May 7, 1947: comedian Henry Morgan and his sidekick Arnold Stang encounter one another on the street in a sketch on Morgan’s show:

ARNOLD: Well, well…Henry Morgan!!!

HENRY: Well…hello Arnold!

ARNOLD: Say, Henry…I heard your show last night…

HENRY: How’d you like it?

ARNOLD: Great, great…it was all I could do to keep from laughin’…

HENRY: Thanks a lot, I guess…by the way, I heard your show last week…

ARNOLD: Oh yeah? I’m glad you caught it…

HENRY: Yeah, yeah…I was at a party…you know how it is…everybody drinking…some drunk turned it on…

ARNOLD: Well, what’d you think of it?

HENRY: Well…there was a lot of noise…it didn’t come in very well…

ARNOLD: What kind of noise?

HENRY: I was talking…

ARNOLD: Oh…

HENRY: But, say…that was a good joke you had there about Sinatra and the pipe cleaner…

ARNOLD: Sinatra and the pipe cleaner? That’s Bob Hope’s, isn’t it?

HENRY: Yeah, that’s right…but I like the way you told it…by the way, how’s your Hooper rating?

ARNOLD: Well, it’s eh…ehh…aw, that rating doesn’t mean a thing…

HENRY: Mine’s not so good either…as a matter of fact, you see, the trouble with me is…I’ve got a terrific listening audience that can’t get phones…

ARNOLD: Sure…say, Henry, by the way…did you have a studio audience last night?

HENRY: Why, certainly!

ARNOLD: I knew it! I told my wife that! I could swear I heard breathin’…but my wife read somewhere you got asthma…

HENRY: Tell the truth, I don’t think the studio audience could hear the show…

ARNOLD: Oh…that’s a shame…why not?

HENRY: Well…some guy, sitting in the front row, brought in a portable radio…and tuned in a ball game…you know, that be awfully distracting…

ARNOLD: Oh, certainly…by the way, who won?

HENRY: The Dodgers, from what I could hear up on the stage…

ARNOLD: Well, you gotta a great show, Henry…a great show…so long!

HENRY: Oh, you’ve got a great show, too…so long!

ARNOLD (muttering): Boy, if he’s a comedian, I’m Jack Dempsey…

HENRY (muttering): Boy, if he’s a comedian, I’m Jack Dempsey…

Every once in a while, an OTR fan will stumble onto a program that provides an unexpected surprise of sheer listening delight—in my case, it’s The Henry Morgan Show. I bought six CDs containing twelve of Morgan’s 1947 broadcasts a week or so ago, and I have laughed, chuckled, guffawed and tee-heed through every last one of them.

“Radio’s bad boy” is the nickname used to describe Henry Morgan, an enfant terrible who presented some of the most razor-sharp (and the pun is intended, as a tribute to his sponsor Eversharp) satire ever broadcast during Radio’s Golden Age. While I know it’s a cliché to classify an individual as “being ahead of their time,” Morgan is the yardstick by which ahead-of-their-timers should be measured. His brazen, combative, in-your-face comedic style of take-no-prisoners satire was completely out of step with the kindler, gentler radio comedy of the 1940s—which may be the reason why I believe his shows have such a contemporary feel today.

Henry, like his contemporaries Stan Freberg and Bob & Ray—was a child of radio, and not the vaudeville that produced so many of radio’s big name comedians. He began a radio career at an early age as a studio page for New York’s WMCA in 1932, working his way up through the ranks to become an announcer. But he rarely stayed in place too long, moving from station-to-station as a result of constantly being fired for either tardiness or insubordination. He would often become bored while on the air, and would ad-lib wisecracks like “Dark clouds, followed by silver linings” or “Snow, followed by little boys with sleds” during weather reports in an effort to stay awake.

By 1940, Morgan was employed by New York’s WOR and the station’s powers-that-be were not amused by his antics—it was thought that if they gave the young upstart a 15-minute program buried on Saturday mornings it might help get the foolishness out of his system. The show (Here’s Morgan) soon attracted a loyal local following—among his fans were Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and Fred Allen—that took a shine to his breezy, don’t-give-a-damn sarcasm; soon his show was extended to three times and then six times a week. (For a brief time, Here’s Morgan alternated on weekdays with The Adventures of Superman, so Henry took to calling himself “Supermorg.”)

