“Powerful tiny fists…”

Apologies to all for having neglected the blog this long, but I’ve been kind of taking advantage of my three-days-off occurring in the middle of the week this time ‘round to work on outside projects…and for some odd reason, spending every free moment in front of the DVD player watching what can only be called a Scrubs marathon.  Even though I don’t watch the series on a regular basis as I once did, I have been dutifully purchasing the season-by-season box sets…and after sampling a two-hour mini-marathon last Saturday (while at Sister Kat’s) on the Comedy Channel I thought I would bring myself up to speed with the goings-on at Sacred Heart Hospital.

When Scrubs first premiered in the fall of 2001, I counted myself one of the sitcom’s biggest fans—I liked the show’s sharp, witty dialogue and its frequent forays into the absurd (something, I remember reading reviews at the time, the critics did not particularly care for).  But for some odd reason, the show was sort of the red-headed stepchild in NBC’s comedy lineup, never earning the accolades of a show like, Friends, for example.  I’m glad to see that with each passing season, the sitcom has finally gotten a little respect (winning a coveted Peabody award this month).  Scrubs’ strengths include its expert blend of comedy and pathos and fast pacing, not to mention its superb ensemble cast—not only the major players but its backup team of utility actors as well.  In the beginning, I tried to get my mother hooked on it but I think the show’s MTV-style gaggery has a tendency to go over her head.  Still, I have not given up hope—her favorite television hunk, Christopher Meloni (from Law & Order: SVU), guest stars in “My White Whale,” an episode from the third season and I plan to unspool this one for her when she gets back from her business trip this Saturday.

The only sand-in-the-crankcase during my Scrubs marathon is that the first disc in the Complete Fourth Season set has a big honkin’ scratch of undetermined origin, effectively keeping me from seeing episodes four through nine.  I will have to rectify this tragedy as soon as possible.

Takin’ care of business

Close to twenty years ago, I was toiling as a CSR (Customer Service Representative) for a Blockbuster Video franchise here in Savannah and in retrospect, it was one of the best jobs I ever had.  (It all went south when I was forced into becoming an assistant manager.)  Being a movie buff, I generously took advantage of the store’s free rental policy for its staff (you usually had to wait for the new releases, but for a classic film geek like me all the older stuff was there for the taking) and caught up on my sadly neglected film education.

One of the movies I rented simply because I was tickled by its premise was Heartbreak Hotel (1988), a rock ‘n’ roll fable whose plot centers on the kidnapping of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll (David Keith) in 1972 by an Ohio j.d. (Charlie Schlatter) and his pals in an effort to cheer up his mom (Tuesday Weld), who’s been laid low in a car accident.  Hotel was cute and forgettable (though Weld is always worth a look-see—plus it features two of my favorite country music singers, T. Graham Brown and Hal Ketchum) and yet I always believed that someone missed out on turning it into a TV series (kind of a Route 66 affair) that would feature the King driving from small town to small town, tackling odd jobs and helping small communities by healing the sick, making the lame walk, etc.  (The idea of Elvis being alive and well was later co-opted by an episode (“Spotting Elvis”) of a short-lived series, Johnny Bago, starring Peter Dobson as a hood on the run from both the Mafia and his vengeful ex-wife.  The King was spending his declining years in a trailer park in that one.)

I sort of expected the same Heartbreak Hotel whimsy during the wee a.m. hours of this morning when I put Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) in the DVD player but I was surprised after watching it to see most of the cast playing it straight—well, as straight as a movie starring Bruce Campbell can be.  Bruce plays a geriatric Elvis biding his time in an East Texas nursing home when he and his pal John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis—and that’s not a typo) learn that an Egyptian mummy is prowling the halls of their facility and sucking out the lifeforce from the souls of its residents.  The King and JFK team up to defeat this undead menace in a horror film generously laced with deadpan comedy, directed and written by Don Coscarelli, who’s a legend among horror fans for the Phantasm series.  (The screenplay for Bubba was adapted from a short story/novella written by Texan Joe R. Lansdale.)  Bubba is a hell of a lot of fun for viewers who park their brains in neutral: Campbell channels Elvis extremely well and in addition to Davis’ performance there are also impressive turns from Ella Joyce (who played Charles S. Dutton’s ever-patient spouse on the underrated Roc sitcom) and Larry “Dash Riprock” Pennell as a resident who thinks he’s the Lone Ranger.  I can’t wait to see Ho-Tepís prequel, Bubba Nosferatu and the Curse of the Vampires, which features the King running afoul of a Louisiana vampire coven while shooting a film; Campbell is set to reprise his role, and Paul Giamatti will be tackling the part of Colonel Tom Parker.  (Wild!)

“When it comes to parenting I prefer to put it down to the bird watching technique where you've got to keep your distance, keep very still and try not to frighten them.” – Ben Harper (Robert Lindsay), My Family (BBC-1)

My Family, a popular BBC-1 sitcom that some of you may have seen on the cable channel BBC America, had its first two series released on Region 1 DVD courtesy of Warner Home Video last October.  I reluctantly admit I didn’t pay much attention to this announcement—I’ve been purchasing the Region 2 discs—but I thought about this the other day because I was scrounging around the living room the other day looking for something to watch and I found Series 2 lying on the coffee table (Mom and I have been going through the show a few episodes at a time).

My Family is a very popular comedy series across the pond (not so much critically acclaimed but well-received by the viewing public) and as a fan, I give it a pretty substantial endorsement as well.  It’s a nice blend of American-style humor (the show’s creator is Fred Barron, who also hatched Dave’s World and Caroline in the City) and traditional British farce, and stars longtime Britcom fave Robert Lindsay (Citizen Smith, Nightingales) as a harried husband/dentist driven to distraction (or should that be extraction?) by his family: wife Susan (cute-as-a-button Zoë Wanamaker—Madame Hooch in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), daughter Janey (Daniela Denby-Ashe) and sons Nick (Kris Marshall) and Michael (Gabriel Thomson).  I like the Harpers because even though they’re a loving and supportive bunch there’s still an edginess to the entire clan.

