WIDE-OPEN MICROPHONE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 792, 24 September 1954, Page 30

WIDE-OPEN MICROPHONE

-|AVE you ever wanted to see how much fruit you can sample in a fruit-shop before you get thrown out? Or how much noise you can make beneath the "Silence" notice in a library ‘before the same thing happens? Then. here’s an easy way to find out. Listen to the confessions of Candid Microphone, a new and unusual series of comedy programmes tailored to fill top spot on the ZB Sunday air-waves after re Weekly Bind’s presses rumble to a alt. : Allen Funt, one of the first to prove the versatility of tape-recordings, has earned the title "America’s Most Famous Eavesdropper."’ And believe us, he’s earned it. Funt, with his collection of hidden microphones and his ubiquitous tape-recorder, has succeeded in capturing people in the act of living-in their homes, shops, offices-and mighty queer cattle they prove to be. Sometimes Allen Funt takes a leading part in these reallife situations, when, for instance, he strolls into an exclusive custom tailor’s and calmly requests that he make up a zoot suit for a kangaroo. The tailor solves everything but what to do with the tail. Or one of Fufit’s special staff undertakes a role-as when Dick Christman, one of his, double-talking assistants, poses as a Parisian millinery expert, and puts over an expert blend of sense and nonsense to a lady buying a hat. Sometimes Funt lets his candid microphone speak for itself, as in "The First Grade Rhythm Band," or what a patient primary school-teacher has to go through as she rehearses her first anemia

graders for their performance in the school. assembly hall. Some of Allen Funt’s off-guard conversations are not funny. Listeners can take a plunge into the not-so-sporting world when they hear the negotiations of a professional wrestler who is invited to the office of a total stranger who asks him to throw away a wrestling match. The deal is made and all the details worked out while a hidden microphone records every word. On the brighter side the Candid Microphone hidden on the counter of a jeweller’s shop captures two shoe-shine boys who dream someday of owning a watch, and in the waiting-room of a Veterans’ Administration Office a blinded, coloured veteran talks to his legless companion about soldiers, civilians and life, In making these secret recordings, the greatest regard (paradoxically) is observed for the rights of privacy. Allen Funt obtains in every case the written consent of the people involved before he uses the material. The mechanics by which he obtains his interviews are not complicated. He hides his diminutive microphone easily, placing it as a hearing aid, in a tissue box on a counter, or in a lamp. Funt stresses the fact that the purpose of Candid Microphone is not to embarrass people. While he may catch them with their poses down, his: aim is to etch people as they are-just human, work-a-day beings, often battling with insignificant crises. Candid Microphone can be overheard from the ZBs at 8.30 p.m. on Sundays, beginning October 3.