Next up at 9:30pm, The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope. Bob, of course, kicks things off with his opening monologue:

BOB: …yesterday I went to the post office to mail some packages—what a line…believe it or not, just standing in line I passed my own house twice…I never saw a line that long before…I had a package I wanted to mail to a friend of mine in Boston, and by the time I walked to the end of the line I handed it to him…

After that, Bob brings out his resident stooge, “Professor” Jerry Colonna:

BOB: Professor, this is the gay Yuletide season, you know…you look as if you were down in the dumps…

COLONNA: Egad…he knows where his present is coming from…

BOB: Well, Professor…tell us something about Christmas in Hollywood…

COLONNA: All right…you know, people in Hollywood take everything for granted…for instance, every night for weeks now Santa Claus has been riding up and down Hollywood Boulevard…Hope, you yourself have seen Santa riding up and down Hollywood Boulevard…but do you know why he keeps riding up and down the boulevard night after night?

BOB: No…why?

COLONNA: Can’t find parking space…

A sprightly version of “Winter Wonderland” by the show’s resident female vocalist, Francis Langford then follows, as she is accompanied by the vocal group Six Hits and a Miss. While reading the liner notes to this particular CD I came across an interesting trivial tidbit that I had to file in the “I-Did-Not-Know-That” department: at the time of this broadcast, the “Miss” in the vocal group was none other than Betty Hutton (who later sings the song “Toytown Jamboree,” being introduced by Hope as “Vitamin-B with legs”). Hutton, a hyperkinetic blonde singer/actress, would later co-star with Bob in the 1943 musical comedy Let’s Face It (they had previously appeared in the all-star cast of 1942’s Star Spangled Rhythm).

Bob’s announcer, Ben Gage, then introduces the show’s special guest, British actress Madeleine Carroll:

BEN: Ladies and gentlemen…we members of the cast of this show have been wondering for a long time what we should give Bob Hope for Christmas…of course, we could give him the same thing he gave us…but he’s already got an autographed picture of Bob Hope…so tonight, we’ve got a real surprise for Bob…something Bob has always really wanted…something I’m sure any man would be glad to find in his Christmas stocking…and here she is, one of Hollywood’s most glamorous stars, currently seen in Paramount’s Bahama Passage—Miss Madeleine Carroll!

MADELEINE: Thank you, Mr. Gage…goodness, but you’re big, aren’t you?

BEN: Yes, I am rather tall…and muscular…

MADELEINE: You know, I like big, strong men like you…I think they’re…

BOB: Uh, pardon me, Madeleine…Madeleine, honey…

MADELEINE: Quiet, shorty.

BEN: You know…I could go for you, Miss Carroll…

MADELEINE: Oh, Ben…call me Mad…

BOB: Call me mad, too…

MADELEINE: You know, that was a lovely speech you made, Ben, when you introduced me before…would you like to find me in your Christmas stocking?

BOB: Look at the size of that foot…he could get the Andrews Sisters in there…

(snip)

BOB: Come on now, Ben…scram!

BEN: Bob, you’re being unfair…after all, the gang and I got Madeleine down here as a Christmas present to you…

BOB: Oh, you did…have you arranged for Madeleine’s salary, too?

BEN: Sure…we’re all gonna chip in as soon as you pay us…

MADELEINE: I guess I’ll have to dream the rest…

BOB: You’ll get paid, Madeleine…and seeing that you’re English, your salary for tonight will be a thousand pounds…

MADELEINE: A thousand pounds? No, Bob…I couldn’t take it…

BOB: Oh gee, that’s a shame…and after I had all the Pepsodent weighed out, too…

Carroll was a frequent guest star on Hope’s program, and Bob liked her so much that he dubbed her “My Favorite Blonde”—which was later used as the title of a comedy the two of them made together that has more than a passing similarity to the classic 1935 Hitchcock film The 39 Steps in which she co-starred with Robert Donat. There is a brief mention on this broadcast of their cinematic collaboration:

MADELEINE: But seriously, Bob…I think you’re quite handsome and I love working with you in our new picture…

BOB: Oh…do you mean it, Maddie?

MADELEINE: Certainly…I’m very happy with you as my leading man…gosh, I made pictures with Gary Cooper, Brian Aherne, Robert Preston and Fred MacMurray…but sometimes a girl gets tired of appearing with actors…

BOB: Wait a minute, Madeleine, now…people have told me that I’m an actor of the first water…

MADELEINE: Bob…in Hollywood, that’s just a polite way of saying you’re a drip…

The last third of the show is a funny sketch that has Bob throwing a Christmas party for the show’s regulars. I’m not sure who was writing the “stingy” jokes for Bob at this time, but my guess would be Milt Josefsberg, who worked for Hope before joining Jack Benny’s writing staff in 1943:

BOB: Say, Maddie…don’t you think it was swell of me to invite the whole gang over to my house for a Christmas party this year?