I watched a pair of episodes yesterday that literally had me laughing out loud; the first, “Trust Never Sleeps,” finds Ben and Susan giving permission to Janey to throw a party at the Harpers’ while they’re out of town visiting friends.  A conversation overheard in a liquor store about a wild party being thrown “by a girl whose parents are gone for the weekend” gives Ben second thoughts (when Susan asks him how he can be so sure the conversation was about Janey’s shindig Ben responds: “They said the parents were idiots!”) and he races back home, with Susan fretting about how this lack of trust will affect her and her daughter’s relationship.  The two of them arrive to find nothing going on—but then the kids start piling in and Ben and Susan are forced to hightail it upstairs and hide in their bedroom.  The complications multiply after that, particularly when Ben cannot ignore the call of nature after drinking several bottles of wine…and their own bathroom toilet is out of commission.

In “Death and Ben Take a Holiday,” Ben has to go to Leeds for an aunt’s funeral and because a flu-ridden Susan is too sick to go, he ends up dragging his layabout son Nick along.  Through a series of mishaps (inspired, no doubt, by shenanigans witnessed by your humble narrator at La Quinta), the two men are forced to room and share a bed together (a priceless sequence) and then more wackiness occurs at the funeral with Susan having arrived…and looped on medication.

Though the news about My Family on Region 1 is a bit late, I will give you a heads-up on another Britcom previously available only on Region 2 DVD.  Warner Home Video will release the first two series of One Foot in the Grave on March 27, so if you’re a fan be sure to keep an eye peeled for them.

“My head is made up!”

I finished the last of five DVDs that I purchased recently from Finders Keepers—a great mom-and-pop business that specializes in hard-to-find, OTR-related movies—last night while enjoying time off from work. I’m glad I saved this one for last, because it was clearly the best and most entertaining of the bunch (which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the others, you understand): the 1948 (some sources date it as 1949) feature film-version of the radio sitcom hit The Life of Riley. It was like having dessert after a truly fine meal.

Released by Universal-International and written & directed by the show’s creator, Irving Brecher, The Life of Riley is a textbook example of how to make a really great old-time radio related film. The movie never takes a false step; it’s both well-written and well-paced, its 87-minute running time moving along at a breezy, entertaining clip with no padding whatsoever. Best of all, it takes characters from what I freely admit is your typical farcical sitcom and fleshes them out into three-dimensional human beings; it blends laugh-out-loud comedy with bittersweet poignancy to boot.

Chester A. Riley (William Bendix), devoted and loving husband of wife Peg (Rosemary DeCamp) and father to Babs (Meg Randall) and Junior (Lanny Rees), is determined to advance from his lowly position as riveter for the Stevenson Aircraft Company after being humiliated in front of Sidney Monahan, an acquaintance of the Rileys from Brooklyn (and Peg’s ex-beau). Riley’s boss (William E. Green) has planned to promote Riley to plant foreman as a reward for Riley’s hard work, but his son Burt (Mark Daniels), in debt to a gambler, schemes to have Riley made into an executive—that way, he can get Babs to marry him and he can get at his trust fund. Riley figures out what the son is up to and calls off the wedding, allowing his daughter to marry her true love (Richard Long).

What impressed me the most about this movie was its maturity; the theme of the film centers on career advancement and the achievement of “the American Dream.” Riley’s a blue-collar lug, a little dumb perhaps, but he works hard to get ahead and is crushed that he’s unable to provide a better life for his family. His promotion to executive has him walking on a cloud—even his co-workers congratulate him on one of their own “making good”—but then when people start to believe that the only reason for his advancement is because his daughter is getting hitched to the boss’ son, they turn their backs to him and it really tears him up inside. Babs has offered to marry Burt because she doesn’t want to see her father and mother slide back downward (with Riley’s promotion, he’s able to put a down payment on their house and get Peg that wedding ring she’s always wanted), but Riley refuses to jeopardize her happiness for a life of ease, and announces that he’d rather remain poor—prompting his boss to remark, “Riley—you’re the richest man I know.”

I’ve stated previously in many a blog entry how much of a fan I am of William Bendix, especially in films like The Glass Key (1942) and Detective Story (1951)—but his portrayal of Riley continuously sticks out in my mind. I know that the show had a paint-by-the-numbers quality to it, but there was something about Bendix that really made Riley endearing—here you had this big mule-headed brute whose stubbornness masked a tender, sensitive side. On radio, television, and especially this film—he is simply terrific; he's sensational at using humor as a lemon to cut the occasional sweetness. Rosemary DeCamp (an OTR veteran, known primarily for her work on Dr. Christian) unfortunately doesn’t have much to do, but she does provide solid support for Bendix’s Riley—and she was so good in this role that she was cast alongside Jackie Gleason in the first TV version of the show in 1949 (along with Lanny Rees’ Junior).

Other OTR personalities in the film include Bill Goodwin as the obnoxiously oily Sidney Monahan—and although Goodwin was primarily an announcer/supporting player on such programs as The Bob Hope Show and Burns & Allen, he enjoyed a nice career in films as a character actor, appearing in So This is New York (1948, with Henry Morgan) and It’s a Great Feeling (1949, with Jack Carson, Dennis Morgan and Doris Day—my favorite of the Carson-Morgan vehicles). John Brown, however, steals every single scene he’s in as he brings his Life of Riley character Digby “Digger” O’Dell to the silver screen. Digger is first introduced to the audience in a scene where the Rileys’ electricity has been cut off and the house is plunged into darkness; I thought this was a very clever touch, allowing them to hear his clammy, sepulchral tones before they see his beautifully somber mug on screen. Brown would also make it to the 1949-50 TV series, but for some reason wasn’t available for Bendix’s version, which ran from 1953-58. (Perhaps Brown was in poor health, he passed away in 1957.)

