Breaking Walls James Scully

In March of 1932 Jack Benny was headlining on Broadway as part of Earl Carroll’s Vanities when friend Ed Sullivan invited him to appear on Ed’s radio show. At the time Benny had no great interest in radio, but he went on Sullivan’s quarter-hour show March 19th, 1932, as a favor.

His first line was “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, ‘Who cares?”

Canada Dry Ginger Ale’s advertising agency heard Benny and offered him a show. Benny debuted on NBC’s Blue Network on May 2nd, 1932.

This initial series aired Mondays and Wednesdays. Benny’s wife of five years, Sadye Marks, who’d performed with him on Vaudeville, joined the cast on August 3rd as Mary Livingstone. In storyline she was a young Benny fan from Plainfield, New Jersey. Eventually she read humorous poetry and letters from her mother, and much later she would become a main deflator of Benny’s ego.

On October 30th, 1932 the show moved to CBS. During this time Benny began ribbing his sponsor in a gentle, good-natured way. Canada Dry got upset, and despite a rating in radio’s top twenty, they canceled the show after January 26th, 1933.

Chevrolet, which had recently lost Al Jolson, was waiting in the wings. On Friday, March 17th, 1933 at 10PM from New York, Benny debuted with The Chevrolet Program over NBC’s Red Network.

The June 23rd, 1933 episode was the last of the season as well as Mary Livingstone’s twenty-eighth birthday. Howard Claney was announcer with Frank Black as orchestra leader and James Melton as the tenor.

When the show returned in the fall it was on Sundays at 10PM from New York. Benny’s program slowly began to morph from variety into more developed comedic skits. He also started to show the character traits that would come to define his persona. Unfortunately, Chevrolet didn’t like the series and fired him after the April 1st, 1934 episode.

But, the General Tire Company immediately scooped him up. Benny debuted on their program the following Friday, April 6th, 1934 at 10PM. There, he first worked with announcer Don Wilson.

Wilson would remain with Benny until 1965. Often the butt of weight-based jokes, Wilson’s deep belly laugh that could often be heard above the studio audience and his deep, rich voice became a show trademark. This is audio from that April 6th, 1934 episode.

That summer Mary and Jack adopted their daughter Joan. She was two weeks old. Jack later said in his autobiography that as Joan grew older, she came to look like he and Mary. She had Mary’s face with Jack’s blue eyes and his love for music.

Benny, Don Wilson, and Mary Livingstone worked together, along with tenor Frank Parker and orchestra leader Don Bestor on The General Tire Show until September 28th, 1934. Then, General Foods came calling. They wanted Benny’s help saving a gelatin product of theirs called Jell-O, which was getting badly beaten by Knox Gelatin in sales.

On October 14th, 1934 Benny moved to Sunday nights at 7PM from NBC’s Blue Network. His rating immediately leapt into the top five.

On April 7th, 1935 the show was regularly broadcast from New York for the final time. The Jell-O Program would be moving to Hollywood. Benny simultaneously made Broadway Melody of 1936 and It’s In The Air on film.

Until the mid-1930s, New York and Chicago were the main broadcasting hubs. Frank Nelson remembered early Hollywood radio. Nelson began working with Benny in June of 1934.

Even in 1935, it was still more costly for shows to originate from Southern California. Here’s actress Mary Jane Higby, who grew up in Los Angeles, but moved to New York in 1937, explaining why.

On November 3rd, 1935 Kenny Baker joined the show as the new singer. That year, Benny’s show climbed to second overall in the ratings. The following year Benny made The Big Broadcast of 1937 on film, and on October 4th, 1936 Phil Harris debuted as the new band leader.

With Phil Harris in pla

In Breaking Walls episode 150 we parachute into Easter Sunday, 1944 for a day of radio, recollections, and reconciliation.

It’s now less than two months before D-Day and U.S. citizens are awaiting word of a full-scale European invasion with held breath.

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Highlights:
• Cracks In The Nazi Foundation
• Invitation To Learning at 11:30AM
• Ceiling Unlimited with Joseph Cotton at 2PM
• The Life of Riley at 3PM
• Bulldog Drummond at 3:30PM
• The Shadow at 5:30PM
• The Catholic Hour & Radio Hall of Fame at 6PM
• The Great Gildersleeve at 6:30PM
• Jack Benny and The Mysterious Traveler at 7PM
• Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy at 8PM
• Fred Allen at 9:30PM
• Bob Crosby and The Thin Man at 10PM
• Duke Ellington and The News at 11:15PM
• Looking Ahead to Jack Benny Changing Sponsors

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The WallBreakers:
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Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

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http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:
• Treadmill to Oblivion & Much Ado About Me — By Fred Allen
• Citizen Welles — By Frank Brady
• On The Air — By John Dunning
• Invitation To Learning — By Martin Grams Jr.
• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg


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On the interview front:
• Don Ameche, George Balzer, Jack Benny, Conrad Binyon, Himan Brown, Joseph Cotton, Shirley Mitchell, Brett Morrison, Les Tremayne, and Paula Winslowe spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these full chats at Speakingofradio.com.

