Murphy's Law Of 50's Live Television Mr. DuMont, we have a problem! By 1957, major market network affiliate TV stations had expanded their broadcast day to signing on at 5AM rather than 5PM and signing off past midnight, usually showing a late night movie after the 11P< news. The ailing DuMont network, despite having commodity shows such as Alan Freed's, Bishop Sheen, Kate Smith, Captain Video, among others, were losing daytime TV hosts. Bert Parks, Johnny Olson, et al, who taped afternoon shows at WABD (now WNYW) in New York, were being lured by rival network affiliates WCBS, WNBC and WABC.

The boom was dropping on Freed and DuMont, hungry for sponsor money, made an agreement with Proctor & Gamble's ad agency to produce and air live a teen age beauty pageant to promote April Showers shampoo targeting the high school bopper set.

Straight from Splish Splash & Queen Of The Hop came a brash wannabe TV show host Bobby Darin. To date, Darin's TV experience had been limited to lip synching ...I was takin' a bath on bandstand shows like Freed's and Dick Clark's.

"No rehearsal, just wing it." Well, maybe Johnny Carson (who was hosting daytime game shows back then) could, but Darin's attempt at impromptu television ended up the disaster you saw here.

But the shark has pretty teeth, dear and Darin, polished by the time Mack The Knife hit number one on the national charts, had better success with a prime time variety show on both CBS and NBC.

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