The Life of Riley is also populated with some wonderful character actors—James Gleason (who plays Riley’s best friend and neighbor Gillis—fans know, of course, that Brown played this part on radio as well), Beulah Bondi, Ted de Corsia (who was no slouch on OTR either) and a young Richard Long, before he relocated with Barbara Stanwyck to The Big Valley. (Or set up shop at 77 Sunset Strip, if that’s the way you remember him.) There’s also a great voice cameo by a famous OTR detective, and I wouldn’t dream of spoiling that surprise. (There are some really good in-jokes in this movie; my favorite is a book that’s mentioned as being written by “Professor Alan Lipscott”—Lipscott being one of the writers of The Life of Riley on radio.)

Making a film based on a radio series was a dicey proposition at best back in the 30s, 40s and even 50s. Radio fans would often find themselves surprised at the physical appearance of an actor or actress (knowing them only by their voice, of course), or would have a completely different impression of how their house or car or whatever looked. And though many of these films were produced simply for their novelty value (with plots flimsier than a politician’s campaign promise), there were a handful that transcended this and provided novel and fantastic entertainment. I’m pleased to report that The Life of Riley most assuredly stands out in this bunch.

“We’re gonna miss you around here, boy…”

Last night before leaving for work, I went searching through the voluminous Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives to find a CD to listen to later on in the wee hours—and I chose a pair of Red Skelton programs from 1946 and 1947. (In keeping with this month’s April Fools theme, you understand.)

The first broadcast was originally heard over NBC Radio on June 4, 1946—the final program for the 1945-46 season (Skelton had returned to his show in December of 1945 after serving a hitch in the service for eighteen months):

RED: Well, Rod—tonight’s the last night!
ROD: Yes, Red—the last show of the season…why don’t you stay on the air during the heat of the summer?
RED: Why? The other shows don’t…
ROD: I know, but they don’t leave the audiences as cold as you do…
RED: Hey, tell me—what do you really think of my acting?
ROD: Well, really, Red…words fail me…
RED: Yeah, truthfully now…
ROD: …so I’ll use letters…
RED: Yeah?
ROD: P.U…
RED (ad-libbing): You proud of that, ain’tcha? You’ll wind up as head boy on Ben Ruben’s barracuda barge…

In that week’s “Skelton Scrapbook of Satire,” Red does a skit with Clem Kadiddlehopper, who gets a summer job at a gas station, and Junior, “the mean widdle kid,” who’s preparing to go on vacation:

NAMAW: Come on…let’s get on with our packing…
JUNIOR: Hey, how come we gonna go away, huh?
NAMAW: Your grandfather’s got a three-week vacation and we’re going to take a trip…we’ll pick him up downtown…
JUNIOR: Uh, where’s we going?
NAMAW: We’re going to Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park and then over into Canada…
JUNIOR: Well, does I get to go along, or is this gonna be a pleasure trip?
NAMAW: Well, of course! It’s going to be a wonderful trip!
JUNIOR: Oh goody! You gonna drive?
NAMAW: Yes!
JUNIOR: In our own car?
NAMAW: Yes!
JUNIOR: Pack it up full of groceries and stuff and bags?
NAMAW: Yes!
JUNIOR: Thousands and thousands of miles we’ll travel, huh?
NAMAW: Yes!
JUNIOR: Let’s fly—it’s quicker…
NAMAW: Oh, Junior…you’ll love Glacier Park…wild animals roaming around…
JUNIOR: Competition, huh? Well, you know what I’s gonna do?
NAMAW: What?
JUNIOR: I gonna feed the bear…I gotta real wive bear, I gonna feed him…
NAMAW: No, no…that’s something I want to warn you about right now…you can’t feed the bear…
JUNIOR: Why?
NAMAW: …because when all you have to give them is gone, they’ll bite you…
JUNIOR: Ah, nah…not me, boy…I’ll walk right up to the ol’ bear, and I’ll show him me teeth, you know…and I’ll stand wight there and let him charge me…and if he comes at me on his hind legs…with his mouth open…and his big, sharp teeth…and his fangs ready to bite me… (suddenly upset) Oh no no no no no no no!!!
NAMAW: Junior, what’s the matter?
JUNIOR: I just remembered I ain’t gotta gun, I ain’t gotta gun…
NAMAW: He scared himself…
JUNIOR: Yeah, I scared meself!!!
NAMAW: The bears won’t get you…
JUNIOR: Yes, they will, too…the bears will get me…
NAMAW: Aw, bless his little heart…
JUNIOR: Yeah, bless his widdle heart…
NAMAW: Why, if a bear should bite you, I’ll…I’ll shoot him!
JUNIOR: Yeah… (stopping short) Well, you wouldn’t have to do that, you know…if a bear bites me, in a couple of hours he’ll die from natural causes…

The second broadcast—dated September 9, 1947—is sort of a special occasion for Skelton; it celebrates his tenth year on radio (not on the program, you understand—his show for Raleigh debuted on October 7, 1941). Most of Red’s shows have a tendency to be sort of footloose and fancy free with the ad-libs, but this particular show has a real “loosey goosey” feel to it—he chats with a few members of the audience, and when he asks one gent, “Do you remember when I first went on the air for Raleigh?” the guy shoots back: “I think I was too young to understand you then…”

