HENRY: Well…hello Arnold
HENRY: How’d you like it?
HENRY: Thanks a lot, I guess…by the way, I heard your show last week…
HENRY: Yeah, yeah…I was at a party…you know how it is…everybody drinking…some drunk turned it on…
HENRY: Well…there was a lot of noise…it didn’t come in very well…
HENRY: I was talking…
HENRY: But, say…that was a good joke you had there about Sinatra and the pipe cleaner…
HENRY: Yeah, that’s right…but I like the way you told it…by the way, how’s your Hooper rating?
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…
HENRY: Why, certainly!
HENRY: Tell the truth, I don’t think the studio audience could hear the show…
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…
HENRY: The Dodgers, from what I could hear up on the stage…
HENRY: Oh, you’ve got a great show, too…so long!
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
By 1940, Morgan was employed by New York
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
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
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.”
Thanks for the transcription (almost 14 years ago)! Just FYI if anyone is looking for audio of the "What's your Hooper Rating" sketch above, I found it in an episode listed as "Morgan's Vacation" 5-28-1947.
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