America's Pinocchio

It was called The Chase and Sanborn Hour, but nobody except maybe some agency people and the sponsor called it that. To everyone else, it was “The Charlie McCarthy Show.” Not “The Edgar Bergen Show,” even though he created Charlie and provided his voice and personality.

What’s odd isn’t the fact “there was ventriloquism on the radio.” What’s odd is everyone knew McCarthy was a dummy—there were even references and jokes on the show to his being wood—but people were quite willing to treat him as if he were real and separate and apart from Bergen.

And accept him they did in large numbers. It seems the show was in the top five for years and years. The debut show for the 1946-47 season was a mere half-point behind the first place Mr. District Attorney.

Herald Tribune syndicate critic John Crosby was a fan—he didn’t think much of Mortimer Snerd, who was outrageously dopey enough to get laughs—and had a short review, along with some gripes about his holiday on Fire Island. It’s a tough life, Mr. Crosby. The column appeared September 6, 1946.

McCarthy Is in Season Again
The flame trees are turning scarlet on Fire Island, the Atlantic feels like shaved ice, and the smell of wood smoke is in the air again. Last Sunday night, like the smell of burning leaves, came another small but mistakable sign that autumn is almost here.
“Why are you late?” inquired Edgar Bergen of the small razor-tongued hedonist whose voice is familiar to about 70,000,000 Americans.
“Because I didn’t get here on time,” said Charlie, who hasn’t changed a bit.
“Why didn’t you get here on time?”
“Because I was late.—You want to go around again?”
* * *
Lordy, lordy, I said to myself. I’ve been treading water all summer long and at last land is in sight. The McCarthy show was the first smart comedy program I’ve heard in what seems like forever. If I get a little hysterical, ignore it: I’m over-wrought. In fact, I’m fed up with summer, let’s face it. I’m tired of wet bathing suits and sand in my hair and Flynn’s bar and grill. I’d like a martini, very dry, at the St. Regis and I want to wear shoes again, the leather kind, and I wish Fred Allen were back.
* * *
Charlie was in rare form. He’d intended, he said, to pass the summer improving his mind but passed most of it improving his technique. And his technique, one of the most subtle and sure-footed in radio, is as sharp as ever.
After considerable meditation, Charlie tells Bergen he plans to quit radio.
“You don’t know what you're saying,” says Bergen.
"Oh, yes I do. I read your lips."
Bergen points out that quitting radio is a serious step but Charlie is adamant. "I decided I'm getting no place and you're helping me."
"But Charlie . . ."
"No no no no no no. I say no and that's final. I'm using my veto power. I’m walking."
“But you mean so much to everyone.”
“Especially you. You get your pound of flesh for 75 cents.”
"But if you left radio, what would you do? Remember, Charlie, Satan has work for idle hands."
"Yeah? What does he pay?"
I've heard better dialogue but one thing every McCarthy show has is a distinctive McCarthy flavor. Charlie is a rounded, fully developed character with more flesh and blood than a dozen Abbott and Costellos. Over the years, Bergen has endowed this small self-possessed cynic with a heart and a soul as well as a highly articulate set of vocal chords. Charlie is America's Pinocchio.
* * *
I’ve never been a Mortimer Snerd man. Snerd, it seems to me, is one joke, endlessly repeated. But, in my new benign end-of-Summer mood, I even felt a faint warmth toward this slack-jawed imbecile who is only barely conscious he is alive. Mortimer, in case you hadn't heard, spent the summer in school. It came as a great shock to him to discover that school has been out all summer, though, he said, he'd become a little suspicious when he won all the games at recess.
Guest star on the McCarthy program last Sunday was Jimmy Stewart, who proved again that movie stars, particularly one who has been in the Army for five years, shouldn't get mixed up with the experts in front of a microphone. Mr. Stewart, bless his shy, wide-eyed American soul, was just plain awful and, if he didn't have such a fine war record, I'd tell him so.

Bergen’s show was, as best as I can determine, the last hour-long variety show on network radio (though five minutes was shaved off for news on both ends). CBS carried him on Sunday nights at 7 until July 1, 1956 and then replaced him with Mitch Miller.

The McCarthy show never made the transition to television but another show Crosby reviewed in the same week did. Ethel and Albert was a 15-minute show with low-key humour involving a husband and a wife; it became a half-hour in the late ‘40s. Alan Bunce and Peg Lynch played the roles on radio, then TV, until six days after Bergen left radio. Crosby seems taken with the show in the September 3rd column. He discusses DuPont’s Calvacade of America on the 2nd, Allen Prescott’s audience participation show on the 4th and has a funny story on the 5th about a game show contestant who firmly denied her answer was wrong—and she was right. Good for her. Click on any of the stories to enlarge them.