Fred Allen had tried to put pressure on NBC to offer Morgan his own network show, but it wasn’t until he was hired by ABC affiliate WJZ that the wheels were set in motion for a prime-time network series, beginning on September 2, 1946 over ABC Radio. The program was now a weekly half-hour show complete with announcer (who introduced the broadcast every week with an incredulous “The Henry Morgan Show?”), writers, director, and orchestra to boot. Morgan would be introduced to the strains of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and would offer up a casual “Good evening, anybody…here’s Morgan” (which he had cribbed from Kate Smith’s popular greeting “Hello everybody!”).

Henry also surrounded himself with a first-rate supporting cast of players that included Florence Halop, Madeleine Lee, Art Carney and Arnold Stang. Stang soon became the most popular performer on Morgan’s show; he had a distinctively nasal Brooklynese voice and with it created a memorable character named Gerard—which later turned up on Milton Berle’s television show as well. (Radio Life once commented that the program should have been called “The Arnold Stang Show.”)

Eversharp, a manufacturer of both shaving razors and writing instruments, was the first sponsor of The Henry Morgan Show, and you sort of have to wonder how they managed to put up with him for so long. Part of Morgan’s bad-boy reputation lay in the fact that he held sponsors in absolute contempt and frequently made them the butt of his jokes. Henry once accused the Life Savers company (a sponsor of his old WOR show) of cheating their customers by drilling holes in the candy, and he offered to market the missing pieces as “Morgan’s Mint Middles.” (The candy company was not amused, and cancelled their sponsorship the next day.) Naturally, Morgan gave the Eversharp people a real beating, subtly changing their slogan of “push-pull, click-click” to “push-pull, nick-nick.” When Eversharp dropped their sponsorship in 1947, citing Morgan’s low ratings, weak material, and dismal sales, he responded to their charges with “It’s not my show, it’s their razor.” The Rayve Shampoo folks picked up the program, and Henry gave them an equal drubbing as well.

An example of the high regard in which Morgan held commercial sponsors is evident in this sketch from a May 7, 1947 broadcast, in which Henry and announcer Charles Irving are two gentlemen “who write the commercials you hear on the radio…and the advertisements you read in the magazines.” We take you to the bar of a local restaurant:

HENRY: Hello, Charlie…

CHARLES: Hello, Henry, how ya feelin’?

HENRY: Not so good, Charlie…I’ve been having headaches…

CHARLES: Oh, that’s too bad…you should try Three-Way Headache Tablets…

HENRY: I did…but I get four-way headaches…front, back and both sides…can’t seem to catch up with that fourth side…

CHARLES: Well, what’ll you have, Henry?

HENRY: Well, uh…I’ll have a glass of Ballanfantz…the ale that makes rings on the bar when you set the glass down…

CHARLES: How’s it taste, Henry?

HENRY: Tell you the truth, old man…I’ve been so fascinated making rings I’ve never drunk any…

CHARLES: Well, I’m having a glass of Chateau Frobischer wine…the domestic wine that makes you want to apply for a passport…

HENRY: Yes…people all tell their friends about Chateau Frobischer …but it doesn’t seem to hurt the sales any…Chateau Frobischer is made only from the center grape of each bunch…these grapes are trampled by the feet of postal clerks…as the grapes are shipped East inside soundproof mail bags…

CHARLES: Henry, you make it sound so attractive…

HENRY: Always remember, Charlie…when you drink Chateau Frobischer…that’s what you’re drinking…

CHARLES: Hey, Henry…if I do say so, you certainly smell good…what’s that stuff you’re using?

HENRY: I’m using He-Man Cologne…the perfume with a he-man aroma…yes, comes in three fragrances, you know…Gymnasium, Barroom, Smoking Car Number Five…all you have to do is put a dab of Gymnasium under each knuckle, and you can convince the wife you’ve been playing handball all evening…

Morgan’s show left ABC after a two-year run, but resurfaced on NBC in March of 1949, sponsored by Camel cigarettes and later, Bristol Myers. It departed the airwaves on June 20, 1950, and it’s difficult to tell whether it was because he ran out of sponsors to tick off or because he was blacklisted for a brief time as a result of his ex-wife’s left-wing associations (or perhaps a combination of the two). Morgan later set up shop as a panelist on the TV game show I’ve Got a Secret (his friend, Fred Allen, also did the same—appearing as a regular for a short time on What’s My Line?) and was a cast member of the 1960s satirical program That Was the Week That Was. He also played William Windom’s editor on the woefully short-lived TV comedy My World and Welcome to It. (It’s a shame no one has saw fit to releasing to either VHS or DVD his starring film feature So This is New York (1948) or Murder, Inc. (1960), in which he acquits himself nicely as an FBI agent. I caught New York in a late night slot on a local TV station and I'll bet that was close to fifteen years ago.)