• Jackson Beck, Edgar Bergen, and Hans Conreid spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org

• Ralph Bell and Himan Brown spoke to SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com

• Jack Kruschen and Shirley Mitchell spoke to Jim Bohannon in 1987

• Jack Benny spoke with Jack Carney

• Fred Allen spoke with Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg

• Parker Fennelly spoke with David S. Siegel

• Duke Ellington spoke with Dick Cavett

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:
• Besame Mucho — By Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra
• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

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A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

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Thank you to:
Tony Adams
Steven Allmon
Orson Orsen Chandler
Phil Erickson
Gerrit Lane
Jessica Hanna
Perri Harper
Thomas M. Joyce
Ryan Kramer
Earl Millard
Gary Mollica
Barry Nadler
Christian Neuhaus
Ray Shaw
Filipe A Silva
John Williams
Jim W.
WildEyeWheel

At 11:15PM over Mutual’s WOR in New York, Duke Ellington was on the air with music from The famous Hurricane Nightclub on 49th street and broadway in New York City.

The next day, The British Royal Air Force dropped a record thirty-six hundred tons of bombs in a single raid on Germany, France and Belgium.

On Tuesday April 11th, the Soviets took more northern territory in Crimea. German forces immediately began a withdrawal.

That same day, the U.S. sunk a Japanese destroyer and a German submarine.

One thing was clear as the calendar turned to mid-April, the Allies were piling up victories and the Axis powers knew they needed to do something to stem the turning tide of war. Although we know now that D-Day would happen in June, both sides knew a big invasion was coming.

In the meantime, those people in midtown Manhattan could dance and drink the night away. After all, tomorrow is never guaranteed.

At 10:30PM eastern time on NBC’s WEAF, The Bob Crosby Show took to the air in New York with the just-heard Les Tremayne as co-host and Shirley Mitchell as the special guest. This episode’s rating was 13.8. Earlier this evening, Shirley Mitchell played Leila Ransom on NBC’s The Great Gildersleeve.

Opposite The Bob Crosby Show, The Adventures of The Thin Man took to the air on CBS. Based on the 1934 film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, both Les Tremayne and Les Damon at times co-starred with Claudia Morgan as Nick and Nora Charles.

Nick Charles was a retired private eye who just couldn’t stay away from murder. The Thin Man gave its listeners all the censor would allow. Morgan cooed invitingly: she mouthed long, drawn-out kisses and kidded Nicky-darling about his outlandish pajamas. One critic strongly objected to the “oohhs” and “aahhs” and “mmmm’s’’ during kisses. But as feminine and cozy as Claudia Morgan played Nora, LIFE noted that “she can step across pools of blood with all the calm delicacy of a lady-in-waiting.”

Parker Fennelly played Sheriff Ebenezer Williams. The rating for this episode was 16.1. Roughly twelve million people tuned in.

In the Spring of 1944, Fred Allen was finishing up his fourth season as host of The Texaco Star Theater on CBS. He’d been on the air for over a decade, but it was while he was hosting Texaco on December 6th, 1942 that Fred debuted Allen’s Alley.

Allen used to read the newspaper column of O.O. McIntyre, called “Thoughts While Strolling.” McIntyre wrote about sights and sounds he’d met walking through the shabby streets of New York’s Chinatown and The Bowery. Allen felt that this kind of routine could come off very well on radio.

A loud-mouth politician had possibilities. Actor Jack Smart voiced Senator Bloat. John Doe was another early character. Portrayed by John Brown, Doe was an average man squeezed by life from all angles. Alan Reed voiced Falstaff Openshaw, the poet.

There was a Greek restaurant owner, an old maid, and a Russian. The segment was always launched with Portland Hoffa asking what question Alen had for the Alley occupants that week. Then they’d knock on various doors.

Eventually many of these characters gave way to the most popular incarnation of the Alley with Minerva Pious’ jewish Mrs. Nussbaum, Peter Donald’s irish Ajax Cassidy, Kenny Delmare’s the Southern Senator Claghorn, and Parker Fennelly’s rural New England Titus Moody.

The entire alley was allotted five minutes with laughter. Each character had seventy-five seconds for their lines. This was an issue because the program often ran overtime. It eventually caused the whole show to get cut off the air by network executives.

The New York Herald-Tribune critic John Crosby later wrote that part of what made Fred's battles with censorship so difficult was that "the man assigned to review his scripts frankly admitted he didn't understand Allen's peculiar brand of humor at all."

Regardless, the agency and network people couldn’t argue with Allen’s ratings. He was consistently a top-twenty show, and in April of 1944 he was being heard by more than thirteen million people. On Easter Sunday at 9:30PM New York time, his special guest was actor Reginald Gardiner. Together they presented a sketch spoofing Sherlock Holmes called Fetlock Bones.

Unfortunately, the fight was getting to Fred Allen. After this season, Allen quit The Texaco Star Theater as high blood pressure forced him off the air.

Edgar Bergen first came to the attention of American audiences on Rudy Vallée’s NBC Royal Gelatin Hour on December 17th, 1936. How could ventriloquism work on radio? Perhaps Rudy Vallée himself put it best the night Bergen debuted.

Five months later NBC gave Bergen his own show on Sundays at 8PM. He was an instant smash hit. Don Ameche worked with Bergen in those years. He was emcee on December 12th, 1937 when Mae West was the guest for an innuendo heavy skit called “Adam and Eve.”

Over the next six seasons his show was never rated lower than fourth. Twice it was the country’s top program. On April 9th, 1944 Bergen’s rating was 27.1. Roughly twenty million people were tuned in live, coast-to-coast from WEAF in New York at 8PM eastern and 5PM pacific over KFI. This is that entire Easter Sunday broadcast.