At This Same Time Tomorrow...

It was a moment that thousands of U.S. moppets would long remember. Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy,* had just leaped, with suitable sound effects, from a plane. The hero wore a suit of armor and two parachutes. But one chute failed to open. Then it developed that something was wrong with the other chute, too. Jack plunged earthward. . . .

By that time it was 6:44 p.m., E.D.T. and the announcer broke in with the standard cliffhanger: tune in tomorrow and hear what happened. Next day, listeners learned that Jack had survived: he had taken the unusual precaution of packing a third parachute, which he whipped out just in time for a safe landing.

But there was still another ending to the episode. Comfortable, florid ABC Vice President Ed Borroff was among the listeners that day. A longtime critic of such programs, he decided that the cliff-hang ending had gone quite far enough. Last week Borroff gave orders which may chip away dangerously at the foundations of all soap operas, as well as kid-chillers. Jack Armstrong and his running mate, Sky King, he ruled, need more time, less suspense. After Aug. 25 the shows will be heard on alternate days and stretched to a full half hour. Each day there will be a complete episode--and no more cliff-hangs.

* Who a fortnight ago began his 16th year on the air.

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