My enthusiasm for Henry Morgan no doubt stems from my admiration for Fred Allen, since the two comedians had similar comedic styles (Morgan was even a frequent guest on Fred’s show, including his last broadcast). But while Allen managed to distance himself by concentrating his satire in the mouths of other characters, Morgan was more up-front and pugnacious—and didn’t possess the clout that Fred had acquired over his long radio career. Gerald Nachman, author of Raised on Radio, sums it up succinctly: “If Fred Allen bit the hand that fed him, Henry Morgan tried to bite off the whole arm.”
11:05:24 AM    comment []  trackback []  

The continuing adventures of The Affairs of Peter Salem

Jack French sent the OTR Digest a link to the story about the recent discovery of that five-minute fragment from the old-time radio detective series The Affairs of Peter Salem.
10:55:18 AM    comment []  trackback []  

“What a revoltin’ development this is!”

The origin of The Life of Riley, a popular sitcom than ran on radio from 1944 to 1951, can be traced all the way back to Groucho Marx. At least, that’s the version from Riley’s creator--Irving Brecher--who relates the series of events as beginning in 1943.

Brecher, an MGM screenwriter who had scripted the films At the Circus (1939) and Go West (1940) for Groucho and his brothers, was approached by the cigar-smoking comedian one day—Marx wanted his friend to create a radio show tailored to his talents. Brecher recalled that Groucho’s “radio show had been cancelled recently, in an abrupt fashion that had humiliated him.” (If this did take place in 1943, I’m at a loss as to which show Brecher is referring to—Groucho was starring on CBS’ Blue Ribbon Town at this point in time, and would continue to headline the comedy-variety series until mid-June 1944.) Irving confessed to Groucho that he had nothing for him at the present time, only an idea for a sitcom he called “The Flotsam Family.” The idea was that Groucho would play the head of a household in which the father “floated like flotsam” from job-to-job; often engaged in various hare-brained, get-rich-quick schemes. Groucho was sold on the idea and arranged for an audition record to be produced—but the would-be sponsor ultimately thumbed-down the idea, feeling that Marx simply wouldn’t be believable as a family patriarch.

Months later, Brecher was attending a sneak preview for a friend’s film when he happened to spot actor William Bendix in a Hal Roach "steamliner": The McGuerins of Brooklyn. The screenwriter believed that Bendix would be perfect for the part of “Flotsam,” and in contacting the actor’s agent, learned that Bendix had expressed an interest in doing a radio show. Brecher made a few changes to the script, and an audition record (which is in circulation today) was cut on July 25, 1943. The audition was well received, and the show—after securing a sponsor in the American Meat Institute—debuted over Blue/ABC on January 16, 1944 as The Life of Riley.

Riley was a family sitcom that focused on Chester A. Riley, a welder and expatriate of Brooklyn who had relocated to Los Angeles with his wife Peg and children Babs and Junior in tow. He was a beefy, lovable lunkhead who blundered his way week after week into some minor catastrophe, and usually had to be extricated from such predicaments by his sensible, down-to-earth spouse (Paula Winslowe). He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he remained a good-hearted slob through it all.

Two friends that were in Riley’s social circle were both played by the same actor: veteran radio performer John Brown. The first of these two pals was Riley’s coworker/neighbor Jim Gillis, whom Riley often consulted for advice; the net result generally getting Riley further in hot water. Gillis had a nagging spouse named Honeybee (played by Shirley Mitchell) and a son with the bully-magnet moniker of “Egbert.”

