Farewell, George

From my Bombast Comcast.net webpage comes some truly devastating news.  Actor George Grizzard has gone on to his rich reward at the age of 79.

His obituary covers in nice detail his incredible acting range, particularly in the area of live theater.  I wasn’t at all aware of Grizzard’s stage accomplishments—he won a Tony Award for his performance in 1996’s Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, and nominations for his work in The Disenchanged (1959) and Big Fish, Little Fish (1961).  His stage debut was opposite Paul Newman, playing his brother in 1955’s The Desperate Hours, which was later brought to the silver screen with Humphrey Bogart in the starring role.  Other highlights include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (the original 1962 production), California Suite (1976) and Judgment at Nuremberg (2001).

Grizzard also did a goodly amount of television work, including the prestigious dramatic anthology Playhouse 90.  Among the series he appeared on: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Ben Casey, Medical Center, Hawaii Five-O and Law & Order, on which he had a recurring role as Arthur Gold.  He also copped a Best Supporting Actor Emmy in 1980 playing opposite Henry Fonda in the TV-movie The Oldest Living Graduate.

But I’ll personally remember Grizzard best for performances in films like Advise & Consent (1962, as Senator Ackerman), Warning Shot (1967, as the flaky pilot-playboy who befriends David Janssen’s cop) and Bachelor Party (1984) because—and I mean absolutely no malice in this—no one could play a better asshole than George.  Any individual who has the cojones to play truly unlikable people time and time again is aces in my book.

R.I.P., Mr. Grizzard.  You will be missed. 

Everybody loves Raymond

Having watched The Further Perils of Laurel & Hardy, Harold Lloyd’s World of Comedy and the DVD set Weiss-O-Rama of late, I cannot escape the fact that the silent film bug has bit me again.  It’s a recurring phenomena (though certainly nothing to get all plastic-sheeting-and-duct-tape about) whereupon I find myself buying goodly-sized portions of DVDs showcasing silent cinema, and again, while the consequences are slight (and most enjoyable), it does have a tiny tendency to put a dent in my wallet.  I’ve procured within the past two weeks alone some silent comedies and dramas from the likes of Grapevine Video, Sunrise Silents and Kino—which I hope to find time to watch and review in this space this month.

I’ve been a fan of silent films since I was a little gaffer—particularly the works of the great comedians.  I’m not entirely sure when and how this came about, though I’ve long suspected that my exposure to Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon and Charley Chase in their Columbia two-reelers would go a long way toward explaining it.  I’m also old enough to remember the hoopla surrounding the return of Charlie Chaplin to the United States (not knowing at the time, of course, that the U.S. was responsible for kicking him out in the first place) to participate in the 1972 Academy Awards.  A few years later, I made a point to borrow from the town library Walter Kerr’s seminal reference tome The Silent Clowns—not long after its publication, the author/critic appeared occasionally on a program that I watched on our local PBS affiliate entitled The Silent Comedy Film Festival.

But enough about my truly odd childhood.  This October 15th and 17th, the Museum of Modern Art has scheduled showings of Hands Up! (1926), Raymond Griffith’s Civil War comedic masterpiece.  I’d certainly love to be there (although Pam says the popcorn really sucks) but since I cannot, I spend last night (through the courtesy of Grapevine) watching it in the confines of my own home, where the popcorn is assuredly better.  Hands Up! is acknowledged by many silent comedy fans to be Raymond Griffith’s best feature, even earning a spot on the National Film Registry in 2005.  Author Kerr enthusiastically championed Griffith in Clowns, writing:  “Raymond Griffith seems to me to occupy a handsome fifth place—after Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Langdon—in the silent comedy pantheon, a place that is his by right of his refusal to ape his contemporaries and his insistence on following the devious curve of an entirely idiosyncratic eye.”

