We Switch You Now to Bob and Ray

Time for another Bob and Ray post. No introduction is needed other than this appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, November 10, 1952.

AFTER LAST NIGHT
By Will Jones
Bob and Ray Wow Stag Party
If I had to arrange some entertainment for a stag party, NBC's Bob and Ray would be about the last act I'd think of getting. So there was a stag party last week, and somebody got Bob and Ray for the featured entertainment, and what happened? They were great.
They didn't bring along a single special stag party joke, either. They used the same gags they use for housewives at 10:30 a.m. daily on KSTP-NBC.
The two flew to Minneapolis from New York to appear at a dinner party of the Association of Manufacturing Representatives. They made the trip as a favor to their sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive-Peet.
Before they ever got to the party, the gags started. When they landed at Wold-Chamberlain, they had one of their famous kits for Gov. C. Elmer Anderson.
THIS ONE WAS a Governor's Kit. In it were peanuts ("goobers for the gubernatorial race"), some of those paper noisemakers that kids blow in each others' faces at parties ("party favors"), a small fence ("for sitting on or straddling") and a deck of cards, some poker chips and dice ("for the party").

They also brought along an impressive leather-bound book stamped "Important State Business." Inside was a comic book.
At the party, in the Radisson ballroom, they did things like "Dr. O.K., the Sentimental Banker," their takeoff on Dr. I.Q.
Sample question: "I reside in the Empire State building. I invented the peanut butter sandwich. I tried nine times to go over Niagara falls in a barrel. I am the father of infantry drill regulations. I was the 42nd president of the United States, Who am I?"
They speculated on what doctors' radio commercials would sound like if doctors were allowed to advertise: "With every examination one free probe!"
THEY REPEATED a hilarious post-election interview with a public opinion pollster that they had done earlier in the day on Dave Garroway's TV program.
In that one, Ray, as the pollster, concludes that his election predictions were wrong because he had his field men asking improperly phrased questions: "We were asking the people, 'Do you like to watch sports or would you rather participate in them?' We should have asked who they were going to vote for."
He also concluded that his sample hadn't been adequate. His staff had questioned 18 people, "mostly women and children."
Besides their daily program on NBC radio and their twice-weekly TV appearances with Garroway, Bob (Elliott), and Ray (Goulding) have a records-and-chatter program that runs for a couple of hours every morning. It's heard only in the New York area.
"WHEN WE GET an idea, we play around with it on the early-morning program. Then when we think it's right, we use it on the network," said Bob.
"Most of the time we don't use a script. That pollster bit, for instance. We tried it out on our morning show. Then we did it three times for Garroway, and each time it was different.
"It kept getting better and better. We'll do it again tonight at the dinner, and I suppose it'll be still better." Bob does the impersonations, such as Dr. O.K., and Arthur Stirdley [sic], their version of Arthur Godfrey. Ray does the voice of Mary McGoon, a regular in their cast of characters.
"Whenever we interview some jerk, though, I'm always the jerk," said Ray.
Since their success on NBC, Bob and Ray have hired three writers "who think pretty much the way we do" to write some of their sketches.
But whenever they're ribbing some well-known radio or TV program they said, they never use writers or, for that matter, a script. They work out the basic idea between them and then just let it happen.
Day Brightener: Bob and Ray gag about a cowboy named Tex who is from Louisiana. Why Tex? He didn't want to be called Louise.