Television: The Junior Season Opens

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A Lot of Bull. In a departure from Saturday morning, ABC has produced a half-hour Sunday show called Make a Wish. Its visual effects are the best of any of the junior programs: fast cuts, flashy graphics and clever manipulation of sight and sound. Each program is limited to two subjects and is hosted by Tom Chapin, a personable, hairy chap wearing an embroidered work shirt and bellbottoms, who sings nicely and plays a good guitar. Last week's première segment dealt with the words bull and fly. The visuals ran rapidly through the various kinds of "bull"—bullfrog, bully, Bull Moose Party, rodeo bull, bulldogs. "That is a lot of bull," Chapin remarked inevitably. The segment on flying managed to trace that activity from Icarus to the 747 via Superman.

The remainder of the new ABC children's shows are, unfortunately, more like the old ones. Funky Phantom is an adventure cartoon centering around three teenagers, their pet dog and a ghost from the Revolutionary War era. Also new is Lidsville. It is a loud and noisy half-hour telling about a kid who took a header into a giant top hat and ended up in a land called Lidsville, inhabited by, of all things, hats. Head bad guy is an inept wizard named Whoo-Doo, who calls his minions "stupid" and classifies them as "little creeps." Jackson 5, still another cartoon offering, features make-believe adventures of a real-life singing group. Not coincidentally, the series is produced in association with Motown Record Corp., which records the real Jackson 5.

Poisonous Stone Fish. NBC's Barrier Reef is yet another underwater adventure series. The first installment dealt with an attempted murder involving a poisonous stone fish. Another NBC show, Mr. Wizard, is back after a six-year hiatus. The première half-hour was concerned mainly with the elaborate preparations necessary for setting up a color-camera magnifier in order to view underwater life on a giant video screen. Science could be exciting. Not, unfortunately, on this show.

By far the most adventurous idea is NBC's Take a Giant Step, which, sadly, stumbles and falls the hardest. It aims at being a spontaneous and live talk show, dealing with specific topics (happy/sad, money, evolution). The three guest hosts, aged 13 to 15, are different for each show. They have six weeks of preparation supervised by Scholastic Magazine and four weeks of program briefing by NBC. When they hit something that needs clarifying, they can order up a film and the problem is explained away on a giant screen over their heads. More confused than spontaneous, the show is a mishmash of interrupted thoughts and half-formed ideas.