Ignorance Is Money

They may not admit it, but people like ancient groaner jokes.

Today, the internet is proof of that with the proliferation of “dad” jokes. 80 years ago, the proof was found in a radio show called It Pays To Be Ignorant.

It wasn’t really a quiz show. It was a satire on quiz shows, specifically the drab and staid intellectual ones like Information Please. There were contestants, but no competition. They were automatically paid a small sum to sit there and listen to hoary puns and cockamamie logic that masqueraded as responses to a question that really answered itself. The show raced along so there was no time to wince at the completely scripted proceedings, but time to laugh at the audacity of passing it off as humour.

Between questions, there were musical breaks clearly inspired by Spike Jones (originally by Nat Novick’s orchestra), which included commentary by emcee Tom Howard. (The music was performed seriously in later years).

It Pays To Be Ignorant attracted no less a sponsor than Philip Morris cigarettes at one point. It started on Mutual but found other networks as time moved along, jumped to television in the late ‘40s and inspired revivals in later years.

How the show came about is relayed in this feature story in the Asbury Park Press of September 24, 1944.

Whole Howard Family Combines Half an Hour To Keep Him on Air Scanning
By DIANE MUNHALL
MONMOUTH COUNTY is noted for its agricultural products. Before the war Monmouth county apples were annually exported to England. The county’s tomatoes are known far and wide. But comparatively few people realized that “corn” raised right in Rumson each week goes out coast-to-coast. This particular brand of "corn" emanates from) the former Mike Jacobs estate in Rumson, which is usually associated in the popular mind with a "crop" of cauliflower ears.
The "corn" is neither boxed nor on the cob. It is raised by Tom Howard, aided and abetted by his son, daughter and son-in-law, and each Friday night broadcast over CBS on the Philip Morris show "It Pays to Be Ignorant."
"It Pays to Be Ignorant" is actually true if you mean that it pays—the Howards: Tom produces and stars in the show; Tom, jr., 21, arranges the music and plays in the supporting band; Tom's daughter, Ruth and her husband, Bob Howell—who also make their home in the Rumson menage—write the script. Bob also acts as business manager for his father-in-law, which makes the show really and truly a Rumson—and a Howard—production.
Featured on this show with Tom Howard are Lulu McConnell, George Sheldon and Harry McNaughton, all of whom are frequent visitors to Rumson.
When "It Pays to Be Ignorant" first went on the air, many critics stated it couldn't last. It was too "corny," they explained almost in unison. Now the show has passed its second year on the air, and is well on its way towards another annual milestone—a radio "Abie's Irish Rose"—as it were.
The idea for the show was Bob Howell's, but without Ruth Howell’s persistence, it might never have reached the air lanes.
"It Pays to Be Ignorant" and the romance of the small, vivacious Ruth and big, easy-going Bob were born simultaneously. Late one summer afternoon in 1933, Ruth walked into station WELI New Haven, seeking an audition for her woman's program "Your Radio Hostess." She had been referred by a friend to Jimmy Milne, WELI manager. Jimmy was homeward bound and quickly passed the buck to Bob, his time-salesman. Hot, hungry and tired himself, Bob didn't give the girl he was later to marry even a second glance. But he did notice her program and liked it so much he signed her up on the spot.
>IT WASN'T long after Bob started writing spot commercials for Ruth's show that they started seeing each other out of hours. With their mutual interest in radio they found themselves dreaming and planning of the day when they would write a really, big network show. Under Ruth's urgings Bob dusted off a sample script for his idea of “something revolutionary in radio quiz programs” and convinced it was a natural for a foresighted sponsor.
In beer parlors, parks and the New Haven railroad station, the settings for most of their dates, they would discuss Bob's brain child by the hour.
"There must be plenty of other people who are developing a terrific inferiority complex from listening to Kieran, the Quiz Kids and other such mental marvels," they reasoned. "We'll give them a program, where ignorance, not knowledge, is the pay-off and the public will eat it up."
Romance was a stranger to them. Casually they dismissed it with the view that marriage and careers did not mix well. But fate, as it usually does, had the last laugh. It wasn't three months before Ruth was jokingly mailing Bob advertising clippings on "What Are Your Intentions. Young Man?" and Bob was passing sleepless nights wondering how to pop the age-old question.
However, another two years were to elapse before Ruth and Bob stepped before the preacher and "It Pays to Be Ignorant" made its debut on the air. Meantime Ruth served a hitch in Chicago where she gained fame for introducing department store advertising to the air with her program for Sears, Roebuck, and Bob was making great strides himself as a radio writer. Ruth cut short her two-year contract in Chicago after only six months and hastened back East to New London to marry Bob and to persuade her father that they had just the program for his talents.
"Not only did he get a son-in-law," Ruth smiles, 'but an exceedingly profitable wedding gift."
RUTH'S and Bob's account of their wedding is amusing. Bob swears he had to literally drag Ruth up the last hill to their minister's house and she counters with the claim that he completely lost his voice when he should have been giving forth with a loud "I Do." On top of that they had no honeymoon, Bob scarcely having been able to take Saturday afternoon off from the war-plant job he held at the time.