Riley’s other confidant on the program was a character created by Brecher on an occasion when the show was running two minutes short. The script was expanded to include Riley striking up a conversation with a person named Digby O’Dell—“the friendly undertaker.” (Riley referred to him as “Digger.”) Actor Brown used a gloomy, sepulchral voice for O’Dell, who usually greeted Riley with “You’re looking fine, Riley – very natural.” The sponsor (and more than a few undertakers) balked at the gallows humor than emanated from the funeral parlor director, but the audience took a shine to Digger—and from that moment on, each broadcast was good for at least one walk-on from the character. (Brecher credits the undertaker with saving the comedy from an almost certain cancellation.)

I listened to a Life of Riley broadcast from November 11, 1949 the other evening—it was a fairly average outing for the sitcom, save for one particularly interesting casting change which I’ll reveal in a moment. As the episode opens, Riley is attempting to cadge some extra money from his wife for yet another one of his schemes:

RILEY: For five dollars I can buy “Dr. Flexo’s Marvel Muscle Builder”…

PEG: Muscle builder? What on earth do you want a thing like that for?

RILEY: It’s just what I need…here…listen to what it says on this circular…”Do your muscles sag? Are you gettin’ fat and flabby? In thirty days, I guarantee to make you a Greek god…”

PEG: You?

RILEY: Yeah…

PEG: A Greek god?

RILEY: Why not?

PEG: In thirty days?

RILEY: Well, the god part, yes…but the Greek might take a little longer…

Peg reminds her husband that he’s supposed to be collecting for the neighborhood Community Chest drive—an organization that is generally referred to nowadays as the United Way:

PEG: There are more important things you can do with your spare time…now how about getting to work on the Community Chest drive? You insisted they make you captain of the district…

RILEY: I’m workin’ on it…don’t I wear a red feather in my hat?

PEG: You haven’t done one solitary thing so far…

RILEY: How can you say that? Didn’t I make up a list of names to contact?

PEG: You did not…I got those names out of the phone book…

RILEY: And who handed you the phone book? Me!

Riley makes several attempts to collect donations, all of them ending up in failure. He orders Peg not to do his collecting for him—but daughter Babs (Barbara Eiler) takes the initiative to secure a few pledges and the two women decide to hide the collected funds out of Riley’s sight by placing them in a box of corn flakes. Naturally, being a sitcom, Riley and pal Gillis return home from their lodge meeting and decide to have a midnight snack:

RILEY: Hey! How ‘bout some corn flakes?

GILLIS: Okay! I’ll force myself…

RILEY: Okay, Gillis…say when…there you are, Gillis…

GILLIS: Riley, I wanted corn flakes, not lettuce…and with Lincoln’s picture on it yet…

RILEY: Gil…Gil…Gillis! That’s money there!

GILLIS: What a bundle! A hundred…twenty…thirty…a hundred and forty-eight bucks!

RILEY: I don’t understand…I know they give away little prizes in cereal boxes, but…a hundred and forty-eight bucks? Kellogg is gettin’ careless…

Gillis convinces Riley to take the wad of cash, planting the idea in his head that Peg has been skimming off funds from the household money and that’s how she accumulated the loot. But Riley decides to be “bigger” than Peg and donate the $148 to…the Community Chest:

JUNIOR: Don’t worry…Mom won’t be sore at you when she finds out how much you gave to the community chest…

RILEY: You know? How did you find out?

JUNIOR: The whole neighborhood knows…when I was delivering my papers everybody said what a great guy you were, Pop…

RILEY: No kiddin’? Well…well, it’s about time my true character leaked out…

JUNIOR: My school teacher made a speech about you…about good citizenship…gee, I’m proud of you, Pop…

RILEY: So am I, son…

JUNIOR: How’s it feel to be such a big shot?

RILEY: Ah, what’d I do? Money don’t mean anything to me when it’s a question of helpin’ my brother…

JUNIOR: Oh, Pop…can I have a dollar?

RILEY: You’re not my brother, you’re my son…

Riley ends up relenting and giving his son (Alan Reed, Jr.) the dollar after Junior tells him he wants to take his date to the neighborhood theater—the new Tarzan film is playing, and the theater is doing a stunt for the film in which a real, live baboon will be in a cage in a lobby. Riley and Junior head off for the neighborhood’s Community Chest meeting, where the crowd turns on our hero when it is determined that Riley's donation is suspiciously equal to the same amount everyone else in the district kicked in for the cause. (The fact that Peg has discovered that the money is missing and blurts this out in front of their assembled neighbors doesn’t help Riley much either.) Dejected, Riley runs off, and is bemoaning his situation when help arrives from a man dressed in black:

RILEY: Ah, what a mess…I’ve been in pretty deep before, but I’ll never be in any deeper than I am right now…

O’DELL: Would you care to bet?

