Are People Funny?

Audience participation shows were the reality shows of their day.

They featured real people put in a contrived situation where the audience could laugh at their obvious discomfort (reality shows added to that a large heap of self-centered jerkishness).

Art Linkletter hosted two hardy audience-participation perennials on radio and TV—People Are Funny and House Party. He was so popular he had regular programmes on both CBS and NBC; even Arthur Godfrey only stuck to one network. It seems to me House Party was one of the final shows of what was left of the CBS radio network in the late ‘60s.

Let’s see what columnist John Crosby said about one of Linkletter’s stunts in his column of July 15, 1946. Perhaps because it doesn’t demean the young couple involved (too much), he seems to have liked the stunt’s creativity.

“The Sponsored Marriage”
On Friday night Art Linkletter, one of the busiest as well as one of the noisiest masters of ceremony in radio, told a young couple on the threshold of wedlock that the chances of a marriage being a success were only fifty-fifty, according to current statistics, whereas the chances would have been much greater than that 100 years ago. He then proceeded to outline a stunt that would win this couple $1,000, courtesy of the General Electric Company, if everything went well.
Before we get into the stunt, which is a honey, I should like to interject a plaintive query. Are there any statistics on what Henry Morgan refers to as “The sponsored marriage”? What are the chances of success of a marriage arranged, or at least paid for, by the General Electric Company? G.E. proudly boasts that its refrigerators last a lifetime, but do its marriages last that long? A G.E. phonograph is easy to manage and a wonderful companion in the home—but what about a G.E. wife? Has she the latest single-action disposition impervious to heat, cold and hard times? Is her complexion guaranteed stainless? Is she an automatic self-starting housekeeper? Is she dew freshened? Well, no matter.
* * *
The stunt Mr. Linkletter outlined was this: A new movies [sic], whose name I didn’t catch, has as its setting an Oregon valley 100 years ago. Since marriages were so successful 100 years ago and since the motion-picture company is paying good money to Mr. Linkletter to publicize its product, Mr. Linkletter decided that it would be a fine idea if this young couple had their honeymoon in the same Oregon valley.
The couple would be outfitted just like the pioneers of 100 years ago, the bridegroom in a coonskin cap, buckskin jacket and moccasins, the girl in a sunbonnet, gingham dress and high button shoes. They would drive to the valley in a covered wagon drawn by oxen and pitch their tent beside a bubbling stream. “Do you know how to bake bread?” Mr. Linkletter asked the bride-to-be.
“Oh, no,” gasped the girl.
“Well, you’ll find it much easier over an open fire,” observed Mr. Linkletter, and turned to the prospective bridegroom. “Do you know how to milk a cow?”
“Oh, no.”
“Well, try the overhand double-crostic method,” said the master of ceremonies, and presented the young man with a 100-year-old flint-action squirrel gun with which to shoot game.
* * *

Incidentally, the $1,000 prize is not theirs just for taking part in this adventure. They must find it. The first clew [sic] to its whereabouts was a fishhook. The bridegroom must catch a fish with the hook, find the nearest forest ranger and give it to him, and the forest ranger would give him the second clew. The couple must find the $1,000 before Wednesday. After that it will diminish $50 daily.
The couple were married at 7 p. m. on Friday and whisked by plane to Oregon, where they were feted at a banquet in their honor by the Governor of Oregon, and then pushed off to their honeymoon valley aboard the covered wagon.
Best wishes to you both, folks, and I devoutly hope you find the $1,000 before Wednesday. When you do, tear off $50 of it and mail it to me and I shall send you by return mail three sample radio columns and my own free booklet entitled “How to Be Happy Though Unsponsored.”
* * *
Romance has always been a highly profitable enterprise, and it seems to me this sort of radio program is the latest phase in the long history of the romance industry. Many, many years ago Alexandre Dumas pere ran an immensely successful romance factory in Paris. Dumas outlined his plots and then turned them over to the hired hands to fill out the dull details. The products of this factory, notably “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Three Musketeers,” are still widely sold.
Then Hollywood stepped in to improvise a far more efficient means of romance manufacture, and the authors turned to anger in place of love for their plots. But in these realistic times, it is increasingly difficult to identify oneself with Clark Gable or Loretta Young.
Hence, the sponsored marriage program, which brings you a skillful blend of romance, lavish gifts and adventure. It’s easy enough to identify oneself with this young married couple who are people just like you and me. Vicariously, we go along on the Oregon honeymoon. Vicariously, we are making bread over an open fire, milking the cow overhand and double crostic, and looking for that thousand clams. Today the press agent has supplanted the author and the script writer as the purveyor of dreams.
Incidentally, the name of the program on which you can follow the married couple’s quest for gold is “People Are Funny” and you’ll find it on WEAF 9 p.m. on Fridays. The program emanates appropriately from Hollywood, which is inhabited by some of the funniest people on earth.

Now, the rest of the week’s Crosby columns. He takes another crack at John J. Anthony on July 16th, muses on running routines and characters on July 17th, parodies singing commercials on July 18th and includes John J. Anthony again on July 19th on radio shows he wouldn’t regret leaving the air.