The New Shows

Omnibus (Sundays, 4:30 p.m., CBS-TV) dedicates an hour and a half to "exceedingly various" experiences in the arts and skills. The show is aimed, says Spokesman Alistair Cooke, at middlebrow audiences. What gives the program its theoretical latitude is the fact that it was designed (and is supported) by the Ford Foundation, whose object is not money but an attempt to exploit new TV horizons. The first show of the series set the pace for the future: two original plays (The Badmen, by William Saroyan, and The Trial of Anne Boleyn, by Maxwell Anderson); excerpts from The Mikado, with Britain's famed Martyn Green; two short films (Witch Doctor, an authentic Haitian dance with Jean Leon Destine, and clips from an X-ray movie).

Spokesman Cooke, famed for his BBC broadcasts from the U.S., strolls from experience to experience, doing his urbane best to lace a heterogeneous program together. Once minor production flaws are cleared up, Omnibus should be one of the smoothest, most informative shows in television. This week's second production gave proof of the hope. The bill was tighter, better edited and smaller. There were fewer features, including Menotti's miniature opera, The Telephone, and the first of a five-part Abraham Lincoln story written by James (The Quiet One) Agee and directed by Documentary Producer Louis de Rochemont. New experiences forthcoming: Helen Hayes in J. M. Barrie's The Twelve-Pound Look; Metropolitan Opera productions.

My Hero (Saturdays, 7:30 p.m., NBCTV) stars Cinemactor Robert Cummings in a filmed series about Robert Beanblossom, a bumbling real-estate salesman who is "a sort of likable jerk." He sets the tone of the leading character in the first show as he barely holds to his job and desperately tries to earn some commissions ("Even my friends are making more money than I am, and they're unemployed"). The gags are broad (Cummings to a vamp: "Be careful, I'm already committed." Vamp to Cummings: "You may have to be, when I'm through with you"), and so is all the acting, but there are plenty of simple-minded laughs. The Bob Hope Show (weekdays, 9:30 a.m., NBC) is designed strictly for housewives who want something to laugh at over their vacuum cleaners before tuning in the soap operas. Hope handles the job in snappy style (before a live audience of ladies), dots the radio program with interviews and a weekly "guest lady editor," e.g., Zsa Zsa Gabor, Cobina Wright Sr.

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