Listening to some of these Skelton shows, it’s hard not to notice the unsung contributions from Red’s announcer, Rod O’Connor. Announcer Truman Bradley (later of TV’s Science Fiction Theater) was Skelton’s pitchman from 1941-44, and while he read the sponsor’s commercials in a competent manner, O’Connor really added a great deal of zest to the proceedings—he was a great foil for Red, and he often played supporting parts in sketches from the “Scrapbook of Satire.” His timing is pretty first-rate, too; when Red off-handedly remarks that the sponsor doesn’t want any commercials on the show that evening, O’Connor quickly retorts, “Why, is he dead?” In this exchange, Rod plays straight man to perennial moron Clem Kadiddlehopper, who is brought on as the “President” of the “Red Skelton Fan Club”:

CLEM: Well, here I am! (sings) Do do do do do do do do do do do do…yes sirree, it’s good to be back…boy, I should be hot tonight—I just had a light lunch, you know…had a match in my mouth and I swallowed it…boy, it’s a brilliant way to waste money, to ask me to appear on a program…
ROD: Are you Clem Kadiddlehopper?
CLEM: Well, what do I look like, a human being?
ROD: Well, you’ll pardon me for saying so—but I’ve never seen anything like you before…
CLEM: Well, you’ll pardon me for saying so, but I ain’t neither…on second thought, I did…the cat drug it in one day, and…of course, we buried it three days later…
ROD: Well, how did you happen to become a Red Skelton fan?
CLEM (stammering): Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh…I’ll tell you in just a…well, one day… (ad-libs) had one of my teeth pulled and I talk with a limp now…one day, I was sashaying down the street, minding my bubble gum, see…and I bumped into him…well, I doff my chapeau and I wiggled my ears, kinda cute-like, you know…and I says, “Well, Red Skelton—howdy doody to you!” And he says, “What do you want, imbecile?” Well, sir…it sort of impressed me, the way that he knew me so well…
ROD: And ever since then you’ve been one of his fans?
CLEM: Yes, sir…I never missed one of his radio shows…every Thursday night I sit there, spellbound…
ROD: Thursday night?
CLEM: Yep!
ROD: Red Skelton’s on Tuesday night…
CLEM: He is?
ROD: Yes…
CLEM: Maybe that’s why I enjoy him so much…

It’s a typically funny Skelton broadcast, with a comic look at the highlights of his career (his first appearance on The Rudy Vallee Show, etc.) as dramatized by Red’s characters Willie Lump Lump and Deadeye. And of course. Junior:

(SFX: door open)
JUNIOR: Hey, Namaw! (SFX: door slam) Your widdle thorn in the side is home!
NAMAW: Good…now hurry and get dressed…we’re going to Red Skelton’s anniversary party…
JUNIOR: Red Skelton? You mean that good-lookin’ boy on the wadio?
NAMAW: That’s right…
JUNIOR: The one with the wed hair?
NAMAW: Yes!
JUNIOR: The big guy that talks like widdle kids?
NAMAW: Yes!
JUNIOR: Wouldn’t walk across the street to see the bum…

For further background on this immortal comedy great, I encourage you to check out this website.

“Light up a Lucky—it’s light-up time…”

I’m nearly finished with Radio Spirits’ Ultimate Jack Benny Collection, and I must say, the programs chosen for this set have all been doggone good ones. The accompanying booklet, written by none other than Anthony “Texas Tony” Tollin, is also superb—and served as an essential research tool for some of these posts. I listened to CD #19 last night at work, and while the first broadcast on the disc was great, the second was…eh…

It’s from December 12, 1954, and it features Jack preparing for a trip to his frequent vacation spot, Palm Springs. Rochester is helping him pack, but the two men are bending over backwards not to mention the trip to Jack’s parrot, Polly (voiced by the one and only Mel Blanc). They resort to spelling it out: “P-A-L-M-S-P-R-I-N-G-S,” which the fine feathered friend thinks is shorthand for “vacuum cleaner.” Of course, Polly hears a radio announcer spelling it out and the jig is pretty much up.

Polly was originally conceived as a one-shot character on the Benny broadcasts, but proved so funny and successful that the bird was added as a regular running gag. Milt Josefsberg elucidates on the origins of Polly in his book The Jack Benny Show:

At first we had the parrot saying the wildest things, but Jack, who was an excellent editor, made us cut down. He had an inviolable rule that the parrot must never say or ad-lib things it made up. It could only use words that it actually heard someone say. However, since most of the things said about Jack were insulting, there was no shortage of laugh-getting lines for Polly’s busy beak.

Tollin describes this show as “Mel Blanc’s finest hour” as Polly, but I’m sure I’ve heard funnier programs—nevertheless, there are a few good sequences in this show, beginning with this exchange between Jack and Dennis Day:

DENNIS: Oh, say, Mr. Benny—is it all right if I take my mother to Palm Springs with me?
JACK: Well…
DENNIS: She’s already bought a French bathing suit…
JACK: Your mother? That’s ridiculous…
DENNIS: Oh no, it isn’t—this morning, she tried it on and my father said she really looked French…
JACK: Really?
DENNIS: Yeah… (pause) Mr. Benny…who’s General DeGaulle?

I also liked this one with Jack and Mary, partially because it provides an amusing “boomerang,” and particularly the Strike It Rich reference:

JACK: Say, Mary…what beautiful luggage! Where’d you get it?
MARY: I bought it! Last week I got two hundred dollars on a quiz program…
JACK: No kidding…on a quiz program?
MARY: Uh-huh…I was picked out of the whole studio audience because I worked for you…
JACK: Ah ha! You see, Mary…doesn’t hurt being on my program…what question did you have to answer for them to give you two hundred dollars?
MARY: No question…they just felt sorry for me…
JACK: Hmm…
MARY: The Heart Line call was food for a month…

Later on the program, we hear the “boomerang” as an announcement on the Maxwell’s radio:

ANNOUNCER: …for our next number, we will hear the Sportsmen Quartet…we were supposed to have the Ink Spots, but we felt sorry for the Sportsmen…

Bob Crosby also makes an appearance on the program, recycling the “Waste King” joke from September 24, 1950. Crosby had landed the gig as the Benny show “bandleader” at the beginning of the 1952-53 season, replacing Phil Harris—to this day, there has been much speculation as to why Harris departed, with some arguing that it was a matter of economics and others gossiping about a feud between Phil and Jack. Harris would continue for two more years with his own sitcom with wife Alice Faye, and it was about that time that the character of “Frankie Remley” disappeared from their show, forcing actor Elliott Lewis to use his real name.