It would be difficult for someone like myself to argue with Mr. Kerr’s assessment (though I do take issue with his assigning Langdon to fourth place—I think a strong case can be made for Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle) since I’ve only seen the one Griffith vehicle—and in fact, more knowledgeable fans than I demur based on the reality that many of Griffth’s films have been lost to the ravages of time.  In a February 2005 article in Classic Images, Bruce Calvert informs readers that only two of Griffith’s best comedies—Hands and Paths to Paradise (1925)—are available on video; some of his supporting performances also exist in that medium, but the rest of his starring films still extant remain locked away in private archives.  (In the case of Paradise, nearly every available print is missing the film’s final reel.)

But rather than lament what’s unavailable, allow me to praise what is: Hands Up! is a first-rate feature comedy, featuring Griffith as a Confederate spy assigned to keep a Nevada gold mine out of the hands of the Union Army (represented by Captain Montagu Love).  During the course of his mission, he faces a firing squad (one of the film’s most memorable sequences, as he cavalierly tosses plates in the air to distract his would-be executioners) and Indians on the warpath, and manages to fall in love with both daughters (Marian Nixon, Virginia Lee Corbin) of the mine owner (Mack Swain)—a sticky wicket resolved at the end with a gag that I’m certain raised more than a few eyebrows at the time.  Griffith’s unflappable character (adorned in silk hat and tuxedo) makes the comedic entanglements work, displaying a breezy insouciance that is positively engaging.  I also find Hands Up! intriguing in that like Keaton’s The General, both of its protagonists are backing the Confederate cause…even though we all know (with the possible exception of a few people hanging out in my neck of the woods) how that turned out.

In The Silent Clowns, Kerr states that “…’Hands Up!’ contains some work that is daring—for its period, certainly—and some that is masterfully delicate; the work of an inventive, unaggressive, amiably iconoclastic intelligence.”  To me, the test of a really good silent film is whether or not it encourages me to seek other entries by the same artists (actors, directors, writers, etc.) and in the case of Hands Up! it’s passed the exam with flying colors.

Requiem for a heavyweight producer

My Bombast Comcast.net home page reports the passing of television producer Martin Manulis, who has shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of 92.

This will demonstrate how much of a lowbrow I am, by the way.  I saw Manulis’ name and immediately recognized him as the executive producer of TDOY sitcom fave The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis—not stopping to realize, of course, that he was also the creator of television’s Playhouse 90, one of the most prestigious dramatic anthology series in the history of the TV airwaves, with productions like Requiem for a Heavyweight and Days of Wine and Roses to his credit.

Manulis was also the producer of the movie adaptation of Wine and Roses, which starred Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick., and he dabbled in film production through the 1960s with films like Dear Heart (1964) and Luv (1967) among his credits.  But it was on the small screen that he achieved his greatest fame, producing various programs from the likes of Suspense to Studio One to Adventures in Paradise to James at 15.

R.I.P., Mr. Manulis—you will be missed.

I think we’re all Bozos on this bus

If you’ve ever seen Poltergeist (1982), I’m guessing you haven’t forgotten one of the most terrifying scenes in that horror flick, where the little kid’s clown doll turns evil and goes medieval on his ass.  I certainly won’t forget it, because I had a dream like that once when I was little—that my talking Bozo had me trapped in my room and wouldn’t let me out, and I couldn’t contact my parents.

I’ve known some people who claim to be freaked out by clowns.  I can’t honestly say that I share that phobia, because I dealt with the Bozo dream in a perfectly calm and rational manner: I threw that goddamned doll into the back of my closet.  (Mom: “Why don’t you ever play with Bozo anymore?”  Six-year-old me: “I don’t feel like it.”)  Mom says I was a pretty big Bozo fan as a kid—I even had this little tchotchke in the basement—but outside of the toys and maybe an occasional Bozo cartoon, it’s faded out of my childhood memory for good.

The entity billed as “The World’s Greatest Clown” was created by Alan W. Livingston in 1946 as a character for Capitol Records, offering children what was then the innovative idea of allowing them to read stories while listening along on 78 r.p.m. records (dubbed “Record Readers”).  Vocal actor Pinto Colvig (the voice of Goofy and so many others) was the man behind the clown’s voice, and he also became the first television Bozo when a TV program based on the character appeared in 1949 in the Los Angeles area.

