Radio: The Washtub Armada

Though called a children’s show, Mr. I. Magination (Sun. 6:30 p.m., CBS-TV) appeals equally to adults. But it leaves teen-agers cold. “They’re tough,” says Paul Tripp, 35, who plays Mr. I. and supplies much of the show’s creative magic. “We just can’t get the ones between 15½ and 19.”

The show opens with a child actor wishing he could be some character in fact or fiction. No sooner said than done: with Mr. L’s “magic” intervention he becomes Abraham Lincoln or Christopher Columbus, Hercules or the Count of Monte Cristo. To make these transformations, Tripp employs the simplest form of theater. Aided only by his wife, Ruth Enders, and two other permanent cast members, he has staged convincing battles between armies of Crusaders and Saracens, as well as AH Baba’s capture of the Forty Thieves. Out of some toy boats floating in a washtub he created the Spanish Armada beating its way up the English Channel.

According to Tripp, teen-agers are too literal-minded to see a fleet in a washtub or a snowstorm in a handful of thrown confetti. And they want their TV villains to be recognizable blackguards. “On Mr. I.” says Tripp, “you know that, underneath, the villain has a smile on his face and a sense of humor.”

Last week, after a two-month vacation, Mr. I. was back on TV with a 30-minute version of Huckleberry Finn. Its young-in-heart viewers are promised such future attractions as The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, Stevenson’s Kidnapped and a production based on Hamlet in which a child, playing a private detective, will solve the murder of Hamlet’s father. The only taboos on the show are still the words “Mom and “kiddies.” Says Tripp: “They just stick in my throat.” About all that wil] be added are a sponsor (Nestle’s Chocolate) and a few more realistic props in the hope that they might, possibly, win over some teenagers.