I really enjoyed the first show on this disc, however—a funny holiday-themed broadcast from December 5, 1954. In addition to his numerous stooge roles (Polly, Professor LeBlanc, etc.), Mel Blanc also had a recurring part as a department store clerk driven to distraction by Jack’s indecisiveness and penny-pinching shopping methods. He first appeared in a December 8, 1946 broadcast, and nearly eight years later, he finds himself plagued with nightmares, as he is awakened by his wife Beatrice (Bea Benaderet):

MELVYN: …that same nightmare…I always have it this time of year, Beatrice…
BEATRICE: Uh…about that blue-eyed old man that comes to the store for his Christmas shopping?
MELVYN: Yeah…only this dream was worse…I looked at his hands, and instead of fingers, he had shoelaces…on one hand, the fingernails were plastic tips…and on the other hand was metal tips…why do I always have to dream about him???
BEATRICE: Now, Mel, control yourself…maybe he won’t come into the store this year…
MELVYN: Oh, he’ll come, he’ll come…he’s been comin’ in and drivin’ me nuts for over fifteen years…
BEATRICE: Well, don’t worry about it—maybe he’s mellowed…maybe he’ll be kinder now that he’s getting old…
MELVYN: He was old fifteen years ago!!!

Sure enough, faster than you can say “L.S.M.F.T.,” Jack gets a tip that his announcer, Don Wilson, has taken up painting as a hobby—and makes tracks for the store’s art department:

JACK: Oh, clerk…clerk!!!
MELVYN: Yes, sir—what can I…urrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhh!!!! It’s you again!!!
JACK: Huh?
MELVYN: How do you find me every year??? You got radar or somethin’???
JACK: What are you talking about?
MELVYN (to himself): Gee…he doesn’t recognize me…maybe everything’s gonna be okay…
JACK: What are you mumbling about, clerk?
MELVYN: Oh, nuttin’…nuttin’… (brightening) What can I do for you, sir?

(snip)

MELVYN (to himself): Gee…he didn’t even recognize me…and he didn’t give me the least bit of trouble…in fact, he was real sweet… (singing) “Oh boy, I’m lucky…I’ll say I’m lucky…this is my lucky day…” There…there, that looks pretty… (SFX: walking) Here you are sir, that’ll be ten and a quarter, includin’ tax…
JACK: Ten and a quarter? Gee, that seems like a lot to pay for just a few paints…
MELVYN: Well, not when you consider what you’re gettin’…most people don’t mind payin’ the extra money for oil paints…they last so much longer than the watercolors…
(pause)
JACK: Oh…you have watercolors, too?
MELVYN: Me and my big stupid mouth…

Jack encounters the usual cast of stooges in this episode, from Mr. Kitzel (Artie Auerbach) to the tout (Sheldon Leonard, who does a funny Lucky Strike commercial with Benny)—but he also shares some dialogue with the show’s arranger, Mahlon Merrick, who was pretty much the real bandleader on the program. Merrick asks Jack if he can recommend a good bartender for a New Year’s bash he’s throwing:

JACK: Well, now that’s the silliest thing, Mahl—spending good money on a bartender…why don’t you get one of the boys in your band? I mean, get Frank Remley…nobody knows more about drinks than he does…
MAHLON: No, I wouldn’t try that again, Jack—he was the bartender at the last party I gave…
JACK: Well—what happened?
MAHLON: Well, the first guest to arrive walked up and ordered a scotch and soda…
JACK: Uh-huh…
MAHLON: Remley bent down…got the scotch…never came up again…

And to prove my firm belief that the characters on the Benny program were so strongly ingrained in the minds of the audience that they need not be physically present to get the big laughs, Dennis attempts to purchase a Christmas gift for his mother, assisted by a salesgirl (Veola Vonn, a.k.a. Mrs. Frank Nelson):

SALESGIRL: Well, a negligee’s always a suitable gift…now, here’s a lovely one that I’m sure would please your mother…
DENNIS: No…she wouldn’t like that one…she never wears anything with a low neckline…
SALESGIRL: Oh? Is she modest?
DENNIS: No, she’s tattooed…
SALESGIRL: Well…here’s something that might suit your mother more…
DENNIS: Gee, that looks nice…only I’d like it in a brighter color…you see, my father is always depressed, and bright colors cheer him up…
SALESGIRL: Oh…well, we have a large selection of colors…but tell me, what size does your mother wear?
DENNIS: Gee, I don’t know…but…she’s about as tall as you are…
SALESGIRL: Oh—does she have my build?
DENNIS: If she did, my father wouldn’t need cheering up…

As the episode progresses, Jack wavers back and forth between watercolors and oil paints—to the point where Melvyn the clerk has a nervous breakdown, and Beatrice agrees to take her husband’s place while he has a nice lie down. Unfortunately, her resolve proves to be no stronger when it comes to dealing with old-time radio’s most beloved skinflint, and she, too, is ready for the rubber room—complete with that wonderful Benaderet Betty Rubble-laugh. (I forget who said it, but a wag once described her laugh as one “that could shatter a picture tube.”)

