Henry Morgan and the Start of ABC-TV

Henry Morgan had the distinction of being on ABC-TV before there was an ABC-TV.

In 1946, there were nine television stations in the U.S; some were still experimental. Not one of them was owned by ABC. But the radio network knew it had to get into the TV business, so it took over airtime on the DuMont station in New York, WABD, and ran its few programmes. There was no ABC TV network yet.

Morgan was busy in 1946. He was on WJZ (the ABC radio flagship station) Sunday through Friday and was put on the network on Saturday nights starting in late January. This was a 15-minute grump-fest with “humorous comments, odd recordings” as the New York Herald Tribune put it. Morgan resumed his radio career after World War 2; before his military service, he built a reputation because of the war he had with advertising claims by his sponsors (coincidentally, sponsoring show mogul “Old Man Adler” died in 1946). He was well known enough to be given space by the New York Times that April to expound on what was wrong with radio (he blamed audiences that wanted “junk”). ABC seems to have believed it had a hot commodity in Morgan, one ripe for its experimental TV casts. Thus, Morgan ended up on TV on Thursday nights starting June 6, 1946. Variety reviewed:

"HERE'S MORGAN"
With Henry Morgan,
Producer: Harvey Marlowe
15 Mins.; Thurs., 8:15 p.m.
Adler Shoes
WABD-ABC, N. Y.
Henry Morgan's first video show has probably brought to light more problems that the Television Broadcasters Assn. can handle at the moment. In tele, as in radio, he's one of the most unorthodox performers extant, completely uninhibited to the point that he can cause more gray hairs to producers in a brief 15 minutes than most performers during an entire career.
Privately, performers complain of the terrific heat generated by the overhead light banks, but no one has ever done anything about it. Morgan—he stripped down to the waist, showed the viewers how the lights melted the records, and complained bitterly about the conditions under which video workers perform. TBA will probably promulgate a Hays office code to take care of guys like Morgan. Unorthodoxy of the performance was probably the most surprising thing ever to come over the screen, but lest TBA clamps down on Morgan too hard, it was all inoffensive and didn't exceed good taste, and it was funny.
His gab, strictly ad-lib, poked fun at the product in a manner which would cause immediate cancellation by a less liberal bankroller. His lampoon of Adler shoe products was funnier than anything he's done on the audio medium because of the sight values afforded by video. But withal, he gave a practical demonstration of the efficacy of Adler elevators by having a gent from the audience, accompanied by a femme, try on a pair. The guy afterward was much taller than she was.
Morgan probably didn't mean to be that good to his sponsor. Morgan has provided the first burlesque of television, a certain sign that the medium is on the way to growing up.
Jose.

What happened with the TV show? Did the experiment fail? The show ran only four weeks, but it wasn’t cancelled. Nor was sponsor Adler unhappy. “Exceptionally worthwhile,” was how Arthur Adler (company president and son of “Old Man Adler”) viewed the short series because people could see his slogan was correct and the Adler shoes made men taller. Nor did Morgan throw a fit and walk off (he saved that for the CBC many years) later. Women’s Wear Daily of July 26, 1946 had the answer: “In accordance with the policy of the American Broadcasting Co., with whom the contract was originally for a period of four weeks. This is time enough, says Ken Farnsworth, ABC Television Sales Manager, to enable the sponsor to take advantage of the promotional possibilities inherent in the experiment, and to gain the necessary experience with the new medium.”

ABC finally launched regular TV network programming on Wednesday, April 15, 1948 when Hollywood Screen Test aired unsponsored on WFIL-TV Philadelphia and WMAL-TV Washington. The following Sunday—70 years ago today—its first-ever commercial network programme aired—On the Corner, starring one Henry Morgan, and sponsored by Admiral Television. It aired on a whopping four stations, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and New York on DuMont’s WABD. ABC still didn’t have a New York TV station. Here’s Variety from April 21st:

ON THE CORNER
With Henry Morgan, George Guest, Virginia Austin, Roy Davis, Clark Sisters
Producer: Charles Holden
Director: Ralph Warren
30 Mins.; Sun., 6:30 p.m.
ADMIRAL CORP.
ABC-TV, from Philadelphia
(Enders) [ad agency that booked the show]
One of the first major tele comedy shows to recruit top comedic talent from radio, the new Henry Morgan "On the Corner" variety program "went network" via ABC-TV Sunday (18) after a "sneak preview" the previous Sunday for Philly audiences. Program originates from WFIL-TV in Philly and is carried in New York by the DuMont station, WABD.
It's a half-hour comedy-variety format, with Morgan bringing on the "acts" culled from the vaude section of Variety, which gets its share of camera showcasing as Morgan is shown thumbing through its pages. As variety-slanted video programs go, there was nothing particularly inspiring or distinct live about the talent surrounding Morgan. One act featured a marimba turn (George Guest); another a puppeteer act (Virginia Austin); the third some off-the-record impersonations (Roy Davis), with a femme quartet (Clark Sisters) rounding out the bill. It was the kind of stuff that, even at this early stage, already has old-hat overtones through their multiple showcasing on the flock of amateur, semi-pro and pro shows that have found their way into video.
Chief interest, of course, centered around Morgan and his particular style of delivery and satirical brand of humor. The Morgan technique, with its casualness and suggestion that it's all off-the-cuff, lends itself to the visual medium. Certainly it demonstrates anew that when a comedian's got it, he's got it for stage, screen, radio or tele, of course, depending on his material.
Morgan's got it— but if there were any major regrets about last Saturday's show, it was the lack of funny material. Plus a too casual mannerism of "throwing it away." Obviously it isn't deliberate, but it suggests to the videogler that, even on his preem tele performance Morgan's kinda bored by the whole thing.
Perhaps it was only natural that the show's top laughs came from the Morgan "kidding-the-commercial" routine, a carryover from his radio show, in this instance his TV sponsor's Admiral refrigerator. The prop really got a kicking around both verbally and physically. Here, too, the sponsor sensitivity angle projects itself, only doubly so. For a visual gander at the punishment taken by the product might easily start Admiral Corp. execs to wonder. It's funny, but how practicable it can be in terms of sales impact is questionable. There's an earlier commercial extolling the virtues of the Admiral radio-tele-phonograph combo set, but it's delivered straight.
Rose

The show was scheduled for 13 weeks. It never got that far. The third and fourth weeks saw WFIL-TV technicians on strike; ABC cancelled one show and Morgan refused to cross the picket line for the second. The fifth week originated from WMAL-TV Washington on May 15th. Admiral brought in someone other than Morgan to do the commercials. He considered that a breach of contract. Admiral said that was fine with them. That ended On the Corner after a total of three broadcasts. Even Hayloft Hoedown lasted longer.

Morgan wasn’t through with radio. We said Morgan was busy in 1946. That year ABC had sunk $100,000 into failed shows starting Bill Thompson and Jimmy Gleason, but decided to put up the same amount of cash to develop half-show radio outings with Morgan and Ray Wencil (Variety, June 26). He cut an audition disc in early July and then fumed live on his 15-minute radio about what happened next when he tried to negotiate with the network—“Little did I know I’d run head-on into a foul den of thieves” (Variety, July 17). However, things got squared away by mid-August when the trades reported he’d get a half hour comedy show, with Aaron Rubin eventually signed to write for him.