The Experts

As one of radio's first and best quiz shows, Information Please had taken its time about making the switch to TV. "Two and a half years ago," says Producer Dan Golenpaul, "the audience was limited to 1,500,000 who watched only wrestling and roller derbies. Our audience wasn't there. Now, with 17 million sets, we're going to have a fair percentage of the viewers." Last week, in a setting designed by Broadway's Jo Mielziner, Information Please finally took the plunge.

On hand as moderator, as in the old radio days, was urbane, acid Clifton Fadiman. Sitting on the panel were the old experts, John Kieran and Franklin P. Adams, and, as guest member of the panel, Author James (South Pacific) Michener (missing: wiseacre Pianist Oscar Levant, who now lives in California). After the familiar cockcrow and the challenge to "Wake up, America, time to stump the experts!" Video Veteran Fadiman (CBS's This Is Show Business) tried hard to settle his team into the old fluid pace of the radio series.

Some of the TV newcomers found it hard to overcome their opening-night jitters. Expert Adams fidgeted unhappily, seemed to long for the protective security of radio, hardly ever got into the act. Expert Kieran covered his own nervousness with a fluent flow of ad lib comments (although he once flubbed a quotation from Omar Khayyam). Sportcaster Red Barber, delivering General Electric's commercials, was as edgy as a batter facing the three-and-two pitch. Biggest surprise: James Michener's wide fund of knowledge, e.g., natural history, poetry, mythology.

But the Information Please veterans recovered their sprightly aplomb when the second show rolled around this week (Sun. 9 p.m., CBS). Adams and Kieran were back in pre-TV form, and Actor-Producer Gregory Ratoff as guest expert, a heavy hunk of a man with a rich, thick Russian accent, was the life of the show ("Theese ees my telewision debut, and all my friends are vatching, I shouldn't be dumb"). Sprinkling his comments with warm humor, he managed to answer a number of questions--mostly musical--that stumped his colleagues cold. For Information Please fans, it was beginning to seem just like the good old days again.

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