“…a half-hour visit with your neighbors, the Andersons…”

Years after Father Knows Best left prime-time television for the assisted living facility known as reruns, actor Billy Gray (who played the Andersons’ middle child, Bud) was quite critical of the classic family sitcom; he felt it did a disservice to viewers by presenting a distorted and patently false picture of family life. I’m not exactly certain why Gray believed anyone ever took that show seriously, but I can certainly understand his dissatisfaction with the series—it’s a treacly, sticky-sweet example of the white-bread WASP sitcom prevalent on TV screens during the 1950s.

So I’ve always been curious as to whether Gray ever listened to an episode of the radio show, a decidedly different interpretation broadcast over NBC from 1949-54. Listening to it today, you might wonder why there wasn’t a question mark after the title—the show’s patriarch, Jim Anderson (played by Robert Young, the only actor from the original cast to make the transition to the tube), is a far cry from the patient, understanding, omniscient dad of the television show. (Let’s be honest—if Young’s Marcus Welby behaved like the radio Jim Anderson, you wouldn’t let the guy get within 20 feet of you with a tongue depressor.) Personally, I like the radio series; the kids are much more bratty than their TV counterparts—particularly Betty, who reminds me of some of the snooty, self-absorbed girls with which I was forced to attend high school. (I have to say, though—the television Bud, as played by Gray, is a vast improvement over his radio doppelganger, who seemed a little on the mentally-challenged side.)

I checked out a pair of episodes earlier today, beginning with a September 11, 1952 show, “Minding Pierre.” Pierre is a toy French poodle brought home by Betty (Rhoda Williams), much to her mother’s dismay and father’s amusement:

MARGARET: Betty…you know who always winds up taking care of the pets you children bring home…
BETTY: Mother, please…may I tell you why this dog is here?
JIM: Yes, I’d like an explanation, too…and an introduction…this is the first opportunity I’ve had to meet a three-hundred dollar dog…
BETTY: Well, his name is…
JIM: I don’t suppose I’m dressed for the occasion—maybe I should go upstairs and change…
BETTY: Oh, Father—don’t be so utterly cornball…
JIM: Well, I don’t want to commit any breaches of etiquette in front of our guest…what did you say his name was?
BETTY: Pierre…
JIM: Oh…bon soir, Pierre…
(SFX: dog whining and howling)
MARGARET: He doesn’t think much of your accent…

(snip)

JIM: How can a typing teacher afford a three-hundred dollar dog? I know I couldn’t…
BETTY: He was given to Mr. Fawcett by a dear friend…and Mr. Fawcett prizes Pierre very highly…
KATHY: How long do we get to have him?
BETTY: Just ‘til tomorrow morning…
KATHY: Aw, heck…
BETTY: Mr. Fawcett gets back tomorrow…
JIM: Sounds like a short convention…
BETTY: Oh, well, he’s been gone all week…you see, some of us girls in his class have been taking care of Pierre…
JIM: I see…Pierre’s been making quite a week of it…
BETTY: Well, we figured it would sort of put us in solid with Mr. Fawcett…
JIM: Oh…so this is a slightly political move, huh?
BETTY: Yes, and listen to this, Father…there are four of us, and Mr. Fawcett was going to be gone seven days…so, in dividing up the days, one of us could only have Pierre one day…and I’ll bet you think I was dumb to say that I’d be the one…
JIM: No, I’d…say you showed great foresight there…
BETTY: Well, I did! I’m the one who gets to return Pierre to Mr. Fawcett…and he’ll thank me, and sort of remember me as the one who took care his dog…which he prizes more than life itself…
JIM: Now, if you’d just put that much thought into your schoolwork, you wouldn’t have to resort to such maneuvers…

Jim’s none too keen with Betty’s scheme of apple-polishing, and with the same grit and determination to teach her a lesson that one might find in, say, the ever moralizing Mike Brady, he puts the snatch on the poodle from the backyard and hides the dog in the garage, relishing the fun that will result when she squirms at the news that the dog is missing. Brilliant Bud then tells his father the dog is no longer in the garage, giving Jim a massive stroke and making Margaret (Jean Vander Pyl) a widow. No, I’m kidding—but he does get sort of panicky, not knowing that Betty overheard him hatching his plot and she’s hidden the dog in her room. Several more incidents of one-upsmanship occur before this episode calls it a wrap—and I have to admit, it’s pretty funny in a dysfunctional sort of way.

I can’t offer such effusive praise for the second offering, broadcast September 25, 1952: Margaret has been doing some research for a debate she’s participating in, “Careers for Women.” (She’s supposed to argue the con side, in which married women shouldn’t work outside the home.) Jim becomes convinced that she’s got her sights set on a career, and he devolves into a club-swinging caveman right before our very ears, stating that “no wife of mine will ever work.” (Apparently the “white frame house on Maple Street” is taken care of by magical housekeeping sprites.) So Margaret decides to teach him a lesson (I’ll say this for that family, they certainly have a jones for education) in an effort to chip him out of the ice and at least bring him up-to-date to the 19th century. As a rule, I try not to judge OTR shows through a modern-day sensibility, but this episode is just too dated to get under that particular radar. These two shows are part of Radio Spirits' Radio's Greatest Sitcoms collection, and I think someone was asleep at the quality-control switch during the production--both of these shows are way off-speed.

“Well, um, gosh…what do you think, Harriet…?”