The cathode ray tube began to cut into Bozo’s record sales, and an associate of Livingston’s, a gynecologist-turned-actor-comedian named Larry Harmon, had the foresight to see what a money-making machine the Boz could turn out to be on TV by buying the rights to various Bozo products and knock-offs.  (The jewel of the clown…er, crown, the rights to the character, were finally purchased by Harmon from Capitol in 1957.)  Harmon then started his own cartoon studio (in association with Jaywark) not long after, and eventually cranked out 156 cartoons that were so dismal in their animation they made the King Features Trilogy material look like it came out of Disney.  Armed with this “wealth” of cartoon riches, Harmon began to actively promote sales of the new cartoon series, and decided to copy the success of TV’s Romper Room by franchising his animated output: the cartoons would be sold to local stations, who in turn would produce their own kiddie-show series featuring their own Bozos—after having purchased the costume and “training” from Mr. Harmon, who became a staggeringly rich tycoon in the process.  One of the more famous individuals to don the Bozo duds was a young man named Willard Scott (on Washington’s WRC-TV from 1959-62), who a meaner person might say pretty much stayed a Bozo the rest of his life, even while doing the weather for The Today Show.  (I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you.)  WJCL-TV in Savannah even had a Bozo show, though I don’t know too much of the backstory behind that…Sam Johnson probably does, when he’s not out being the Six Million Dollar Man.

I mention Bozo’s background only because I entertained myself over the weekend watching the DVD box set Larry Harmon’s Bozo, the World’s Most Famous Clown: Volume 1, a collection of thirty shows originally broadcast over WHDH-TV in Boston between 1965-67 (the program, Bozo’s Big Top, actually ran on WHDH from 1959-70; Harmon took one hundred-and-thirty episodes from 1965-67 and syndicated them to stations who couldn’t afford their own local Bozo).  Maybe I’m just a strange person, but I’ve really been enjoying this jaw-droppingly awful collection of live shows that feature Frank Avruch as the Boz himself and future Sesame Street performer Carroll Spinney as various characters under the circus’ big top.

I say “jaw-droppingly awful” only because Bozo’s Big Top (produced and written by Harmon) can’t hold a candle to the Cadillac of Bozo shows, Bozo’s Circus, which ran on WGN-TV in Chicago from 1960 to 2001.  Having been blessed with getting WGN on our cable service in Ravenswood while I was still toiling away in high school, I got to enjoy the antics of Bob “Bozo” Bell, Frazier Thomas, Roy Brown (as Cooky), Marshall Brodien (“Wizzo the Wizard”) and the rest in an incredibly well-produced show that may have been targeted at kids but had equal appeal for adults as well.  (Actor Dan Castellaneta once revealed in an interview that he modeled the voice of The Simpsons’ Krusty the Clown character after Bell’s Bozo.)

Big Top is like a traffic accident from which you can’t quite turn away.  The ninth show on the DVD set will give you an example of its so-awful-it’s-great appeal: two of the regular performers, Carl Carlsson (who played Professor Tweetiefoofer) and Ruth Carlsson (who played most of the female characters), are doing a juggling act that they apparently rehearsed maybe twenty seconds before the show started.  They keep dropping their pins, and helpful kids from the audience get up from their seats to pick them up and hand them to the jugglers…while they’re still juggling.  When this not-at-all-impressive display is finished, the Carlssons then light torches and start to juggle these—prompting me to cry out: “Wait a minute!  You haven’t mastered the pins yet!”  Even though they turn out the lights in the studio to emphasize that the materials they’re juggling are on fire, they miraculously manage not to drop any of the torches and barbecue any of the tiny tots in the process.

