Are You Warm Yet?

Not too long ago, we posted about Johnny Olson’s unseen talent for TV viewers—his studio audience warm-ups.

Let’s continue the topic with two stories, one involving radio, and the other television.

First, we go back to 1948 and this feature piece by the International News Service. In the radio days, many comedy/variety stars liked to do their own brief warm-ups; Jack Benny and Phil Harris did. They’re not part of this story.

Tricks Used in 'Warmup' To Put Studio Audience in Mood
BY JOHN M. COOPER
NEW YORK, March 3 (INS).— When a radio broadcast comes on the air with the studio audience laughing, even the most innocent listener may suspect something has just happened.
He probably thinks the comedian has just made a funny remark.
He doesn't know the half of it.
The comedian's pants may have fallen down. Or a dozen other things may have happened, possibly involving the efforts of several Stooges in the audience.
It’s all part of what’s known in radio as “the warm-up”—a pre-broadcast entertainment designed to put the studio audience in a happy mood and get the show off to a good start.
A warm-up can be simple or elaborate. The simple one might consist of a few jokes, told by the comedian. The elaborate one, usually put on before big Hollywood broadcasts, may be the equivalent of a 45-minute variety show.
A Big Headache
When Al Jolson recently was heard telling the audience at the opening of his broadcast, “If you don’t laugh, get the hell out of here,” he was finishing the warm-up.
Unfortunately, he misjudged the time and the microphone was opened during the last remark. That happens every once in a while—often enough to give network officials a headache.
For Jolson it was a peculiar coincidence. He usually finishes his warm-up with the phrase “you ain’t heard nothing yet.” On this occasion he changed it, and probably wishes he hadn’t.
Different stars have their own routines for the warm-up. Fred Allen, for example, may talk about the wonders of Radio City and its inhabitants. Some of them, he says, have been wandering around its subterranean passages since the place was built and have never seen the light of day.
Red’s a Knockout
Edgar Bergen exchanges gags with Charlie McCarthy. Red Skelton really knocks himself out with acrobatics and pantomime. The jokesters on “Can You Top This” tell jokes.
Ralph Edwards whose “Truth or Consequences” show is a madhouse, takes the place apart during the warm-up. Stooges wander across the stage and through the audience in sort of an Olsen and Johnson routine.
But despite all these earnest efforts, the all-time high in warm-up gags ever pulled by a comedian was unintentional. He rushed onto the stage just before air time, slipped and fell flat on his face in front of the mike. The fall didn’t quite knock him unconscious, but he was so groggy that he didn't know what he was doing until the show was half over. The audience thought it was wonderful, and he got a big hand.

Let’s jump ahead ten years and look at two guys you never heard of, though their press agents managed to get them into four different syndicated columns in 1958.

TV Warmup Comedians Set the Mood in Studio
By REX POLIER
North American Newspaper Alliance
NEW YORK, Aug. 20 – Barney Martin and Artie Roberts are members of the strangest corps of television performers. They are comedians who are never seen on TV sets. And, in an industry in which popularity is rated in the millions, their weekly audience seldom exceeds 300.
Barney Martin and Artie Roberts are warmup men, the unsung funnymen who soften up audiences before the big show goes on. The two shows they work are the Eydie Gorme-Steve Lawrence program and Jan Murray's "Treasure Hunt.”
No TV star ever goes on the air before the audience is prepared. A “warmed-up” audience is ready to laugh, sympathetic to the show, willing to co-operate. A “cold” audience is unpredictable: anything might happen, from a wiseacre shouting ad libs to the M. C. to a well-wishing old lady calling answers to a quiz contestant. And, without a warm-up period, an audience might sit in stony silence while a comedian tosses off one gag after another.
It takes Barney and Artie about 45 minutes to get an audience into shape. For the Gorme-Lawrence Sunday night show, which is produced in Brooklyn, they begin in the buses (four of them) that bring the audience from Manhattan. Barney tells how they do it:
"We get dressed up in wacky costumes. Me, I wear Bermuda shorts and a crazy tie, and I carry a beach ball. Just as the bus starts to pull out I jump aboard and yell, ‘hey, driver, this bus going to Coney Island?’ It kills ‘em right off.”
En route, Barney and Artie keep changing buses and get into blustering arguments with one another over where to sit. They pass out balloons and bubble gum (“to make folks feet right at home”) and without cease, fire gags at the passengers.

By the time the buses arrive at the studios there isn’t a frown in the group. And the audience the TV cameras scan for transmission to Sioux City or New Orleans is one of happy, eagerly attentive faces. Off-stage and off-camera, however, Barney and Artie are mopping their brows. Their jobs are done.
Barney and Artie are only two of about two dozen accredited warmup men in the New York television industry.
Some are professional announcers who like to "ham it up" from time to time, others are members of production staffs who want to take cracks at being comedians. And a few, such as Barney and Artie, are professional funnymen hoping for a chance in the big time Sometimes a warmup man does get a break. For example Gene Wood did ouch a good job warming up audiences for the Arlene Francis show that Arlene made him the show's comic.
Among New York's veteran warmup men are Wayne Howell, who does the “Dotto” warmup this year, and who last year had no less than 22 shows to warm up! Another is Johnny Olson, veteran radio man who currently is doing the "Play Your Hunch” warmups.
But you'll never see the warmup man in action unless you get away from your TV set and come to the studio.

Bernard P. (Barney) Martin was an ex-policemen awarded medals twice for surviving gunfights and was the associate producer of “Treasure Hunt.” Artie Roberts served as a lieutenant in the merchant marine and used to go door-to-door selling Fuller Brushes while trying to make it in the Borscht Belt. They teamed up, warming up Steve Allen's audiences with announcer Gene Rayburn. In 1958, they set up a joke-swapping service for comedians. They also spent time on TV stages before the cameras were turned on, getting audiences ready for the big show ahead.

They weren’t laughing in July 1960 when they were charged ten counts of commercial bribery and conspiracy after being accused of splitting winnings with their friends they put on the quiz show ($6,420). Jan Murray himself went to NBC about eight months earlier with suspicions about the pair. Both got one-year suspended sentences after pleading guilty. Roberts survived the scandal and went to work—in front of Rotary Club lunches and on camera on Candid Camera. As for Barney Martin, he went on to better things. He died in 2005 at the age of 82, after a gig on TV playing Jerry Seinfeld’s father, Morty.