Now, I know that many folks have a rather jaundiced view of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and I can understand to a certain extent why this is so. The program is an example of that wholesome, white-bread WASP-kind of family situation comedy (along with its siblings Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best) prevalent during the 1950s that comes across as extremely dated today. But I’m not ashamed to admit that I like Ozzie and Harriet—the radio version, that is. It’s one of those programs (like Burns and Allen) that played better on radio than TV, and veteran comedy scribe Bob Schiller concurs in an interview from Jordan R. Young’s The Laugh Crafters:

It was a much better radio show than it was a television show. If I had to name a sitcom that I thought was a classic, I’d say it was Ozzie and Harriet. It was terribly underrated—from a writing standpoint, from a performing standpoint. And Ozzie was a very good editor. They had solid stories, partially due to Ben Gershman. He was a droll man. Ben did all the stories, that was his job—that was the only show I ever worked on that had one guy doing stories. And that was great, because he’d spend the whole week just doing the story, then he’d bring ‘em in and we’d kick ‘em around.

Last night, along with some Jack Benny, I listened to a pair of Ozzie and Harriet shows from 1952. In the first, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (from April 18), Ozzie reads in the newspaper that the town’s Chamber of Commerce has withdrawn its support from the local baseball team, and he attempts to explain to his family why the Great American Pasttime is so important:

OZZIE: Baseball’s been a colorful part of our American scene since before the Civil War…
RICKY: Is that when they discovered it?
DAVID: Nobody discovered it, dopey—it was invented…by Abner Doubleday…
RICKY: Oh yeah…
OZZIE: Well, that’s right…he was the father of American baseball…
RICKY: Golly—that Lil’ Abner sure gets around, doesn’t he?
HARRIET: No, I think it was a different Lil’ Abner…
OZZIE: Some of my fondest childhood memories were the Sunday afternoons when my father used to take us up to Martin’s Oval and root for the Richfield Park Team…
RICKY: Was that before or after the Civil War?

After conferring with his neighbor Thorny on what steps they should take to get the community involved, they hit upon the idea of getting a promoter friend, J.J. Fleason (Gale Gordon), to mother-hen a few ideas on how to win support for continuing the local team. Fleason, who’s also a used car dealer, presents Ozzie with a few of his ideas:

FLEASON: First of all, we make Monday night—Ladies’ Night…
OZZIE: You mean that…uh…ladies are admitted free?
FLEASON: No, sir…no…the ladies play baseball…now, here’s what we do—we find eighteen beautiful, shapely girls, dress them up in fluorescent sun suits, and form two teams…like the idea so far?
OZZIE: Well, the…the basic elements there are pretty hard to knock…
FLEASON: Exactly…and I know what your next question is—you want to know where we can find eighteen beautiful, shapely girls who can play baseball…well, believe me…you get those girls out there in those sun suits and nobody’s going to care whether they can play baseball or not…

Fleason’s other ideas include Midget Baseball on Tuesday nights (“We’ll even cut the admission to half price!”) and Donkey Baseball on Wednesdays—where the regular team rides donkeys while playing. Ozzie presents the ideas to his family, trying to appear enthusiastic—but the horrified reaction he receives tempers his enthusiasm. Harriet then hits upon the brilliant idea of presenting to the Chamber of Commerce and community a choice between regular baseball or Fleason’s carnival-like imitation, and the Chamber immediately decides to reinstate its support for the hometown team.

(NOTE: I discovered something interesting in this episode—Ozzie’s next-door neighbor, “Thorny” Thornberry, reveals his initials to be “S.J.” Does anybody know if Thorny ever had a first name on the show?)

The second broadcast, “Too Much Change” (4/25/52), is a particular delight, beginning with Ozzie’s accounting of where the ten dollars Harriet gave him yesterday went:

OZZIE: First, I went to the garage and had the car filled up with gas…that was three-and-a-half…
HARRIET: Six-and-a-half to go…
OZZIE: Then I met Thorny—that cost me about a dollar-and-a-half…two cheese sandwiches, two chocolate malteds, two pieces of pie and the check was under my plate—I think I was framed…
HARRIET: That’s five…
OZZIE: Uh…then I went down to the Emporium and bought a shirt…they were on sale…that was three-and-a-half…after that, I stopped in at the hardware store to get a padlock for the garage…oh, I got a flashlight that shines red and green…that’s something we need…
HARRIET: Oh, desperately…
OZZIE: What did you say?
HARRIET: Nothing, go ahead…
OZZIE: I also found a set of wrenches for the car…and a box of magic crystals for the fireplace—they make the fire burn all different colors, it’s quite an idea…all that came to about four dollars…
HARRIET: What about the padlock?
OZZIE: Well, I’ll…I’ll pick up that up next time…then I stopped at the drugstore on the way home and I bought some toothpaste, and a can of shoe polish, and some magazines…which came to a little over two dollars…you figure it out…
HARRIET: I have—I’ve been writing it down…all together you spent about fifteen dollars…
OZZIE: All right…(sudden realization) Fifteen? No, no—you must have made a mistake…I only had ten dollars with me…let’s see…
HARRIET: Gasoline, three-and-a-half…Thorny and the sandwiches, a dollar-and-a-half…
OZZIE: Yeah, that’s five…
HARRIET: …shirt at the Emporium, three-and-a-half…after that, temptation at the hardware store, four dollars…
OZZIE: That’s…twelve-and-a-half…
HARRIET: And two dollars and something at the drugstore, that makes it about fifteen…not bad for starting out with ten dollars…

Ozzie comes to the conclusion that the sales clerk at the Emporium must have given him the wrong change, and so he tries to rectify the situation by returning the money. This, however, is easier said than done—the adjustments manager (Frank Nelson) pleads with him not to do this, as it will put the books out-of-balance (as an auditor, I feel his pain). Ozzie finally locates the clerk (Sara Berner) and attempts to give her the five-spot, but runs into interference with her boyfriend “Hoiman” (Sheldon Leonard), who’s convinced that the Oz Man is trying to pick her up. Paula Winslowe also appears in this show (as a flirtatious saleslady), a very funny effort with an equally amusing ending.