On Bozo’s Big Top, Avruch would choose at random a child who was to be—and I can hear you all getting ready to guffaw—his “Butch for a Day”; Butch being the little kid in the Bozo cartoons that resembled Richie Rich except that he wore a ringmaster’s uniform.  In Show #9, he chooses a defiant little girl who most definitely is not going to wear either the jacket or cap—I sort of halfway expected her to glare at him and say “Aw, cram it, Clownie!”  The main duty of the “Butch of the Day” is to draw a number from a hat to pick a child who spins a Bozo wheel to win a big honkin’ load of toys in “Bozo’s Treasure Chest,” sort of a very-poor relation to WGN’s “Grand Prize Game.”  The “Butch” kid, who’s apparently having a bad day, ignores the clown and several kids start running out of the peanut gallery to volunteer to take over her Butch duties before Avruch manages convince Miss Pissy Moppet to pull a out a number.  The kid who has the winning number eventually wins the chest with a lucky spin; by this time, there were so many freakin’ toys in that chest (I watched eight shows before anyone won) that the winner could have opened a Toys R Us franchise there on the spot.

Once you have children breaching the soundstage perimeter, chaos eventually follows.  Bozo and his circus pals are attempting to convulse the kids with some hoary old vaudeville sketch when you can see one brave little moppet decide to join the festivities, staring at the camera as if she were ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille.  The sketch involves the demolition of a hi-fi set, which produces a ton of paper on the floor that, of course, the tidier-minded kids feel its their job to clean up…but this time they take the paper back to their seats.

If you want to know why a perfectly sane individual like me would find this sort of kitsch fascinating…well, I can’t really tell you.  But Infinity Entertainment, who released the first set, has a second collection following in November.  Somebody besides me has to be watching this stuff.  So remember what your ol’ pal Bozo always says…keep laughin’!

Blogs that make you go hmmm…

My good neighbor to the North, Brent McKee, has bestowed upon my humble blog a meme (and this just goes to show you how much I know—I thought it was pronounced “mem,” as when Madeline Kahn says to the cowboy in Blazing Saddles: “Tex mem?”) and to be honest, this isn’t any ordinary meme (you know what I’m talking about—the ones that ask “Paper or Plastic?”…or some such esoteric claim) but one that asks you to name five blogs that make you think.  I’m nothing sort of astonished when Brent says Thrilling Days of Yesteryear starts up the old thought processes for him because usually when people comment on my blog it’s a variation of “Lots of free time on your hands, huh?”

Anyway, here is how this meme works:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award on your site with a link to the post you wrote.

Even though Brent’s already tagged Tom Sutpen, Stephen Cooke and Richard Gibson’s pop culturally delicious If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats (which, in all fairness, has already been tagged previously)—one of the blogs I was going to include on my list, I thought I’d take a stab at this.  Here goes:

1. Blog d’Elisson – If you look at the “Yet More Self-Aggrandizement” Section in the right hand section of Steve’s blog, you’ll see a quote by me that I confess I swiped from Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) in the movie The Maltese Falcon.  But in “liberating” this quote I meant no malice: simply put, Steve is one of the most fascinating individuals I’ve ever met.  His blog is a living, breathing example of esoteric; he has so many interests that he reminds me of a good friend in college who could hold forth on any subject without any hint of “I know more than you do.”  (Or, as Walter Brennan used to put it: “No brag…just fact.”)  There’s always something to be learned or taken away from Blog d’Elisson—and if you ever get the pleasure of meeting the man himself in person, take it from me: there’s no pretense about him, what you see is what you get.

2. Pop Culture Petri Dish – I have only one complaint about Tony Kay’s blog…he doesn’t update it nearly enough.  As an observer of pop culture, I am full-green-envious of those individuals who dissect it better than I can, and Tony is definitely in the top five.  In watching the TV chestnut Streets of San Francisco on DVD, Tony can’t help but marvel at the huge leaps in technology made since that series’ 1972-77 run: “’Where's his cell phone?’ my mind cried out more than once as I watched a beat cop forced to run to the nearest pay phone to call in a crime scene, and observing antique equipment like Tele-type machines and, hell, electric typewriters was like peeking in on a living museum.”  Great stuff.

