Programming: What's My Sign?

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The opium of the people nowadays seems to be astrology. Just about every U.S. newspaper and women's magazine runs a horoscope column, so eventually the zodiac was bound to cloud over the TV screen. WPIX-TV became the first to capitalize on the astral preoccupation when it began inserting horoscopes into station breaks last January. That feature became so popular that WPIX hired Harper's Bazaar Horoscoper Xavora Pové to turn out a weekly 30-minute series. Miss Pove, an astrology devotee since her days at Sandusky High in Ohio (where she was known as Rosemary Schultz), devised Guess My Sign this spring. It was an instant hit, and, for better or worse, the show is almost sure to be syndicated nationally.

The format is similar to What's My Line? and all the other TV guessing games. A panel of four zodiac buffs query a celebrity guest on his personal traits and then try to divine the element and sign under which he was born.* Panelists are on their honor to disqualify themselves if they know the birth date of a guest. The questions run from "Do you like money?" to "What one thing would you change about your husband?" The answers are generally guarded. Asked to describe themselves in a word or two, Guests Ed Sullivan and Jack Benny coyly hazarded "nice." After the first couple of shows, Johnny Carson, whose wife Joanne is a regular panelist, suggested that she make the questioning less nice and more pungent.

The advice has not helped much. One does not have to be an astrological authority to be correct 25% of the time when the choices are among only four elements. And once the element is established, the panels should bat at least .333 in guessing the sign. Yet often as not, particularly with the elements, all the panelists have guessed wrong. They missed Jack Benny (Air), Robert Goulet (Fire), Carol Lawrence (Earth), and Ed Sullivan's wife Sylvia (Fire). But all the experts did guess Sullivan's element last week. He is Air. So is the show.