Forbush Franks Are Frankier Franks

Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding had to make some adjustments when NBC signed them to do a 15-minute daily radio show in 1951. Their exploits on WHDH in Boston went for a half an hour. And much of it was ad-libbed so the show tended to go all over the place at times.

The NBC programme was tighter. Phoney commercials and sketches were scripted—the network’s censors would have demanded it—but reworked satiric concepts and even pieces of dialogue that Bob and Ray used in Boston. There were a couple of short, cheery musical breaks by an in-house combo, much like on WHDH.

But in 1951, the money was streaming away from radio. Television was taking ad dollars. Talent went from radio to TV. Bob and Ray did, too. They weren’t altogether successful. They were working incredibly long hours as they were still on radio, and continually shoved around to different time slots until the network gave up on them.

TV Guide profiled them after their departure from the Channel of Chimes. Its anonymous critic was like most others; (s)he appreciated Bob and Ray. The critic is right. Elliott’s Arthur Godfrey (Sturdley) was perfect; you’d almost swear it was Godfrey (Goulding’s Tony Marvin wasn’t as good. Marvin was a booming bass. Goulding couldn’t intone that low).

If you are not familiar with their radio work (though I think the writer is describing the NBC TV show), this gives you a great idea of their kind of humour. Like Jack Benny, I enjoy them better on radio than television. Unlike Benny, I don’t think they really mastered TV because their material strikes me as aural rather than visual.

This was published September 25, 1953. The fuzzy pictures accompanied the article.

No Pizza Pies
Bob and Ray’s Humor is Milder, Much Milder
ONE THING can be said about the satirical team of Bob and Ray: they are hardly a household word. Possessed with a sly, tongue-in-cheek impudence and a healthy disregard for some of the more sacred items of our times, the spoofers have about the same general appeal that might be accorded a Bach fugue or a T.S. Eliot couple. As one network official explained it, “What Arthur Godfrey’s got, Bob and Ray ain’t.”
Even the hoards of star-struck bobby-soxers who can leaf through their smudged autograph books and show you signatures of the entire Aldrich family, every panelist on Juvenile Jury (including its alumni) and a few page boys to boot, will admit that two fellows named Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding have somehow escaped their attention.
Unless tipped off in advance, an uninitiated viewer watching the Bob and Ray brand of straight-face humor for the first time might just furrow his brow in bewilderment and switch channels. Other folks, who realize Bob and Ray are making exquisite fun of some of their favorite television performers, are apt to turn the dial in protest. Still others, who prefer their humor broader, don’t care for Bob and Ray for the same reason they don’t care for rutabagas.
The boys themselves realize that rating-wise they’ll probably never crash the upper atmosphere populated by the Lucys, the Berles and the other chosen ones.

Says Ray, perhaps a little too pessimistically, “I’d guess that only one person out of 80 likes us.”
The guess seems to be a bad one. Bob and Ray don’t have a tremendous following, but it is a decidedly loyal one and certainly not as sparse as Ray indicates. Most of the critics praise the boys. The trade itself considers them far more clever than most of the comics working on the TV circuit. Their fans can quote them endlessly. At first NBC was thoroughly sold on the pair, despite the fact that prospective sponsors stayed away in droves. Relations between the boys and the network “steadily worsened,” as they say in the trade, and recently they signed a contract with ABC.
Bob (he’s the shorter one) and Ray seem to derive most relish from kidding radio and television, their bread and butter. Cigaret commercials are among their pet targets. One memorable spoof was the “Forbush Frankfurter Test” in which four franks were disrobed of their castings to prove which was rounder, firmer, etc. Not only was “Forbush” a clear winner, but the makers of “Forbush Franks” debunked other frankfurter claims:
Bob (holding up a frankfurter): Frankfurter A claims to relieve gout, embolism, near-sightedness, itchiness and fleebus.
Ray: The makers of Frankfurter B claim it is kinder to the F zone—F for frank, F for further. Yet 339 out of 340 physicians testified there is no such zone. Bob: “Forbush Frankfurters” claim nothing. Proof positive that “Forbush Frankfurters” are the best made.
For over a year Bob and Ray pounded away at cigarette comparison tests. Sample:
Interviewer (Bob): I see, sir, you are knocking a chip off the old block.
Ray (in carpenter’s garb): That is correct.
Bob: Tell me, sir, have you ever seen me before or have you receive remuneration for this interview.
Ray: I have never seen you before nor have I received any remuneration for this interview.
Bob: Which chip off the old block would you like to knock off first—ours or yours?
Ray: I’ll try yours first. (He proceeds to knock a chip off the block.)
Bob: Now, will you try our block, sir. (Ray complies.) Now, sir, you have knocked an old chip off your block and off our block. Which do you prefer?
Ray (enthusiastically): Oh, yours. Your chip flew more gracefully. And its [sic] milder—much milder.
The boys have run the gamut of soap operas, so that practically no soap is safe from their ribbing. Some of the Elliott-Goulding epics have unmistakeable counterparts—Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife; Hartford Harry, Linda Lovely, Helen Harkness, Sob Sister, and Mr. Trace, Keener Than Most Persons. Although the sponsors of the show were none too happy, the cast of “Mary Noble, Backstage Wife,” never failed to tune in the Bob and Ray parody of their show. The boys saw to it that even the plot lines were strikingly alike.

