The Crooner and the Comic

It was 1948, and the National Broadcasting Company was in particularly dire straits. The owner-chairman of rival network CBS, William S. Paley, had executed a series of “talent raids” on NBC, luring away many of their top performers with such lightning speed that journalists dubbed the coup “Paley’s Comet.” Amos ‘n’ Andy (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll) were the first to arrive at “CBS, the stars’ address” in the fall of 1948, with Jack Benny close behind in January 1949. Later in the fall, “the Tiffany network” would set places at the table for George Burns & Gracie Allen, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, and Red Skelton. In all fairness, Paley didn’t just pick on NBC—he also plundered the American Broadcasting Company, welcoming ABC’s Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx (You Bet Your Life) into the Columbia Broadcasting System's fold.

NBC made a valiant attempt to stop the talent hemorrhage by convincing Ozzie & Harriet Nelson to jump ship from CBS in 1948; however, this was only temporary as “America’s favorite young couple” switched to ABC in the fall of 1949. Though the network managed to obtain Fanny Brice’s services in 1949 (the Baby Snooks star had been enjoying a brief respite during the 1948-49 season after 4 years at CBS), and Groucho Marx’s in 1950, the call went out in the form of a talent hunt in order to locate rising young stars. One network executive believed that he had just the thing when he signed a hot nightclub act, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, for a comedy-variety series.

The duo who would eventually rocket to movie stardom in 1950—replacing Bud Abbott & Lou Costello as Hollywood’s top box-office team—had their first encounter in 1945 at a club called The Glass Hat, where Dean sang and Jerry was emcee. They crossed paths again a year later, as Jerry was doing his stand-up at the Havana-Madrid Club in New York—but the Spanish-speaking clientele was unreceptive to Lewis’ brand of shtick. Jerry then asked the club manager if he and Dean could cut up a little on the floor while Dean sang, and dressed as a bellboy, Lewis wreaked havoc during Martin’s performance, dropping an entire tray of dishes during one of his musical numbers. What resulted was a riotous insult match between the two men, which the delighted audience ate up. The duo became an “overnight success,” taking their new act from club to club until it was estimated that they were taking in close to $15,000 weekly in 1948 alone.

Though Martin & Lewis had a good deal of name recognition in the industry, they were still an unknown quantity to the general public—but this would soon change. They were among the featured performers of Ed Sullivan’s premiere Toast of the Town telecast in 1948, and they made a well-received appearance on an October 26, 1948 Bob Hope Show (writer Larry Gelbart relates in The Laugh Crafters that he recommended the duo to Hope after seeing them at Slapsie Maxie’s restaurant) that prompted NBC to offer them a contract. An audition recorded was produced on December 21, 1948, and that program (with guest Lucille Ball), edited to a half-hour, became the April 3, 1949 premiere broadcast of The Martin & Lewis Show.

The early 1949 M&L shows had a hefty budget--$10,000 a week—which enabled the show’s producers to secure big-name guest talent, like John Garfield, Henry Fonda, Burt Lancaster, and Jane Russell. For many years, recordings of the series were practically non-existent, but that was rectified in 1995 when Radio Spirits released a cassette/CD collection of the 1949 broadcasts from the personal transcriptions of none other than Lewis himself. Some of the shows are funny, many more only sporadically so, but apart from their curio status they just go to demonstrate that Martin & Lewis’ act really didn’t work too well on radio. Much of Lewis’ shtick is visual, and M&L’s radio career suffered from the same setback that befell Milton Berle—indeed, it wasn’t until “Uncle Miltie” and Dean & Jerry debuted on television that their fame was cemented with the viewing public.

Even from Show #1, the writers are laboring to find a catchphrase for the show, and there were several to choose from: “Are you for real?” “I made a boo-boo” and “It’s people like you that cause unemployment.” The last one frequently came from the mouth of actress Flo McMichael, who was a regular right from the get-go, playing a character named “Florence” who graduated from being Dean and Jerry’s maid to their secretary. Later in the show’s run, veteran radio actor Sheldon Leonard was added to the cast, playing an amusing sharpie named “Soapy” who spent most of his free time trying to bilk the two out of their hard-earned money. The show received a lukewarm reception from the listening audience, but NBC decided to press on in the fall, upping the program’s budget to $12,000 a week and adding Ben Alexander (pre-Dragnet) and maestro Dick Stabile (who often served as Lewis’ foil) to the proceedings. It is from this period that I sampled two M&L broadcasts, the first originally heard over NBC November 14, 1949, in which Leonard’s Soapy character is trying to get the boys interested in a little financial investment:

