valuable Scar Sinister looking actor George Macready notes that out of 75 television ajjd motion picture roles he has appeared as an evil type no less than 65 times have found it notes MacReady emphasize my rather nasty looking cheek scar which I received in an auto accident many years BUT NOBODY BEATS TRADE-IN Wmi Salute To Gershwin Voice of Firestone designated December 1st as its George Gershwin night with Paul Whiteman pianist Earl Wild and singer Tony Martin paying tribute to the late music NEW DRAMATIC SERIES Sal Mineo lower left is consoled by Carol Lynley when Police Detectives Macdonald Carey left and Stuart Erwin hound him for petty crimes in The Vengeance the premiere presentation of Pursuit to be seen Wednesday at 7 PM on KBET (10) KPIX (5) and KFRE (12) THE MODESTO BEE Sunday October 19 1958 Modesto California G-3.