Bob and Ray’s take-offs on overstocked sales, special offers and kits for all purposes have drawn a shocking number of serious replies. Listeners have written to “I Want to Keep Up With the Joneses,” NBC, New York, to obtain a phony TV set equipped with antenna “to show off to your neighbors.” They have taken the boys up on offers of cracked phonograph records (“they were dropped just a few inches off the delivery truck.”), sweaters with the letter “O’ on them (“if your name doesn’t begin with “O” we can have it legally changed for you; sweaters come in two styles, turtle-neck or V-neck. State what kind of neck you have.”), deep freeze lockers, “deep enough to accommodate a family of four.” The Kind Hunter’s Kit was offered for “softhearted people who love to hunt but hate to kill.” It contained bullets that drop to the ground and are packed with vitamins for the animals.
In an effort to find the right spot for Bob and Ray, NBC shunted the boys around, spotting them here and there. Some of the program switches were unfortunate. The team’s initial dip into TV was stormy. When the popular Kukla, Fran and Ollie were cut to 15 minutes, Bob and Ray were given the vacated spot. Which, of course, outraged K.F.O. fans to brand the two radio comics as puppet-haters. They departed this early evening show a few months afterward. When the boys finally landed a sponsor on a late-evening program, they ran into agency trouble or sponsoritis. It seems the men who sign the paychecks didn’t dig their comedy stars and asked them to dish up a more obvious form of humor. “Throw pizza pies at each other,” was one of the suggestions. After 13 weeks, when option time rolled around, Bob and Ray left the show by mutual consent.
The team is probably best remembered for its regular guest stints on Dave Garroway’s morning show, Today. Garroway, a B. & R. fan, would solemnly introduce the two and the boys conducted interviews, with Bob generally handling the straight lines and Ray providing the answers.
Although their own ratings are modest, Bob and Ray have no qualms about spoofing some of the TV performers who boast tremendous audiences. Their favorite target is Arthur Godfrey—or, as portrayed by Bob—“Arthur Strudley [sic] and His No Talent Scouts.” Dressed in a sailor suit, a First World War aviator’s hat and strumming a ukulele, Bob gives a devastating impersonation—complete with “by gollys” and informal Godfrey-type commercials for “Metchnikoff’s Caviar Teabags.”
Their take-offs on Ed Sullivan (“We’ve flown in from the Middle East for their first American performance the only two-man Arabian drill team in the world. Let’s give the boys a warm New York welcome.”); Ed Murrow (“See It Now and Then”); Dragnet (“Fishnet”) and the Stork Club (Ray in a one-sided conversation with two store dummies), rank as unequaled television.
Like caviar and rutabagas, Bob and Ray don’t appeal to all tastes. But lots of people consider TV’s top satirists as pretty wonderful fare. Now if the Elliott-Goulding fandom can only convince the right people that ratings don’t mean a thing . . .