3. The Third Banana - As an individual who’s been known to drive people out of the TV room with cries of “That’s so-and-so!” any time I recognize a character actor, it’s nice to know that Aaron Neathery and Company are there to share their immeasurable knowledge of comedians who are either forgotten today…or were obscure from the get-go.  Case in point, this on-the-money mini-review of The Wrong Miss Wright (1937), a Columbia two-reeler starring Charley Chase that Aaron notes “is arguably better than most of his final performances for [Hal] Roach…”  Nice to know that I’m not the only one who thinks Wright is one of Chase’s best comedies.

4. Something Old, Nothing New – I’ll just put it as succinctly as I can…I want to be Jaime Weinman when I grow up.

5. Scrubbles.net – Like any good pop culture blog, Matt Heinrichs samples everything from the buffet, from Siskel & Ebert to erotic playing cards to Disneyland records.  Matt consistently emphasizes what people have long suspected but are afraid to admit: kitsch is cool.  

“Wake up, America! It’s time to stump the experts!”

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this a time or two in the past, but one of the nifty benefits of being involved in the First Generation Radio Archives and purchasing ten or more of their Premier Collections is that…well, “membership has its privileges.”  For starters, you are recognized as a “Friend of the Archive,” and on the fifteenth of every month you receive a newsletter pointing you toward other OTR programs offered by the FGRA, including discounts on special collections and access to their “Bargain Bin” and Low Generation CD library, where you can often pickup CDs for as low as $2 a pop.  Though you can certainly make a strong argument that I need more CDs for the dusty TDOY holdings like a moose meets a hat rack, I couldn’t resist picking up a 10-CD set of twenty broadcasts from the quiz show favorite Information Please—one of June’s specials and a program of which I’m become fonder and fonder with each listen.

If you’re unfamiliar with Information Please outside of the yearly almanac, you should check out this book by the Isaac Asimov of old-time radio publishing, Martin Grams—but if you’re in a hurry, allow me to crib a quick description of the program from the latest “Friends of the Archive” newsletter, composed by Director Tom Brown and Preservation Manager Harlan Zinck:

Both of us have always been fans of the more obscure shows from radio's past. We enjoy the mainstream shows like The Jack Benny Program, The Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show, and The Shadow of course -- but it's the lesser-known programs that really strike our fancy.

One that really delights Harlan is Information Please, the bright and witty quiz program hosted by Clifton Fadiman and featuring a "brain trust" of quick-witted panelists like Franklin P. Adams, John Kieran, Oscar Levant, and guests ranging from Basil Rathbone and Groucho Marx to Alexander Woollcott and Alice Duer Miller. Though at first glance, it would seem that such a program would be of primary interest to intellectuals and literary enthusiasts, those who have taken a chance and listened to a few programs have been pleased to discover that the shows were and remain highly entertaining for modern day audiences.

The very concept of the program - turning the usual game show concept backwards by making the experts, rather than the average man or woman, answer the questions - made it an early success with audiences ranging from truck drivers to college professors (particularly when none of the panelists could answer a relatively simple question). Likewise, the experts chosen to participate in the quiz, though all knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, were not eggheads or dull researchers; Levant, for instance, made a career out of being a piano prodigy playing and composing both classical and popular pieces, as well as by being a popular character actor in the movies. John Kieran was a well-known sports columnist while Frank Adams, or 'FPA', as he was best known, had for many years authored the popular "Conning Tower" column in various New York newspapers, documenting the words, phrases, poetry, and goings-on of the Manhattan theater and literary scene. Despite their knowledge and memories, all of the regular panelists - as well as many of the guests - frequently demonstrated a very low-brow love of bad puns, old jokes, and word play -- and it was common on many a broadcast for the entire group to break into iffy barbershop harmony and perform a vocal rendition of some old-time favorite!

