America's First Network TV Censor: The Work of NBC's Stockton Helffrich

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Iam deeply grateful to my many mentors on this book project. Without their guidance and support, it would have been impossible to complete. My thanks to Kristine Priddy, Kathy Kageff, and Karl Kageff at Southern Illinois University Press and the several thoughtful readers who looked over earlier drafts of this book. Many thanks also to my sharp-eyed copy editor, Mary Lou Kowaleski; her thoughtful suggestions on improving or clarifying my manuscript enhanced the book in myriad ways. Also my gratitude to James L. Baughman, Jan Buechner, Brian Deith, Don Downs, Lew Friedland, Jim Hoyt, Lynn Schroeder, and Stephen Vaughn, all at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A special heartfelt thanks to my friend Susie Brandscheid for her singular act of kindness on my behalf. I send my gratitude as well to the dozens of thoughtful researchers who readily helped me in my journey, especially those at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Catholic University, Washington, D.C.; and Museum of Radio and Television, New York City; and Michael Henry, Library of American Broadcasting, University of Maryland–College Park, and the extraordinarily kind J. Fred MacDonald in Chicago. This work would not exist without the kind assistance of Stockton Helffrich’s children, Jackie Austin and Richard Krauser, and his lovely wife, Maxie Helffrich. I am indebted to Helffrich, the central character in this book—indeed, we all are. Why? Because he kept notes. Copious notes—literally thousands of them, eleven years of them—on just about every program, script, and commercial advertisement he viewed (and often censored) at the network. Helffrich left more than a thousand ix 3RQGLOOR)URQWPDWWHULQGG $0 x A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S typed, single-spaced pages, over 225 individual commentaries called Continuity Acceptance Radio/Television, or CARTs. He and his battery of “continuity editors” (another way of saying “censors”) considered the appropriateness of just about everything noteworthy that paraded before NBC-TV cameras from 1948 through early 1960. His work offers not only a portal through which to gaze at TV’s foundational times but also another way to access and understand the postwar world and how far TV today has progressed or stayed the same. Portions of this book have been adapted from his previously published articles, as well as unpublished scholarly convention papers and academic presentations: “Cleavage Control!” Television Quarterly 36: 2 (2006): 53–57; “Saving Nat ‘King’ Cole.” Television Quarterly 35: 3/4 (2005): 8–16; “Racial Discourse and Censorship on NBC-TV, 1948–1960.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 33: 2 (2005): 102–114; “Chicago TV’s Winter of Violence: 1952–53.” Television Quarterly 34: 2 (2004): 24–29; “You Can’t SING THAT on TV!’” Television Quarterly 33: 4 (2003): 62–67; “Rod Serling’s ‘The Censorship Zone.’” Television Quarterly 33: 1 (2002): 34–43; “A ‘Legion of Decency’ for Early Television?” Television Quarterly 33: 2/3 (2001): 16–21. My thanks to the following for allowing me to quote from their papers and correspondence: Joseph Atmore, Dolores Jackie S. Austen, Richard Krauser, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison, the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, the Catholic University of America, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Thanks also to William Clotworthy, NBC-TV’s chief censor during the 1970s, and Fritz Jacobi at Television Quarterly for their support. Cheers to Anca Rieza and Jennifer Wright for their superior editing skills. Gratitude as well to my Middle Tennessee State University honors students and my fine graduate assistants Anton Bates, Joe Fewell, Tori Harris, and Shannon Hickman. I’m also most grateful for the sustained backing of my wonderful colleagues Clare Bratten, Chris Harris, Bob Kalwinsky, John Omachonu, Jan Quarles, and Bob Spires, my department chair, Dennis Oneal, and my dean, Roy L. Moore. On the home front, hugs to my son, Macallan Currie. When I began this project, Mac was five years old. I completed its final draft two months after his sixteenth birthday. 3RQGLOOR)URQWPDWWHULQGG $0 xi A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S I wish to extend thanks for the steadfast encouragement of my father, Albert M. Pondillo Sr., the support and kindness of the late Norton Urness and Virginia Urness, and the unwavering confidence...