The Pine Ridge Party Line

Rural and hayseed humour has been a staple in radio and TV for years. And it isn’t just the rubes who lap it up. I know people who religiously tuned in Hee Haw even though they had never been on a farm. The National Barn Dance was hugely popular for years on radio (come to think of it, both shows featured Minnie Pearl).

Perhaps radio’s greatest rural comedy show was Lum ‘n’ Abner. It still has a large fan base. There were annual conventions for a number of years and Mena, Arkansas hosted the Lum & Abner Music & Arts Festival again this year (the show was set in Pine Ridge, Arkansas). Despite its popularity—it aired for more than two decades on radio—the show never made it to television.

Herald Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby liked sophisticated material, eg. the Fred Allen show. But he admits enjoying at least one episode of Lum ‘n’ Abner, and goes through its storyline. This column was published December 19, 1946.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By John Crosby
Lum ‘n’ Abner
The country store, that hallowed American institution, is paid suitable reverence five days [sic] a week on the “Lum ‘n’ Abner” program (A. B. C. 8 p. m. EST Mondays thru Thursdays). The country store is still very much in evidence in almost any part of the country. However, the ones I have seen have been modified by the years or, at any rate, the conversation of the inmates has been brought up to date to a considerable degree since the advent of the talking motion picture and the radio. Lum 'n' Abner, however, still talk pure Silas Canfield.
Their corn is so unabashed that sometimes it’s pretty funny. The tip-off is contained in the opening words of the announcer: "Got cracker barrel handy?" he asks. “Drag it up and join Lum ‘n’ Abner in Pine Ridge, America's favorite country storekeepers."
Pine Ridge, from the sound of it, is almost more a crossroads than a town. At any rate, it's a good deal smaller than the other towns you keep hearing about in radio series. However, the bus stops there, and Lum, who is the brain or, if that's too strong a word, the protagonist, of this store, has just added a restaurant to it to earn an extra dollar or two. By some sort of double-dealing he had persuaded the bus to stop there for lunch. The menu apparently consists almost entirely of pancakes cooked by Lum and the quality is low.
* * *
The debut of the restaurant is quite a strain on Lum. He has assembled Abner and several of his cronies including Doc, a nasal-voiced patriarch with an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, and Cedric, a bird-brain, to help out. “Each feller has one job to do and if one feller don’t do his job, that upsets the assembly line, breaks the production chain,” says Lum, who is greatly impressed by industrial terminology.
Besides this assembly line, Lum has pressed into service Barrelhead, eon of the saloon keeper, to give him a ring on the party line when the bus passes the saloon. Everyone co-operates so well, though the Doc insists on telling a long, frequently interrupted and apparently pointless story about a basketball game.
“Well, sir,” said Doc, "the score was 32 to 41 when Beanpole reached up and made a basket and got his arm stuck up there. The score was then 29 to 32."
“I thought someone had 41?”
“That was earlier in the game. Well, sir, that night Bessie started out to a quiltin’ bee.”
That should give you a fair sample of the way people talk on Lum n' Abner. There's lots of it.
“If I'da had to whip up one more plate of pancakes, I'da fallen right flat on my face,” says Lum after the first busload is fed and gone.
“Did I make a good waiter?” asks Cedric. "Oh, you done good. Never forgot nothing.”
* * *
It develops the only person who forgot anything was Lum, who forgot to ask the customers to pay for their meals. The first day’s receipts went up in smoke. Anyhow, it soon is apparent that the restaurant needs more than the bus trade to keep it going. After hearing a spot announcement on the radio, Lum, the brain, gets an idea. Pine Ridge does not possess a radio station but it has a parly line. Lum decides to make a spot announcement on the line every hour.
It was the most fascinating spot announcement I ever heard and went something like this:
“Stand by, every one,” says Lum, after cranking the handle of his telephone. “This is Lum Edwards, proprietor and cook of the Meadowlark restaurant, right in the heart of downtown Pine Ridge.”
At that point Cedric interposed with his bird-call symbolising the Meadowlark even more perfectly then that Rinso White call. Then, just like the big time, Lum ‘n' Abner presented a little drama of the sort with which we are so dearly familiar from the other spot announcements.
“Oh, Gwendolyn, my dumb wife. What have you did? You have burned the pork chops. But don't worry. Throw the pork chops away and we will go downtown to eat.
“There ain't a decent place to eat in Pine Ridge,” says Gwendolyn, who is impersonated in falsetto by Cedric.
“What! You have never heard tell of the Meadowlark? For good eats remember the Meadowlark. And now, folks, we give you the correct time, courtesy of the Meadowlark Restaurant right in the heart of downtown Pine Ridge. Doc, what times's your watch say?”
* * *
Like all of these daily 15-minute programs, Lum 'n' Abner stretches a little thin on some days. But, if you like that sort of corn-fed comedy, they certainly provide it, straight from the silo.



The other Crosby columns for the week:
December 16, 1946: Kenny Baker’s “Glamour Manor.” We posted the review HERE.
December 17, 1946: ABC’s “Dark Venture.”
December 18, 1946: The success of “The Lone Ranger.”
December 20, 1946: A look at Louella Parsons.
Click on each column below to read them. (The artwork in this post accompanied the Crosby columns in the Los Angeles Daily News).