I am in 100% agreement with both Tom and Harlan on the merits of Information Please—and not just because they can get me work.  You see, one of the broadcasts in this CD set (from June 20, 1939) features a guest appearance (on the panel) from George Burns’ better-half, Gracie Allen—who, contrary to previous accounts, doesn’t completely abandon her “dumb Dora” persona (you gotta love Gracie—she never broke character) but at the same time demonstrates she’s got plenty of Moxie on the ball by holding her own in answering questions.  (I listened to this particular show last year for a project that is currently in limbo right now.)  So I’m really looking forward to hearing to the rest of the shows: these 1939 broadcasts include such notables as Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe’s creator), Russel Crouse, John Gunther, H.V. Kalterborn and Lillian Gish.  There’s also a February 7, 1939 broadcast featuring a young Michigan University student named Myron Wallace—whom OTR fans might remember as an announcer-performer (The Green Hornet, Sky King) and others as a celebrated investigative reporter for the CBS television network on shows like 60 Minutes (I think he was answering to “Mike” by that time).

And while I’m on the subject of the First Generation Radio Archives, just a quick reminder that you still have plenty of time to enter their Adventures by Morse contest, which will award one lucky winner a rare test pressing—a one-sided, white vinyl disc containing program #40, “Land of the Living Dead” (Chapter 1, Part 2).  All you have to do to enter is purchase one of the two Premier Collections (or both if you want two chances to win) this month, Volume 3 of Adventures by Morse or Volume 2 of The Chuck-Wagon Jamboree (hosted by Ken “Now, Matthyoo…” Curtis)…or if your tastes learn toward NTR (new-time radio), either (or both) Volume 10 or Volume 11 in the Twilight Zone radio series.  So don’t miss out—order and enter today!

The Thief of Bad Gags

Back in October of 2006, I mentioned that I purchased some old-time radio programs from my good friend Jerry Haendiges that included broadcasts from The Jack Carson Show, The Fitch Bandwagon (the Phil Harris & Alice Faye years, before they switched to their self-titled series sponsored by Rexall) and the Ray Milland laugh fest Meet Mr. McNutley.  I also bought a fourth series from Jer, one that I had planned to write about after tucking a few episodes under my belt…well, as you know by now, it’s often hard for me to get around to things as quickly as I would like.  But since I was doing some random surfing earlier today and discovered that someone referenced a TDOY post for an entry on Wikipedia, I decided to have a listen to this series: The Texaco Star Theater, Milton Berle’s radio farewell that ran a single season on ABC Radio beginning September 22, 1948.

Berle’s television show, as you’re no doubt familiar, was also known as The Texaco Star Theater (only it was televised on NBC-TV) and became one of the contributing factors to the phenomenal number of television set purchases in the halcyon days of the new medium.  On radio, however, The Texaco Star Theater had been on the air since 1938, as the generic banner for shows starring the likes of Adolphe Menjou, John Barrymore, Ken Murray, James Melton, Tony Martin and Alan Young.  (In fact, Fred Allen’s show was known by that title while he was on CBS from 1940-44.)

When Berle’s former NBC series was axed on April 13, 1948, he moved to the Life Savers network in the fall of 1948, bringing along with him former NBC stooges Arnold Stang, Pert Kelton, Jack Albertson, announcer Frank Gallop, and writers Nat Hiken and Aaron Ruben.  (These two scribes were also joined by the Simon Brothers, Neil and Danny.)  In later years, Milton remembered it as “the best radio show I ever did…a hell of a funny variety show.” Though it, too, was doomed to last only one season—it’s every bit as hilarious as his unjustly neglected NBC program, and it’s wonderful to be able to get the opportunity to listen to what is almost the complete run of the series.  One broadcast from November 24, 1948 features this amusing exchange between Berle and Stang (who apparently rejoined the series—my guess is probably because Henry Morgan’s ABC program had been cancelled):

BERLE: Uh, what is your name, young man?

STANG (loudly) My name is Milton Berle!

BERLE: Milton Berle?

STANG: Yeah, I see you’re confused…

BERLE: Yes…

STANG: …I suppose I’d better explain…

BERLE: I wish you would…

STANG: I’m not the Milton Berle that has a shoe store in the Bronx…

BERLE: You’re not…?

STANG: No…that’s the first thing people think of when they hear the name…

BERLE: Now, wait a minute…wait a minute…there’s another Milton Berle, the radio star…

STANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah…you’re making the same mistake a lot of people make…that’s Burl Ives…

BERLE: Now, wait a minute…wait…wait a minute…please…look, my name is Milton Berle, too…

STANG: Oh, so you’re one of those guys who right away takes a name the minute it becomes popular, huh?

