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Popeye on~the~box

Gallery- To quote a well-worn phrase- seem to have done their homework, and produced some good programmes. But- they've had good material to work from as the Gold water interview showed. His comments on the American political scene were entertaining, and his views on his fellow politicians were priceless- they reminded me of Mark Anthony's praise of Brutus. But what the hell was the purpose of film inserts of the self-same politicians while Gold water was speaking? They weren't informative- merely ridiculous. Another blunder was in the choice of interviewer for Germaine Greer. Dairne Shan-ahan was so embarrassing it wasn't funny- people who try and play devil's advocate should realise it's only a role and not take it too seriously. Still on the subject of Germaine, I was very pleased to see that the Network News included her rave on contraceptives- if it had been in a programme, the odds would be that it would play after 10 at night. Hopefully, the example would have not been lost on those who censor our programmes. After Gallery this Thursday there's the second programme of the series Spanish Farm. It seems a disappointing replacement of the usually excellent plays that played in this spot up till now. For me, they laid the old idea that somehow BBC play dramatisations were better than those of the independents- the BBC did Spanish Farm, and ITC made the aforesaid plays.

Tonight Whicker hits our screens once again. This time he's doing another hatchet job on the Americans, investigating the alleged 24 million swinging singles in the United States. It's very good - even Whicker seems to realise the ness of the whole situation, of people 'caught between two cultures' - and all the commercialisation of this wealthy, lonely group.

If you're a devout fan of Paul Gallico- or you want a good laugh- I recommend the Snow Goose, which is playing over Easter some time. Whatever you liked (or disliked) about the novel is portrayed faithfully in the very professional television production.

The prime attraction for me over the Easter period is, of course, the Marx brothers in The Big Store- one of their later films (1940). But there's something else worth watching that's on over the same period. It's called The Point, an hour long cartoon narrated by Dustin Hoffman The cartoon style is somewhere between Yellow Submarine and Sesame Street, and the humour, though rather heavy handed at times, is quite appealing. However, the last half-hour lacks any evil character, which makes it a little tedious. Cartoons require good old-fashioned melodrama to make them work.

Golden Silents to be the funniest series on Television, closely followed by Bugs Bunny. This latter series is quite ancient, I think, it is, it's an adequate comment on the decline of the American cartoon.