MADELEINE: Yes, Bob…and I think thirty-five cents is very reasonable…

BOB: Madeleine…come over here and sit down, huh?

MADELEINE: Bob…I don’t like that smile on your face…you’ve got that “come hither” look in your nose…

BOB: Oh, Madeleine…why do you avoid me like this? Am I, perchance, unattractive?

MADELEINE: Of course not, Bob…why, I think you’re one of the handsomest men in Hollywood…

BOB: What makes you say that? My eyes? My lips? Or my profile?

MADELEINE: My script…

At the show’s end, Francis Langford sings a beautiful rendition of “Silent Night,” and is joined by the cast. For the next four-plus decades, Bob Hope would use this traditional Christmas number for the close of all his USO Christmas shows.
12:04:51 PM    comment []  trackback []  

Ringing in the holidays

I mentioned in a previous Thrilling Days of Yesteryear post that I had listened to a pair of shows originally broadcast back-to-back on a chilly Chicago winter night in March of 1949. Last night, there was an encore, Christmas style: both holiday programs were from December 23, 1941.

It’s Tuesday night, 9:00pm, and on Fibber McGee & Molly, our favorite comedy couple (Jim & Marian Jordan) have received a Christmas gift of a set of electric door chimes—but from whom? The usual suspects begin to arrive at 79 Wistful Vista, beginning with society grand dame Abigail Uppington (Isabel Randolph):

FIBBER: By the way, Uppy…did you by any chance send us an electric chime doorbell for Christmas?

ABIGAIL: Nooo…no, I did not, Mr. McGee…but I must say, I admire your blunt way of inquiring…I simply detest people who hint…

FIBBER: I do, too, Uppy…although when I was a cub reporter years ago I was always the diplomat…

MOLLY: Oh, sure…

FIBBER: Yes, you betcha…yes sir, never used to ask a direct question if I could help it…but if there was any inside dope I wanted, I got it…”Get That Dope McGee,” I was knowed in them days…

MOLLY: Oh my…

What follows next is a device often used by writer Don Quinn to highlight Fibber’s little “fibs”—an alliterative tongue-twister delivered by Jordan at breakneck speed to the delight of the audience, who would marvel at just how far the actor would go before running out of breath:

FIBBER: “Get That Dope McGee”…the dashing, daring darling of the dailies and the ding-dong dipsy-doodle daddy of the dirt dishers…diligently deviling dignified diplomats for delicate details…discreetly dictating data difficult to decipher and deliberately denouncing dangerous demagogues drooping with dubious dialogue designed to develop defeatism…doin’ my duty with a dearth of dilly-dallying, despite the dirty digs of the desperate dogs who determined to damper my do-or-die disposition and deteriorated a diggity dynamo into a drippety droop…a dandy detective at darting death and danger (by this time, completely out-of-breath) and doesn’t this description sound like a total stranger?

After a nice wartime tune by the show’s female vocalist, Martha Tilton—“He’s 1-A in the Army and He’s A-1 in My Heart”—the McGees return to the subject of the new door chimes:

FIBBER: Hey, Molly…this is gonna be a pretty snazzy doorbell, you know it?

MOLLY: Yes…but who do we get to install it, dearie? An electrician?

FIBBER: Nahhh…I can do it myself…

MOLLY: Oh no…no, no, please, let’s not go into that again…

FIBBER: Whaddya mean? I fixed the thermostat on the furnace last week, didn’t I? It works at the touch of a finger now!

MOLLY: Sure it does, sure…at the touch of a finger you get a shock that melts your bobby pins!

(snip)

FIBBER: Hey, Molly…do you suppose this doorbell runs on batteries or the regular house current or how?

MOLLY: Well, uh…why don’t you experiment a little, dearie? You’re a wonderful lad with electricity…

FIBBER: You really think so?

MOLLY: Why, sure I do…who else could have wired the vacuum cleaner so it runs and hides under the davenport every time I plug it in?

Radio veteran Gale Gordon makes a stop at the McGee house in his long-running role as Wistful Vista’s Mayor LaTrivia (a punny reference to New York City’s real-life Mayor LaGuardia):

FIBBER: Excuse me just a minute, LaTriv…uh, look—did you send us an electric chime doorbell for Christmas?

