Catching a Trout On the Air

If someone asked you “What network newsman hosted the first quiz show on post-war television?” you would likely think of John Daly on What’s My Line? It began its long run in early 1950.

But you’d be wrong.

The correct answer is Bob Trout.

He hosted Who Said That?, which first aired on NBC radio in 1948 and then on television.

I’ve always felt bad for Trout. He and Doug Edwards got shafted by CBS network management. Edwards, through no fault of his own, was abruptly replaced after 14 years as the evening news anchor by Walter Cronkite. Trout was a news and public affairs pioneer at CBS, making a reputation in the 1930s as someone who could cover a special event live and speak off the top of his head with great poise for as long as he had to. During World War Two, he reported from Europe and also hosted the venerable “World News Today” from New York.

But Trout was eclipsed by newcomers, news people who had not come up through the ranks of the announcing staff as he had—Edward R. Murrow, Charles Collingwood, Eric Severeid, even Edwards (who had been an announcer at WSB Atlanta). When Murrow replaced him on his main radio gig in 1948, Trout was miffed and decided to go to NBC. Among his duties was emceeing Who Said That?. But things dried up for him there and he returned to CBS in 1952 in time for the political conventions. The problem for Trout was television had become the big thing, and he was nowhere in the line of sight for playing a major network TV role. Instead, he anchored local television news and appeared on radio newscasts.

Who Said That? debuted on July 2, 1948 with panelists John Cameron Swayze, H.V. Kaltenborn, Scripps-Howard columnist Robert Ruark and foreign correspondent Leslie Stowe. Swayze, who got some first-hand experience at network demotions in 1956, was a regular; he had been hosting the Camel News Theatre during the week from 7:50 to 8 p.m. since February (Who Said That? aired Fridays at 8:30 Eastern). Here’s an unbylined article that appeared in the Sidney [Ohio] Daily News of Dec. 8, 1949. It’s not much of a surprise Oscar Levant appeared; the show was compared favourably to Information Please, which was one of his frequent radio haunts.

‘Who Said That?’ Is Intellectual Radio Program
New York, Dec. 8—NBC’s refined and highly intellectual quiz show, “Who Said That?” has been on the air well over a year now, and is currently disbursing information to television viewers each Saturday night.
There are no housewives from Brooklyn on this program. It is confined strictly to people who know what’s going on in the news. Either it’s their business, as in the case of H.V. Kaltenborn, Bob Considine, John Gunther, etc., or they are considered bright enough to remember what they read in the papers.
Occasionally a well-known guest proves to have a bad memory, but he usually other, redeeming, attributes. On one occasion when Colonel Stoopnagle was a guest, Quizmaster Bob Trout fired the following quotation: “If A is a success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z; X being work, Y being play, and Z being ‘keep your mouth shut’.”
The panel hadn’t the faintest idea who said it. Finally, Stoopnagle shrugged and remarked: “Only Einstein could have said that.”
“That’s right,” said Trout.
Kaltenborn, who is a frequent guest, muffs one occasionally. He once delivered a long, well informed discourse on the background of a certain quotation, all of it presented in his inimatable [sic] manner.
When he had finished, there was a brief, respectful silence and then Trout said:
“Mr. Kaltenborn, that was such a magnificent commentary that I hate to tell you it is entirely wrong.”
Probably the best ad-lib that has been made on the show so far came from Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who was asked by one of the panelists what she would do if she woke up in the White House. She said she’d apologize to Mrs. Truman and go home.
Not far behind her is Oscar Levant, the pianist. Both he and Kaltenborn were on a program recently and a question came up as to the ages of Vice President Barkley and Mrs. Barkley. Kaltenbom gave the Veep’s age correctly, but underestimated Mrs. Barkley’s by two years. Kidded by Trout, he said: “I always underestimate a woman’s age by two years.”
At which point Levant remarked: “That’s silly. She’s already done it for you.”

The TV version of Who Said That? seems to have premiered on Thursday, Dec. 9, 1948 at 10 p.m. on WNBT (the last programme before sign-off), and was eventually seen on kinescope in other parts of the U.S. on different evenings

We mentioned What’s My Line? earlier and it’s interesting to note Bennett Cerf and Dorothy Kilgallen both appeared in Who Said That?. (We have not found an appearance by Hal Block).

Anyway, let’s get back to Bob Trout. He talked about his news career with those chat-meisters, Tex and Jinx (who were probably NBC-TV’s biggest stars before Milton Berle) in this syndicated article. This comes from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of Aug. 19, 1951.

