Television: God & Betty Crocker

• Share

"What we try to do," says the producer of NBC's daily nuptial show, Bride and Groom, "is to give the ordinary American girl a chance to have a big wedding on TV just like Grace Kelly and Queen Elizabeth." Nonetheless, for ten seasons, comedians, critics and the Roman Catholic Church have heaped scorn on the show's televised weddings. One objector paraphrased the commercial-mottled script: "Whomsoever God and Betty Crocker hath joined together . . ." Another said: "Bride and Groom is as embarrassing as watching your girl friend publicly eating peas off her knife." Bob Hope cracked: "I had a couple of friends who got married on the show, and after it was over they learned that their marriage wouldn't be legal in twelve states for 14 days when the kinescopes were played there."

But cries of crass commercialism fail to shake Bride and Groom. The show pulls 500 letters a day from young women eager to fit out the new home with such goodies as live chinchillas and gold mines in Montana. Bride and Groom has supervised the weddings of some 2,500 couples to whom about 1,000 children have been born. The happy couples have included a Douglas Aircraft executive, two Medal of Honor winners, All-America athletes, an atom physicist, Phi Beta Kappas, a TV producer and Jinx Falkenburg's brother. To each of them went about $2,500 worth of loot. "We were passing out mink coats and deep freezers long before politicians ever thought of it," boasts M.C. Robert Paige.

"In Holy Macirony . . ." Last week Art Student Gwendolyn Bannister, 22, and Olympic Track Star Lee Calhoun, 24, were one of five couples joined together, as the show's prize blooper went, "in holy macirony." The ceremony opened with headlines screaming, TV MARRIAGE A PROBLEM, TRACK STAR'S DILEMMA. Calhoun's dilemma had been posed earlier by the Amateur Athletic Union, which charged him with "attempt to capitalize on athletic fame" and threatened his amateur standing. Cried Producer Roger Gimbel: "This is a terrible thing. The A.A.U. is intruding upon the pursuit of happiness." Gimbel also said the show would sue the A.A.U. if Calhoun lost his standing. Meanwhile, in a barnlike studio in the RCA Building, under a ceiling blanketed with klieg lights. Calhoun and his bride defied the A.A.U., as Floor Manager Mike Graham threw the cues. The congregation included about 25 tieless stagehands, a bewildered assortment of curiosity seekers, and 3,000,000 enraptured housewives. To the best man, the M.C. muttered: "Nervous or not, you have one grave responsibility. Here are two beautiful Keepsake wedding rings."