Meantime the program, first called "Crazy Quiz," was changed to "It Pays to Be Ignorant" by Ann Honeycutt, who sold it to a sponsor with Tom Howard in the starring role. "It Pays to Be Ignorant" proved a lusty infant, clamoring successfully for quick popularity.
About this time, Tom Howard, who had been handling most of the script writing himself, turned it over to Ruth and Bob.
They've a system of their own. Some call it crazy, but after all that is the motif of the program. Each takes half of the questions picked from the thousands sent in by listeners as the backbone of the show and in different parts of Tom Howard's big Rumson home pounds out a version of the script. Neither sees what the other has done until the two scripts are handed in to Tom who edits, and combines them into one smooth running program. Occasionally Tom, who turns a good comic phrase himself, will substitute a crack of his own, but more often than not he is completely satisfied with the nonsense concocted by his family writing team.
With the script finished and polished, there is still much to be done. Tom is the comedy star of the program, but he shares the spotlight with three other top-notch quipsters; George Shelton, his partner of many years standing, Lulu McConnell of stage fame, and Harry McNaughton, also a veteran of the trade and widely known his portrayal of "Bottle" for Phil Baker. Great care is taken to insure that each of the four gets his share of the laugh-lines, which are handed out according to who can best deliver them. It might be thought that a free-for-all would ensue when four such stars, each a headliner, sit down to decide who gets the best punch lines. Actually, there has never been any trouble, for team-work is the watchword. It Is as Tom Howard says, “What’s the difference who gets laugh, as long as the audience likes the show." To which Bob adds, "Not to forget the sponsor.”
The same close harmony and understanding is carried out into the program itself and has saved them many possible embarrassing Tom has had to cut the show while on the air. In any show of this type it is not surprising that the artists are masters of the ad-lib, but even at that, Tom's cleverness and sense of showmanship has often smoothed out the rough spots.
TOM HOWARD, as master of ceremonies of this show is well qualified thru his long and varied experience. He can wring the lasl chuckle out of any line with his sand-paper voice and his perfect timing. He also knows how to play up his colleagues to their best advantage. Tho Tom Howard and Shelton are a famous team, and are known for their ad-libbing a full six minute stint on the old Rudy Vallee show (they broke all guest records on that show) Lulu McConnell and Harry McNaughton certainly don’t suffer by comparison.
Looking in on the Howards and the Howell families at Rumson, you will find none of the "It Pays to Be Ignorant" atmosphere. The home, which Tom bought from Mike Jacobs, who had used it as training quarters for his headline fighter, is a 20-room house. Decorated in modem and period furniture, it is distinctive, yet comfortable. The two families rarely stray into the city for pleasure, as they are well-equipped with recreational facilities; a Whoopee House, a barbeque pit and a 50-foot dance floor, which once resounded with the blows of Louis and Conn.
They say most comedians are not very funny to their families. Tom Howard does not try to be. Never the clown at home, he leans towards the serious side, as attested by his hobbies. Most of his spare time, money and energy go into collecting old car nameplates, pipes and tending to his Victory garden. His pipe collection numbering more than 2,000 is said to be one of the largest and the finest in the world. It includes among other notable briars, those of the kings of Sweden and Denmark, and an early Aztec model.
Ruth and Bob, on the other hand, lay claim to no hobbies. In fact, they don't even keep a press book. Aside from writing "It Pays to He Ignorant," the Howells are writing scripts for other programs, for example, the new Sammy Kaye show with Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney. They had done the old Winchell, Mahoney show and Paul particularly requested them as his writing team. Versatile, Ruth and Bob have now branched into song writing. With Young Tom, jr., supplying the music and Ruth and Bob the lyrics, they have just had their first song published. Its name? "It Pays to Be Ignorant," of course. For relaxation the Howells prefer a good play, concert or ballet and they'll tackle any one at poker.
As to the ultimate ambilions of the Howells and Howards, Tom, sr., wants nothing more than his six acres of land, Tom, jr. aspires to be another Berlin of [or] Gershwin, and Ruth and Bob ultimately want their own radio station—they don't care whether it makes money or not, they know it will be fun. Mrs. Howard, the former Harriet Berg, of Tom Howard's old vaudeville company, is content to be a sideline spectator.
The Howards and the Howells are hard to beat professionally or personally. And they are the living proof of the fact that "It Pays to He Ignorant."
Ignorant like a fox.

The happy family described in this story didn’t stay together much longer after it was published. Bob Howell died of a heart attack on Nov. 28, 1944 at the age of 50.

Lulu McConnell, who was 60 when Ignorant debuted, passed away in 1962. Harry McNaughton, who joked about World War One on the quiz show but had in real life been a POW and a veteran of the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Ypres and Ludendorff, was 70 when he died in 1967. George Shelton outlived his old vaudeville partner, dying in 1971 at 87.

A heart attack claimed Tom Howard at the age of 69 on Feb. 27, 1955. His Associated Press obituary revealed he worked as a $6-a-week office clerk for the American Tea company in Philadelphia. His mother discouraged show business, bragging that if he stuck with tea, he’d be a superintendent making $25 a week. Instead, Howard and his family found a successful radio formula. No one could accuse him of being ignorant.