Television: Big Night

Whatever else it may be, next Sunday night (Oct. 13) will be the most lavish in TV history. A 3½-hour cascade of money and talent will flow into the cameras. For a change, TV fans will not have to flick dials from one show to another—the big parade of singers, dancers and actors has been programed without any overlapping: ¶ NBC and Rexall Drug Co. will try spreading some elfin cheer (6:30 to 7:30 p.m., E.D.T.) with a $325,000 “free treatment” of Pinocchio, with Walter Slezak, Fran Allison, Jerry Colonna, Stubby Kaye, Savoyard Martyn Green, and as the wooden hero, Mickey Rooney, 35. Says Scriptwriter Yasha Frank: “It’s corny, but corn is the staff of entertainment life.” ¶ CBS’s The Edsel Show (8 to 9 p.m., E.D.T.) will crowd The Ed Sullivan Show off the air (the third time in three years) to present Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Louis Armstrong in a $400,000 production choreographed by Eugene Loring—whose dances gave last week’s Crescendo, a big CBS variety show, some of its infrequent high moments. ¶ Standard Oil’s (NJ.) $600,000 75th Anniversary Show, to be staged in color over NBC (9 to 10:30 p.m., E.D.T.) by Theaterman Cyril Ritchard, stars Tyrone Power, Jimmy Durante, Bert Lahr, Donald O’Connor, Jane Powell, Marge and Gower Champion, Brandon de Wilde, Duke Ellington, Eddie Mayehoff, Kay Thompson, Columnist Art Buchwald and British Cartoonist Ronald Searle.