The New Shows

Comedy Hour (Sun. 8 p.m., NBCTV) is the first live, commercial TV show to be broadcast to the nation from the West Coast. What the nation got: an hour-long trouper's travelogue dominated by swivel-eyed Eddie Cantor, who sang such showstoppers as Makin' Whoopee and Bye, Bye, Blackbird, bounced through an old-time burlesque routine, delivered a flood of show business anecdotes in an emotion-choked voice. As usual, Cantor narrowly escaped the final plunge into bathos, came closest to it while singing Ida to his wife as the TV camera sought her downcast face in the audience.

The Red Skelton Show (Sun. 10 p.m., NBC-TV), the West Coast's second bid for nationwide attention, marks the first TV appearance of ex-burlesque Comic Red Skelton. The show opened and closed with Skelton flat on his back on the stage. In between, he got his head caught in a grand piano, beat his face with a microphone, shot himself in the foot. Making their TV debut, his rogue's gallery of radio characters (DeadEye, the cowboy; San Fernando Red, the crooked politician; Cauliflower McPugg, the punchdrunk fighter; Klem Kaddiddlehopper, the Irish tenor who is neither Irish nor a singer) reached a new high in uninhibited clowning.

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