Hi-Ho, Steverino!: My Adventures in the Wonderful Wacky World of TV

Page after page of tired jokes and boasting weaken the nostalgic appeal of this memoir about radio and TV in their palmy days by an author who has spent 50 years in broadcasting. ``Steverino'' started his career in radio during the early 1940s and broke into network TV in 1950 as the first host of ``The Tonight Show.'' He remained a popular and innovative entertainer despite occasional lapses in taste, such as a ``funny routine'' about the 1956 Andrea Doria shipwreck. Although the Italian embassy condemned the comic skit as a ``bad thing: people died,'' Allen recalls the incident as among the most amusing of his life. Other sections of the book are not as abrasive, but the cumulative effect of the performer's self-aggrandizing strains one's patience. (July)