SOAPY: Listen, fellas…I’ve really got your interests at heart and I have one more bona-fide proposition…how would you like to buy a professional football team?
DEAN: Well, that’s not too bad…a pro team…
SOAPY: Yeah… (To Jerry) you like athletes?
JERRY: Oh, sure…I admire athletes…especially girl swimmers…I used to watch ‘em swim every evening when I lived at the YWCA…
DEAN: Jerry…how did you get into the YWCA?
JERRY: I lied about my age…
SOAPY: You know, a lot of the stars have got teams…now, Hope, for instance, he owns part of the Cleveland Indians…and this Crosby, he’s got the Pittsburgh Pirates…and Don Ameche, he invested in the Los Angeles Dons…
JERRY: Gee…I don’t know, Soapy…is the team you wanna sell us any good?
SOAPY: Good, he says… (Laughs) good, why we got guys like this “Killer” Thomas…we got “Strangler” Lutz…we got “Butcher” Maronie…I got the whole team, except just two guys…
DEAN: Well, where are they?
SOAPY: They ain’t been paroled yet…
JERRY: Soapy, we wouldn’t want guys on our football team who steal and go around pickin’ pockets…
SOAPY: Well, you don’t have to pay ‘em much salary…between halves, you just turn ‘em loose in the stands…
DEAN: Well, how much money would we have to put into it, Soap?
SOAPY: I’ll tell ya what I’ll do…just for you, I will cut the price to…uh…five thousand dollars…
DEAN; Well, you know what they always say…a fool and his money are soon parted…
SOAPY: Yeah, but this is takin’ longer than usual…
JERRY: Well…what do you say, Dean? Shall we buy the team?
DEAN: But we don’t have $5,000…
JERRY: Don’t worry, I’ll get it…I’ll ask my mother for it…
DEAN: She got it?
JERRY: No.
DEAN: Then what’s the good of asking her?
JERRY: Well…she’d ask Uncle Louie…and Uncle Louie’ll ask Cousin Sarah…and Cousin Sarah’ll ask Aunt Minnie…and Aunt Minnie’ll ask Uncle Herbie…and Uncle Herbie’ll ask my brother-in-law Sam…
DEAN: Oh…Sam got it?
JERRY: No, but haven’t I got a big family…???

As Dean prophetically ad-libs during this broadcast: “Are you sure Fibber McGee & Molly started like this?” The rest of the half-hour finds the comic duo borrowing money from a loan company, whose officer (Alexander) agrees to the loan on the condition that the two of them play on the team as well. It’s pretty much standard verbal slapstick from here on out, though I did guffaw out loud when I recognized William Conrad as a member of the “syndicate” who threatens Dean & Jerry with bodily harm if they don’t “throw” the game.

In the second broadcast (11/28/49), Dean and Jerry venture to City Hall in an attempt to prove that Jerry is indeed over 21 when Dean is accused of violating child labor laws. Overall, the sum of The Martin & Lewis Show’s parts is greater than the whole; the broadcasts are only intermittently amusing, but on occasion a good line will break through: “Dean Martin will now show his strength by lifting Bing Crosby’s voice,” cracks Jerry in an intro to Dean’s rendition of “Younger Than Springtime.” I will say this—these early broadcasts allow Martin the opportunity to be funny as well; I got a hearty chuckle from his remark: “I haven’t had this much fun since I sat on that Perry Como record.”

The Martin & Lewis Show left NBC January 30, 1950, but as a result of the duo’s new popularity in both movies and TV returned on October 5, 1951 for a two-year run—the last season sponsored by Chesterfield and Anacin. (Lewis tells an anecdote about how Martin used to camouflage Lucky Strikes—his cigarette of choice—by keeping his Luckies in a Chesterfield package.) Curiously, NBC chose to play up Martin’s role more than that of his partner's, renaming the series The Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis Show and introducing the crooner as the “master of ceremonies.” Jerry would then make his “late” appearance shortly after Dean’s opening number. This version, still packed with top guest stars, ultimately folded its tent July 14, 1953.

To this day, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis remain the only comedy team to achieve major individual success after their unfortunate breakup in 1956. Both men went on to appear in a string of box-office hits (Lewis in particular), and Martin sampled the fruits of television immortality with a top-rated variety series that aired on NBC-TV from 1965-74. (Lewis’s TV fortunes were not nearly as rosy; both his 1963 and 1967-69 series received critical brickbats and dismal ratings.) I know that it’s become de rigeur to bash Jerry Lewis in this day and age, but I will admit without shame that I’m a fan—of Jerry Lewis the comedian, I will hasten to add; I think Lewis the individual is a phony, self-absorbed jerk. Of all of Jerry’s work, however, the projects that make me laugh the hardest are the ones with partner Martin (television’s The Colgate Comedy Hour and films like Sailor Beware and Artists and Models). Though the material on their radio show was often weak, it’s still exhilarating to experience a great comedy team on the cusp of what would soon become superstardom.