RILEY: Who’s that???

O’DELL: It is I…Digby O’Dell…the friendly undertaker…

RILEY: Oh…I didn’t see ya, “Digger”…

O’DELL: Greetings, Riley…you’re looking…you look horrible!

RILEY: “Digger”…I’m at the end of my rope…

O’DELL: Then I’d better go along with you…

RILEY: You see…I was the captain in the Community Chest drive…

O’DELL: Bully for you! As I always say, the good that you do unto people will come back to you in the end…and so will the people…

RILEY: Yeah, I know…that’s why I wanted to make good at this job…

O’DELL: Why, I’m an old hand at charity…I’m president of a group that regularly sends a parcel of food to needy families…it’s the U.E.P.B.O.M.C…

RILEY: The U.E.P.B.O.M.C.???

O’DELL: The Undertakers, Embalmers and Pallbearers Box of the Month Club…

RILEY: Well, I…I like the Community Chest better…I messed everything up…I found a hundred and forty-eight dollars in the house…by mistake, I turned it in under my own name…you see, my wife hid it in this box and I thought it was my money…

O’DELL: Oh, Riley…you deserve to be chastised…always snooping…

RILEY: What’s wrong? Didn’t you ever look in a box to see what’s in it?

O’DELL: Let’s not talk shop…

RILEY: Ah…everybody thinks I’m a crook…oh, if only I could square myself…

O’DELL: You can…simply donate a hundred and forty-eight dollars of your own money to the drive…

RILEY: Hey, that might do it! But where will I get all that money?

O’DELL: Eureka! I have it! A job for you!

RILEY: A job? Where???

O’DELL: Come with me…

(SFX: walking)

RILEY: Gee, you’re a real pal, Digger…someday I’m gonna do something for you…you name it, what can I do for you that you’ll really like?

O’DELL: Don’t bother…you might not like it…well, come along…we’d better be…shoveling off…

Riley goes home to face the music, and tells his family (who, of course, have forgiven him for the simple misunderstanding) of his commitment to donate the same amount to the Community Chest—even informing them of his plans to take a part-time job in order to do so. His family is naturally curious as to the nature of the job, but Riley remains reluctant to tell them. It’s only when Junior reminds his father that he’s taking a date to the Tarzan film that Riley spills the beans: “But please, son…when you walk in the lobby and see that real, live baboon in the cage…don’t say, ‘Hello, Pop!’ I ain’t allowed to talk durin’ workin’ hours…”

What makes this Riley broadcast so unusual is that it is the only episode William Bendix missed during the show’s long run. At the time of this broadcast, Bendix was working on a picture for Columbia entitled Kill the Umpire (1950)—and he was suffering from a sore throat, so much so that he was unable to perform. Pinch hitting for Bendix? Jackie Gleason.

Yes, the Great One himself. NBC brought The Life of Riley to television starting October 4, 1949 and when Bendix was unable to do the TV version due to contractual obligations, Gleason was tapped for the role of Chester A. Riley. But Bendix’s portrayal was so indelible in the minds of the audience that they simply wouldn’t accept Gleason, and the series was cancelled after one season. (Bendix would take a second crack at his famous role in another version of Riley on NBC-TV that premiered January 2, 1953; that show resulted in a healthy five-year-run.)

Many years after Riley had run its course and was living “the life of retirement” in television reruns, series creator Irving Brecher encountered actor Carroll O’Connor at a party during the time O’Connor was enjoying his great success on All in the Family. According to Brecher, O’Connor paid him a compliment by remarking: “We’re doing your program with freedom. We’re doing The Life of Riley with the freedom you couldn’t have.” Personally, I think comparing the two shows is a bit of stretch; still, Brecher also stated once that Gleason’s The Honeymooners was essentially Riley “without children.” You need to make the call. I do, however, highly recommend the original—an excellent example of great situation comedy during the Golden Age of Radio.
8:35:11 AM    comment []  trackback []