BERLE: Wait a minute…takes a name?  That’s my real name!

STANG: Milton Berle?

BERLE: Yes!

STANG: I don’t get it…if you’re here tonight…

BERLE: Yes?

STANG: …who’s watchin’ the shoe store?

This broadcast is titled “A Salute to Thanksgiving,” and the funniest bit on this (and other Berle Theater broadcasts) emanate from a feature showcased on his 1947-48 program, “(Fill-in-the-blank) Forum,” which I suspect writer Hiken “liberated” from his former boss, Fred Allen.  Here, Uncle Miltie interviews Pert Kelton’s long-suffering housewife:

BERLE: Let’s hear from the women…the lady in the second row, opening a can of beer with her tooth…Madam, uh…what is your name?

KELTON: Tallulah Feeney—I’m a homemaker…

BERLE: I see…I see…and you have a problem concerning Thanksgiving, is that…

KELTON: Yeah…how can I keep my husband from eatin’ so much rich foods?  He’s a regular Barbara Glutton…

BERLE: He must like Thanksgiving, huh?

KELTON: And how…the last Thanksgivin’, the minute he woke up, he jumped out of bed and took a big bite out of the turkey…

BERLE: I see…you hadn’t cooked it yet?

KELTON: I hadn’t killed it yet…

BERLE: He eats a lot at Thanksgiving dinner?

KELTON: Oh, brother…he knocks off a huge meal and then rolls over and goes to sleep…

BERLE: But a man’s entitled to sleep after a heavy meal…

KELTON: With his head in the mashed potatoes?

BERLE: Oh!  Oh!  He’s sure a heavy eater…

KELTON: The doctor says he has a tapeworm…

BERLE: Tapeworm?  Does he watch his diet?

KELTON: Yeah…he stopped eatin’ tape…

BERLE: Well, that does it every time…

KELTON: What a clumsy jerk he is, carving our Thanksgivin’ turkey…every year he cuts off the same piece for me…

BERLE: What piece is that?

KELTON: His thumb…

BERLE: He’s really a pest around Thanksgiving, eh?

KELTON: He means well…today, he was helpin’ me in the kitchen…and it took him six hours to dress a turkey…

BERLE: Six hours?  Why, you could dress a dozen turkeys in that time…

KELTON: In slacks and sports shoes?

The Texaco Star Theater also carried over the “At Home with the Berles” feature prominently showcased during Milton’s NBC run (with Stang playing the part of Berle’s obnoxiously bratty son)—sadly, without the participation of Mary Shipp, who by that time had found steady work as night school teacher Miss Spaulding on Life with Luigi.  I’ve noticed, however, in sampling these shows that Jack Albertson was allowed to participate more in the sketches—Albertson had a recurring bit in which he played an influential figure (movie mogul, Broadway producer) infatuated with Berle (“So it was a flop…so I lost some money…I like show business…I like you…kill me!  I like you...”), but in this exchange from a December 8, 1948 broadcast he seems to have forgotten on which side his bread is buttered:

BERLE: Our questions tonight are on radio, and here’s our first contestant—are you ready, sir?

ALBERTSON: Yes, sir!

BERLE: All right…now, for ten dollars…who is the star of the Texaco Star Theater?

ALBERTSON: Milton Berle!

BERLE: Correct!  For twenty dollars, who is the star of the Texaco television show?

ALBERTSON: Milton Berle!

BERLE: Right!  Now you’re up to forty dollars…what comedian is known for his mother laughing at him?

ALBERTSON: Milton Berle!

BERLE: That’s right again…now, for eighty dollars…who do you think is the funniest comedian on the air?  (Long pause, accompanied by audience laughter) Come on—it’s for eighty dollars…

ALBERTSON: You keep the money…I’ll keep my self-respect!

BERLE (after the audience response dies down): Thank you, Henny Youngman…