The Last Threshold

Many people get a guilty thrill out of listening in on a party line, spying on the family next door or reading other folks' postcards. Last week, radio listeners were enjoying the same sort of snooping on a new show called Candid Microphone (Sun. 7 p.m., ABC).

Candid Mike eavesdrops on people and records their unguarded remarks for broadcasting. In seven weeks on the air, the show has picked up the meows from a beauty parlor, lurked behind two unsuspecting expectant fathers in an obstetrician's office, listened in on a man's attempts to pick up a girl, argued with a bill collector, recorded what happened when a baby was left on an angry woman's doorstep.

To get the impromptu (and anonymous) conversations on the air, Candid Mike's producer-narrator, Allen Funt, combs Manhattan street corners, hotels, doorsteps, restaurants--any spot where people meet and talk--with his tape recorder. He disguises the mike in a sling, as a hearing aid, hides it under his lapel or sets it on a pawnshop counter covered by a "for sale" sign.

When the victim's words have been reeled in on the tape, Funt gently breaks the news to him, plays back the sequence, and tries to get permission to use it on the air. He nearly always succeeds; so far, only three people (all of them in an Eighth Avenue pawnshop) have refused. Once in a while the victim is resentful. By last week, Funt had narrowly avoided a couple of fights but was still unbruised.

With his records, Funt and six assistants get to work editing out the dull talk and splicing together their show. Every two-minute sequence requires 14 hours of blue-penciling, often as many as 100 splices. When an angry victim breaks into profanity, a Funt-inspired device dubs in a sweet feminine voice which whispers, "Censored . . . censored . . . censored."

Candid Mike already looks like a solid hit. Last week 800 enthusiastic listeners wrote in--including some sociologists, scientists, radio technicians--"the most literate fan mail" Funt has ever seen. The dissenting minority, if there was any, could take its cue from the Pittsfield (Mass.) Berkshire Eagle, which said: "With this new Machiavellian inspiration, radio crosses the last threshold of privacy. . . . The whole country seems likely to be plagued with hidden microphones."

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