From the outside, nestled along a very busy street in Beverly Hills, the building looks clean, crisp and maybe a little majestic. Designed by renowned architect Richard Meier [The Getty Center - Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art - Barcelona, Spain; The High Museum of Art - Atlanta], it's certainly an impressive looking building sitting along side all those boutiques. It opened in 1996.

Banners advertising the special exhibition celebrating Cartoon Network's 9 1/2 Birthday gave the impression that it might be a fun place to visit.

Not so. Upon entering, we quickly realized that TV and radio is not fun.

The folks who work here are very serious. Behind the counter at the Information Center, a group of 7 or 8 people, including security guards stood watch. For what, I'm still not sure, but there they were just staring at us and looking very serious. It was both intimidating and annoying.

Also annoying -- every piece of this place has been very clearly and blatantly labeled on behalf of a contributing donor. So by the time we entered the Leonard H. Goldenson Building, walked into the Danny Thomas Lobby, glanced up at the Bud Yorkin Balcony, and stopped over at the Diane English and Joel Shukovsky Information Center -- we already had an Orson Welles sized headache.

"Have you been here before?" asked the serious young man behind the counter.

We sheepishly shook our heads, shuffled our feet, and looked nervously over at the Mary and Norman J. Pattiz Museum Shop.

"Would you like tickets to the John H. Mitchell Theatre, The Sheinberg Family Educational Room, or are you going to the Ahmanson Radio Listening Room?"

We nodded.

"I have tickets available to the 4:00 Muppets screening in The Sheinberg-- do you want those?

I checked my watch. It was 3:15

If you don't take them, somebody else will."

We nodded again.

"Would you like to make a donation?"

With all the rest of the staff staring at us, I just continued nodding, opened my wallet and gave him $10.00. There is no admission, but the suggested donation is $6.00 for adults, $4.00 for students, and $3.00 for children under thirteen. But I couldn't imagine what we were going to do here for the next 45 minutes, so $10.00 seemed appropriate.

The interiors, like the exteriors, are mostly white. White on white on white with light stone accents. With all of large windows and skylights, the place is bright -- really bright. But instead of light and airy, it feels very sterile, serious and squinty. You know that feeling you have when you come out of a dark movie theatre into the mid-day sun? It's like that all the time in here.

The large open lobby is noisy and echoes like crazy, adding a frenetic and edgy feel even with just a handful of people in the area. The staff is no help at all. There's a big difference between rattling off names of theaters and offering real assistance.

The answer to, "What do you suggest we do here?" is never given.

We stumbled from the lobby over to the nearby Bell Family Gallery, which had a series of about 25 photographs on display. Upon closer inspection, they were showcasing make-up -- before and after pictures of actors with various forms of monster, alien, and other latex appliance make-up. Clips of 'The Twilight Zone' and other shows were running on a TV nearby. It was more suited for a local community theatre lobby, and was about as underwhelming.

Next to this display was a staircase, so we headed upstairs -- to the Bud Yorkin Balcony

There wasn't much happening at the balcony.

Just opposite this, is the small David and Larraine Gerber Gallery...

...where a series of framed original Al Hirschfeld caricatures were on display featuring stars of various television shows.

On the lower level the Gloria and David L. Wolper Gallery has another seires of Hirschfeld pictures. Impressive; and wonderful to see his work in person, but who the heck can find them?

From this level, we got a better view into the Danny Thomas Lobby...

and across the way we could see the Carl E. Hirsch Staircase. Don't know where it leads, since it was closed.

It was also here that a museum staff member dashed out of the Stanley E. Hubbard Library and reprimanded me for taking pictures.

"Did you see our sign about not taking pictures?" I tried to play dumb, and told her no. "Well, there are signs all over that say 'no pictures'" and she started to get a bit short with me. "Do you have your tickets?" Oh no. I was envisioning myself getting worked over in the Jack Webb Interrogation Room.

As I reached for the tickets, Dianne and Megan arrived back from the restroom to save me. The museum staff member immediately lightened up. "We don't have copyrights on anything, so pictures, aren't allowed, okay?" A copyright on what, I wondered, off-white interior latex?

"You can take a picture of this area," she said, walking over to the balcony railing and gesturing to the top section of the lobby. The picture above of the Bud Yorkin Balcony is in the general vicinity.

She might have offered to take a picture of us with that as the backdrop, but she didn't. No pictures, means no pictures. She walked back into the library and we headed back downstairs -- through the same nameless staircase that we came up -- and took another picture.

We stopped in at the Mary and Norman J. Pattiz Museum Shop which was right on par with the museum. Weak.

Among all the posters on display of past exhibits, I noticed one that featured a tribute to Charles M. Schulz and the Peanuts gang at the MT&R."Was this Charlie Brown exhibit here or in New York?" I asked the clerk. "I don't know" she replied, "that was before I started working here." And went back to watching her television -- which in this museum, made sense. Cut and print.

We made a quick retreat, back through the Danny Thomas Lobby again, and noticed that during the 20 minutes we were in the Museum of Television & Radio, the staff had created a special section of the museum just for us.

It was just above the door leading back outside -- and we took it.

I would imagine as a resource, for the people it's targeted to, this place is wonderful. On the other hand, if it's not really a place to entertain tourists, or even local visitors [which clearly it is not] why bother? We consider ourselves relatively bright, and we just didn't get it. What does a bus filled with Japanese Tourists do here? Check out old reruns of 'Frazier'? Listen to old episodes of 'Fibber McGee and Molly'?

Granted, we did not access any programs, but we couldn't imagine what show we would watch. And tickets to view a 25 year old special of 'The Muppets' held no appeal at all.

From a PR standpoint, they could not have been less accommodating, helpful or even friendly. We can not recommend this as a place to go for any sort of entertainment value.

[Dianne and Megan opted to not write about his viist -- they felt my comments were enough]