LaTRIVIA: I did not. I didn’t send you anything for Christmas…

FIBBER: You mean yet…

MOLLY (reproachfully) McGee…

LaTRIVIA: Except for my immediate family and employees, McGee, I’m putting my Christmas budget into defense bonds and stamps…

MOLLY: Good for you, Mr. Mayor…we’ve got to back up our buck privates with our private bucks…which is an old sayin’ I just made up…

LaTRIVIA: Exactly. Now, McGee—you’ve been hounding me for a job with the city…

FIBBER: Oh, I wouldn’t say hounding you, LaTrivia…oh, I’ll admit I’ve been kinda scratchin’ ‘round, waggin’ my tail…

MOLLY: Well, uh…have you got something lined up for him, Mr. Mayor?

LaTRIVIA: I think so. (lowers voice) Are we alone?

FIBBER: Nobody here but us chickens, LaTriv…

LaTRIVIA: McGee…how are you on disguises?

MOLLY: Heavenly days…detective work?

FIBBER: How am I on disguises (chuckles) funny you should ask that, LaTrivia…why, when I was a cinder dick for the ol’ TSR railroad…

LaTRIVIA: Uh…what railroad was the TSR?

MOLLY: The Topeka, Sauganash and Rochester…better known to the passengers as the “Two Streaks of Rust”…

FIBBER: When I was a detective on the TSR, LaTrivia…I was known as “The Man With a Thousand Faces”…

LaTRIVIA: You had your choice of a thousand faces and went back to your own?

In addition to LaTrivia, Gordon also played Molly’s old boyfriend, Otis Cadwallader, and one of my favorite Fibber McGee & Molly characters—“Foggy” Williams, Wistful Vista’s resident weatherman, who usually ended his conversations with the McGees with “Good day…probably!”

Fibber is disappointed when LaTrivia informs him that his expertise in disguises will serve him well in the job of playing Santa Claus, greeting visitors at Wistful Vista’s City Hall Park (Molly: “Well, Man of a Thousand Faces…it looks like you’re holding the bag again”). But his spirits brighten considerably when his former next door neighbor and nemesis—Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Hal Peary)—makes a surprise Christmas visit appearance. Fibber McGee & Molly listeners are no doubt aware that Gildersleeve had been moved to a town called Summerfield; spun-off into his own comedy series (The Great Gildersleeve) a few months earlier.

FIBBER: Yes sir, Gildersleeve…you don’t look a day older than when you left…

GILDY: Oh? Well…

FIBBER: …not that you were any chicken then…

GILDY: Yeesh…

MOLLY: Will you have another cup of tea, Mr. Gildersleeve?

GILDY: Uh, no thank you…

FIBBER: I should hope not…you had six…

GILDY: I have not! I’ve only had five, McGee!

FIBBER: Whaddya mean, five? You had one at the coffee table…one while you were snooping through our Christmas cards…another one…

MOLLY (interrupting): Ah now, McGee, stop…he’s welcome to all the tea he can drink…

GILDY: Thank you, Mrs. McGee…my goodness…I never thought my little chum would begrudge Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve a miserable little cup of tea…

FIBBER: Whaddya mean, miserable? My wife makes the best tea in this whole…

GILDY: I didn’t say the tea was miserable!

FIBBER: You did too! You said…

GILDY: Why…

MOLLY (sharply) McGee! McGee, he didn’t mean that…he meant he was surprised you wouldn’t want him to have all the tea he wants…

GILDY: Yes…

FIBBER: Why, shucks…he’s welcome to all he wants…big ninny…but tea’s pretty stimulatin’, Throcky old man…and to a guy your age, with your blood pressure…it might make you just a trifle…

GILDY (angry) What? What are you talking about, my age? Why, I’m still on the sunny side of forty!

FIBBER: Maybe…but you’ve got no more use for suntan oil, boy…

MOLLY: I wish you boys would stop this…it’s so nice to have an old neighbor drop in on us…

FIBBER: Hear that, Gildy? Old neighbor…even Molly thinks you’re…

MOLLY (cutting him off) Never mind what I think…

Before Gildersleeve departs, he not-so-subtly sneaks in a plug for the current RKO feature film Look Who’s Laughing—an entertaining comedy featuring himself and the McGees; along with Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, natch) and Lucille Ball. Isabel Randolph is also along for the ride in her role as Abigail Uppington, and there are brief contributions by some other members of the Fibber McGee & Molly troupe, including Bill Thompson, Arthur Q, Bryan and announcer Harlow Wilcox.

Oh, and to wrap up that loose plot end—a wire arrives from the Johnson’s Wax Company home office in Racine, Wisconsin: it seems the Boys From Glocoat sent the McGees the new doorbell chimes, which would continue to be used until the show’s cancellation in 1957. (And to think, for the first six years they had to get by with merely a knock at the front door.)
10:57:44 AM    comment []  trackback []