Word: often
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Berle is not universally admired. His detractors find his brassiness glaring, his lines lackluster and his talent often tasteless. They point out that television is still in its infancy and declare that Berle just happens to be the man who is taking candy from the baby. Nonetheless, the Berle show's New York Hooperating stands at 80-the highest of any regular TV or radio program-and his audience in the 24 cities that see him "live" or on kinescope film two weeks later is reliably estimated...
...screen can hold. With at least five costume changes in each show, he has bounced on as Superman, Li'l Abner, Santa Claus, an Easter bunny, Father Time and Rosie O'Grady. He has made entrances by dog sled, donkey, horse chariot, kiddie car and parachute. He often coaxes the unexpected out of his guest stars: Gracie Fields sang for him in a bathing suit, and the Metropolitan's Tenor Lauritz Melchior in blackface...
...hamstrung by radio techniques. He calls the show's camera shots, directs the acts, plans the continuity, bosses the booking, writing, lighting and costumes, dictates the musical arrangements (and frequently hands them out to the musicians), approves the scenery (and sometimes helps shift it) and, in rehearsal, often leads the band over the head of its conductor...
...clear cold space in Villon's landscapes: deserting table-top still lifes, he had found a little of the space and sweep of the out-of-doors. The second quality was in his colors. As a reaction against the sunny hues of impressionism, the cubists had often painted with what looked like birdlime and various fine shades of mud. Villon reversed the process: his landscapes seethed with the brightest, sharpest and sometimes shrillest colors he could...
...champagne cork while he is conducting, Arthur Fiedler knows that his music has a proper place in Boston, just as much as Koussevitzky's had. Says he: "I have no use for those snobs who look down their nose at everything but the most highbrow music-which often they don't understand anyhow. A Strauss waltz is as good a thing of its kind as a Beethoven symphony. It's nice to eat a good hunk of beef, but you want a light dessert, too." Fiedler's aim: to dish up the dessert as well...