Close-Up of Bob Trout
Veteran Radio Special Events Reporter
By Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg
NEW YORK, Aug. 18
BOB TROUT, N.B.C.'s veteran special events reporter, who is observing his twentieth year in radio this month, says he will never forget a broadcast from a small room eight days after F.D.R. was inaugurated.
"He wanted to make a speech to the public which would set forth his program in one-syllable words that everyone understood." says Bob. "Times were bad, the banks were closing and it wasn't a good time for fancy language. He asked Marvin Maclntyre [of the White House staff] and me to plan a suitable introduction for his speech. At a conference, the two of us collaborated on two introductions—one was formal and grave, the other was simple, homely and direct. We sent them both to Roosevelt and it didn't take him long to reach a decision. His secretary telephoned and said: ‘The President likes the idea of calling his speech a fireside chat.’
"He liked it so much that he decided to give a series of fireside chats—for most of which I was the announcer. I was always proud of my part in originating the word— except on hot July nights. Then, the President would look at me reproachfully, and I knew what he was thinking! FIRESIDE chat, indeed . . ."
FIRST TIME I ever saw President Roosevelt was in 1932 when I was working as a fledgling announcer on station WJSV in Alexandria. Va. We got word that Roosevelt, who was then a candidate, was going to make a campaign speech in Baltimore and then take the stump in Union Square—the heart of Hoover's territory. This was considered very audacious of him and both of the big networks were covering his approach from every angle. Our little station decided to beat the opposition by putting Roosevelt on the air before he got to either city.
"I was sent to the railroad station where special equipment had been set up. A spot had been marked on the tracks where Roosevelt's car was scheduled to stop. As I waited with a portable mike in my hand, the locomotive chugged in—bells ringing and steam spouting—and I proudly announced—
“'Here he comes, ladies and gentlemen, the presidential candidate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.’ Five seconds later, there was a loud WHOOSH!—as the train pulled out of the station. It seems as though someone had neglected to inform the engineer of the place to stop in Alexandria. All we got was a glimpse of Roosevelt waving on the observation platform.
“In a spot like that, you must never disappoint the radio audience. I grabbed the mike tightly and said 'That loud noise you just heard, ladies and gentlemen, was from the train of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and it came to you through the courtesy of station WJSV . . .”
AD-LIBBING comes natural to Bob Trout, now master of the lightning-like ad-libs on the TV quiz “Who Said That?” but the great test of his ad-libbing ability still gives him an occasional nightmare—
“In 1934, President Roosevelt was returning from a vacation in Hawaii and I was sent to Portland, Oregon, to broadcast the homecoming ceremonies at the docks. After traveling 3000 miles by train, I was pretty tired and uncomfortable. I remember standing on a pier with 100,000 excited people behind me and the Presidential cruiser in front of me—waiting for F.D.R., who was scheduled to disembark precisely at noon.
“AFTER I HAD DESCRIBED the milling crowd and the blue, sunny skies, I looked at my watch and discovered that it was 12:05—the President was late. I talked on—described the boats in the bay, the uniformed guard, the color, the excitement—but still no President. At 12:15, I was talking about the scenery of the great Northwest, the disappearance of the American Indian, the history of Hawaii—anything I could think of. At 12:30, Mrs. Roosevelt got tired of waiting and went on board to greet her husband. This only held things up some more. By 12:55, I was describing the President's stamp collection to my listeners, stamp by stamp. I think I was talking about the beauties he had from South Africa, when, at 12:58, he finally made his appearance. ‘At last,’ I said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the next voice you hear will be that of the President.’ F.D.R. grasped the mike, smiled and said 'I'm glad to be back.’ That was all he said—just those six words.
“Much later, I told the President of my chagrin. I said that I couldn't help thinking that a few more words would have been in order. The President disagreed: ‘I heard your speech on the ship's radio and it was better and certainly longer than the ones I usually make.’
“He had actually sat there and listened to me sweat for 58 minutes. Now I've never been able to figure out how to take his comment.
“That was either the best compliment, or the worst kidding, I ever received during 20 years as a radio announcer.”

Trout would have no problem ad-libbing about stamps. He was a collector himself and in the ‘50s hosted a 15-minute syndicated TV show called The World Through Stamps.

He had a final hurrah on television—co-anchoring CBS’ infamous coverage of the 1964 Democratic Convention. The network had foolishly pulled Walter Cronkite off the assignment and that proved to be extremely unpopular, both with viewers and critics in the media.

ABC came calling in 1975. Trout was occasionally heard from Madrid. In 1992, he was brought in to provide background for the network’s political convention coverage on radio. He was 82 years old. To my ears, he was shockingly and sadly incoherent and irrelevant. He wasn’t back the next day. Or the next. He left ABC several years later, but continued to work. He could be heard on occasion on National Public Radio, looking back at the many people and events he covered. (Maybe the NPR site would like to consider re-posting its ‘Robert Trout Remembered’ page with audio in a format that people actually use today).

When Trout died at the age of 91 on Nov. 14, 2000, obituaries concentrated on his war and special events coverage. They referred to his Peabody Award, his modesty and his integrity. You’d have been hard-pressed to find a mention of a quiz show which gave Trout one of his “firsts” in broadcasting.