I was reading the recent issue of Michael J. Weldon’s Psychotronic! magazine and there’s an interesting article in which he reviews several old television shows that he obtained on videocassette—he makes a funny observation regarding “America’s favorite young couple”: “The showbiz brothers [David and Ricky] were forced to play themselves from 1949 (on the radio) to 1966. Weren’t there child labor laws?”

“…another transcribed drama of mystery and adventure with America’s number one detective…”

America’s number-one detective? Please—I doubt even Ripley would believe that one. But from 1951-55, Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator did do a credible journeyman’s job with respect to the “mystery and adventure” part, even though the series (this is an opinion I can get behind) “seldom rose above B-grade detective fare,” according to John Dunning.

Barry Craig starred William Gargan, an actor beloved by film buffs today for a formidable string of appearances in A- and B-pictures, specializing in playing detectives, sergeants and other tough-guy roles. His best-known performance is probably that in They Knew What They Wanted (1940), a movie that earned him an Academy Award® nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Gargan had previously starred in Martin Kane, Private Eye—a series originally conceived for television but which also had a run over Mutual Radio from 1949-52. Gargan called it quits on the TV series in 1951, claiming the program had become “a vehicle for the meat parade”—but he soon found another role awaiting him on Barry Craig, which debuted over NBC Radio October 3, 1951. (Gargan later returned to TV in a syndicated series entitled The Return of Martin Kane.)

The role of Craig may have been just a little too tailor-made for Gargan. For starters, the series was originally titled Barry Crane, Confidential Investigator—but producers of Martin Kane emitted a yelp of protest, charging that “Kane” and “Crane” sounded a little too similar. So the character’s surname was changed to “Craig.” Gargan also brought a great deal of expertise to these roles, having previously worked in a detective’s office and as a credit investigator before getting into the acting business.

It’s been quite a while since I paid ol’ Bar a visit; I remember that Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator was one of the featured programs on Victor Ives’ Golden Age of Radio Theater back in the early 1980s. So I grabbed a pair of shows with me in order to reminisce, the first being “Hay is For Homicide,” originally broadcast August 31, 1954. While vacationing in Vermont, Barry and pal Jake (Parley Baer), the elevator operation in Craig’s building, stumble across a corpse in a hay wagon and encounter a woman (Joyce McClusky) firing at them. (CRAIG: “This time it’s not the farmer with the shotgun, it’s the farmer’s daughter.” JAKE: “Spoil a lot of stories that way…”) As our story unfolds, Barry learns that the corpse is an escaped convict who returned to the area to rescue a hidden cache of $30,000 obtained from a bank job, which is also being sought by a fellow con named Brady (Jack Moyles) and his moll Dina (Vivi Janiss). “Ghosts Don’t Die in Bed” (9/7/54) has Barry taking a midnight train to Dorning, NY, where an old friend needing help has asked him to come to a residence known as the Tower House. On the way, he encounters a pistol-packing woman named Ruth Adams (Virginia Gregg)—Craig gains her confidence and learns that she, too, has been summoned to the same house by her uncle, who in an amazing scripted coincidence, is Barry’s friend.

At the end of “Ghosts Don’t Die in Bed,” the listener can hear Gargan’s pre-recorded remarks talking about next week’s show (“The Corpse Who Couldn’t Swim”), but he is quickly cut off by announcer John Lang, who reads the program credits and then drops this little bombshell:

We regret that with the program you have just heard, we conclude the present Barry Craig series…we hope you have enjoyed them, and we look forward to bringing them to you again sometime in the not too distant future…

Less than a month later, “the not too distant future” has arrived—the program has been given a reprieve and resumes on October 3, 1954 (with “Corpse”). It then ran one more season before finally bowing out June 30, 1955.

Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator may not be the most inspired detective series of Radio’s Golden Age, but the two episodes I listened to had some snappy, funny Saint-like dialogue—penned by Louis Vittes. Veteran scribe Vittes (The Adventures of the Thin Man, Mr. & Mrs. North) had a talent for eccentric characters and offbeat dialogue, as illustrated in this exchange from “Hay is For Homicide”:

CRAIG: Hmm…I don’t like this much…but the only thing left for us to do now is…uh…sit down…
JAKE: Excuse me while I cheer…I…
BRADY: Well, what are ya waitin’ for? Go ahead, Grampa—cheer!
JAKE (to Barry): Company.
CRAIG: So I notice…kind of thing you’re liable to run into in old houses…they come out of the woodwork, I think…
BRADY: Uh yuh…don’t try to insult me, mister…
CRAIG: Why not?
BRADY: Anyt’ing you’re liable to say is liable to be true…
CRAIG: Don’t be foolish—I don’t use that kind of language…
BRADY: You also ain’t usin’ the kind of language I would like to hear…
CRAIG: What language would that be?
BRADY: The one tellin’ me where the baby’s buried…
JAKE: A boy or a girl baby?
BRADY: Oh, that Grampa’s a joker…Grampa could easy get his head knocked off…
JAKE: Put the gun down, son, and Grampa will be glad to tangle with you…

Parley Baer does an dead-on impersonation of Parker Fennelly in this episode, and while I won’t swear to this as gospel, it would appear that Jake made earlier appearances on the show, since Fennelly often appeared as a supporting player when Barry Craig was produced in New York from 1951-54. Many veterans of the New York radio series found work on this program, like Elspeth Eric, Santos Ortega and Ralph Bell (who did play a recurring character, Lt. Travis Rogers from 1951-53). In fact, while the series originated from the Big Apple the show's director was none other than Himan Brown of Inner Sanctum fame.

Approximately sixty episodes of Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator have survived for collectors today, and while the program’s plots are sometimes pretty standard stuff, Gargan has a nice way with a hard-boiled quip and the supporting cast of players rarely disappoints. That having been said, I’ll take a cue from Mr. Craig and close this post with a simple “Good night, folks…”