Comes September

With the first frosty air of fall, most of radio's summer replacements had withered on the. network vines. Those hardy perennials, the big winter shows, were abloom again. Indications were that the jokes, the routines and the voices would be much the same as last season. But there would be some minor changes:

P: In Allen's Alley, satchel-eyed Fred Allen has dispossessed two tenants: Senator Claghorn and Ajax Cassidy. Cassidy is gone for good, but the Senator will tub-thump occasionally during the election campaign. The vacancies have been let to a mysterious Russian, Sergei Strogonoff, and to a new rhyming character reminiscent of an old Alley resident, Falstaff Openshaw. Mrs. Nussbaum and Titus Moody have renewed their leases.

P: Bob Hope, abandoning last season's gag show, will try situation comedy. Jerry Colonna and Vera Vague are out; Singers Doris Day and Bill Farrell are still in.

P: Edgar Bergen, perhaps jealous of Charlie McCarthy, is building up the billing of Mortimer Snerd.

P: Phil Spitalny and his all-girl Hour of Charm orchestra will be replaced by a half-hour dramatic show, featuring Helen Hayes.

P: Amos 'n' Andy's only cast change will be a new actor to play Gabby, the lawyer; James Baskett, last year's Gabby, died in July.

P: Prudential's Family Hour abandons the music field, promises 30 minutes of drama with Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, et al.

P: The give-away shows have been unable to think of any reason (except the watchful FCC) why they should change their ways.

P: Henry Morgan, who has bitten one sensitive sponsor after another, thus far has neither radio nor television plans. Says Morgan: "Nobody's asked me," New hopefuls this season include Commentator Eleanor Roosevelt (assisted by daughter Anna Boettiger); The Railroad Hour (operettas with Gordon MacCrae); The Little Immigrant, described as "situation comedy with an underlying pathos." Cecil B. DeMille hopes to back with an hour-long dramatic show.*

" DeMille's plans are still tentative, because of his continuing war with AFRA (American Federation of Radio Artists). When he refused to pay a $1 assessment in 1944, arguing that it was for political purposes, AFRA forced DeMille from the air. Since a majority of the union membership had approved the assessment, the Supreme Court upheld AFRA. Armed with a new legal weapon--the Taft-Hartley Act Act--DeMille is confidently returning to the fray.

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