“This tremendous giant of mechanical and technical perfection is just lying there going to waste. Being used daily for the transmission of the biggest pile of pure undiluted horse-shit that was ever assembled on one role of tape.
“Bob, ABC can only go one way, and that is up.
“I promise you that a 7 year old child could do a better job of running it than is being done today. That is what intrigues me—this huge slumbering giant of technical perfection that needs only to be waked up to come to life.”
Lost for a moment in his dreams of arousing this genie, Hughes did not lose sight of the mission he had in mind for the “slumbering giant.”
“Dont forget that every Whitehouse or congressional press conference will, by custom, require the issuance of an invitation to the ABC News correspondent in co-equal position,” he concluded. “And also a co-equal position in reporting every election from now on—not after you build a network up, but right now.”
The White House. Congress. Every election. A network of his own. Right now. With renewed and growing excitement, Hughes again began to plot his takeover of ABC.
This time, he would not try to seize control. That would only mean another round of trouble, new court fights, further demands for his appearance before the FCC. All of it unnecessary. With the right approach, Hughes was certain he could arrange a friendly business deal—“a completely non-hostile take-over with Goldenson’s complete consent.”
And if ABC, still in dire financial straits, would go along quietly, so might the FCC. There was a new administration. Nixon wanted an “elevating” Hughes network, and now he could have one. Besides, some of the commissioners were afraid that without an immediate infusion of capital, ABC, which had already been forced to cut back its programming, might actually go under.
Unfortunately, Hughes too was in something of a bind. With his Nevada business turning sour, the helicopter losses mounting, and a new TWA judgment for $137 million hanging over him, the besieged billionaire was no longer able to blithely consider a cash investment of $200 million.
But he wanted ABC, and he wanted it badly.
“We have got to dig up some money from somewhere,” he wrote Maheu. Perhaps the TWA case could yet be salvaged. Perhaps the disastrous helicopter enterprise could be unloaded. But, if not, Hughes was still determined to get his television network.
Indeed, he wanted ABC so much he was willing to surrender his birthright. He would sell the Hughes Tool Company—the golden goose he had inherited, the foundation of his entire fortune—in order to control television once and for all.
Then, just a week after announcing his final decision to “go on ABC,” Hughes suddenly changed his mind.
It was Saturday night. His penthouse retreat was filled with the sound of raucous laughter. Not that Hughes was happy. The laughter was booming from his TV set, tuned to the network he had decided to buy.
“Welcome back to The Dating Game’!” said the grinning host, his arm around the small black child standing beside him. “It’s time for Marc to choose a delightful gal to share a ‘dream date’ with his dad! All right, Marc. Who will it be? Bachelorette number one? Bachelorette number two? Or bachelorette number three?”
The camera cut to the three starlets. The child considered his choice. “Sorry, there’s the signal,” announced the host. “That means ‘time’s up’!” The child picked bachelorette number two, the actress who loved to cook. She smiled for a close-up while the studio audience applauded.
Hughes watched it all in grim silence. By the time the show was over, he knew he had made a terrible mistake.
“That’s it for tonight,” declared the emcee, throwing a kiss. “Thank you, goodnight, and we hope you always get the date you want! Now make sure to stay tuned for ‘The Newlywed Game,’ next on ABC.”
Hughes continued to stare at the screen. But as he watched the newlyweds bicker, his thoughts kept returning to the outrage he had just witnessed. He reached for his bedside legal pad.
“I just got through watching ABC’s Dating Game and Newlywed Game,” he wrote, “and my only reaction is let’s forget all about ABC.
“Bob, I think all this attention directed toward violence in TV dramatic shows is certainly misplaced. These two game shows represent the largest single collection of poor taste I have ever seen.”
But it was more than mere poor taste that riled the recluse into his sudden about-face. It was the horrendous immorality—the shocking violation—he had witnessed on “The Dating Game.”
“The first show—‘Dating Game’ consisted of a small negro child selecting, sight unseen, one of three girls (adult girls) to make a sexually embellished trip to Rome with his father.
“Two of the girls were negro and one was a very beautiful and attractive white girl. The child chose the white girl, who then was introduced to the negro father of the child and informed that she (the white girl) was to make an all expense paid vacation trip to Rome on TWA.”
Talk about adding insult to injury. Not only did they dare to arrange this sinful interracial assignation, but they were using—no, defiling, TWA—his airline—to boot.
“Bob, the entire handling of the show was, in every way carried out in a manner best calculated to titilate and arouse the sexual response of the audience. The whole show was of such a marginal character, sex-wise, that, if it had been presented as a motion picture to the governing body of the movie industry, its acceptance would have been very uncertain at best.
“But, let me explain that I make the above comment based upon the subject matter and the treatment of the show, without any consideration whatsoever of the racial issue.
“Then, on top of the very marginal show of miserable taste, which I have attempted to describe above, they have to compound the abuse of any conceivable moral standard by arranging a sexual rendezvous between a beautiful white girl and a negro man in Rome, which may even be in violation of the law.
“And all of this is done solely for one purpose: to shock and arouse the sexual response of the audience so as to obtain a higher rating from the TV polls for the benefit of the sponsors.
“Please consider this entire affair most carefully, Bob, to see if it gives you any ideas.”
The two-hundred-million-dollar ABC deal was dead.
After months of frenzied effort, after all those sleepless nights, after plotting to collar a president and seize the balance of power, after planning to auction off the most profitable part of his empire, Howard Hughes had finally abandoned his grand quest for a national television network over a game show.
It was the collision of pure kitsch with pure power, a twilight-zone encounter between low camp and high finance.
Everything had come full circle. His struggle to control television, his dream of controlling the world through television, all came to nought because, in the end, Hughes was himself controlled by television.
It was as if the billionaire had finally entered the TV set he watched so compulsively, passing through its screen like Alice through the looking glass, the real “mystery bachelor” stepping out of his offstage isolation booth to join “The Dating Game,” only to discover that his chosen “dream date”—ABC—was soiled merchandise.
There was, however, one last twist, an irony that Hughes himself never discovered. Had he known, an entire network might well have fallen into his hands.
The “beautiful white girl” whose race-mixing Roman rendezvous so outraged Hughes was, in reality, a light-skinned black.