Who's Funny: Skelton or the Nelsons?

In 1947, John Crosby famously wrote a column for the New York Herald Tribune syndicate gushing about a Jack Benny broadcast, asking for a copy of the script, then penned a piece saying he had read it and couldn’t figure out why he laughed at it. You can read the column in this post.

This was actually the first of a pair of columns. The next day, he wrote a similar column about Red Skelton’s show. Crosby liked Benny. He didn’t think much of Skelton.

Here’s what he said. It was published on January 7, 1947. “Pat” is his announcer Pat McGeehan (cartoon fans will know him as the bear WHO CAN’T STAND NOISE in Tex Avery’s Rock-a-Bye Bear) “Rod” is Skelton’s other announcer, Rod O’Connor. “Wonderful” is Wonderful Smith, kind of Skelton’s answer to Rochester.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Mr. Skelton Entertains
Yesterday, I expressed mild surprise at the fact that a very funny broadcast by Jack Benny emanated a from script that didn't appear to have a laugh line in it. Today, to complete your education I should like you to consider a script that wasn't at all funny, either when it was broadcast or when it was read. For this purpose I have at my elbow a script from a recent broadcast by Red Skelton, a comedian whose principal qualifications for his job are enormous vitality and great self-confidence. Mr. Skelton indulges in a brand of medieval humor which, while it has never made me laugh, never fails to astonish me. His comedy seems to have no antecedents and no connection with anything in my experience. Maybe you can figure it out.
* * *
PAT: And now we open our Skelton Scrap Book of Satires to the stories on doctors and hospitals. Chapter 34, each year thousands of new students enroll in our schools. We go now to a medical college where enrollments are in progress.
O'CONNOR: Next? Your name please?
SKELTON: Oh, heck! I always flunk on that question.
O'CONNOR: You don't even know your own name. You're really dumb.
SKELTON: Do you know my name?
O'CONNOR: No.
SKELTON: I guess we're both pretty dumb.
O'CONNOR: Come on, come on what's your name?
SKELTON: J. Newton Numbskull.
O'CONNOR: What's the stand for—Jerk?
SKELTON: That's right.
O'CONNOR: Have you prepared at a recognized college or university for your medical course?
SKELTON: Yup, at barber's college they said I'd make a terrific surgeon.
O'CONNOR: Is your family sending you thru med school?
SKELTON: Nope, they're against it. My mother had an awful experience in a hospital . . . me!
* * *
PAT: Chapter 35—The Ambulance driver.
(Phone rings).
WONDERFUL: Mr. Lump Lump, the phone is ringing.
SKELTON: Well, I didn't think a Swiss bell ringer. Sick people! I hate this place. Everybody is sick. Even the windows have panes. (Into the phone) Hello, General hospital. Private Lump Lump speaking. You want to report an accident? Okay, tattle-tale. Uh huh. Sounds serious. When did this happen? Two hours ago? Look, wise guy, call me back next week, it'll take us that long to get there. Why? Because we have a new ambulance and they haven't delivered the wheels yet.
WONDERFUL: Let's go back him up now 'cause you're getting to be the slowest ambulance driver in the country.
SKELTON: What do you mean? Just what do you mean? I got a guy to the hospital so fast once they had to wait five hours for the ailment to arrive.
WONDERFUL: Yes, and I remember the time you drove so slow with an expectant mother that by time you got to the hospital the kid was old enough to vote.
SKELTON: I'll drive.
WONDERFUL: You ain't really going to drive, are you' Every time you drive we look in worse shape than the people we pick up.
SKELTON: We save time when I drive. We don't have to go so far for an accident.
WONDERFUL: Take it easy around them curves.
SKELTON: If you're scared, do what I do. Close your eyes. Every second counts. There's nothing to worry about as long as one wheel is in the ground.
WONDERFUL: Yeah, but the only one touching is the spare tire.
SKELTON: Are you really scared?
WONDERFUL: Scared! I look like Al Jolson before he left home. You're in the downtown district. Put on the brakes.
SKELTON: Okay. Get them out of the tool box.
WONDERFUL: Where are we going?
SKELTON: That depends on what kind of life you've led. (Terrific crash.) Oh, well, one lucky break! We don't have to wait for an ambulance.
There is a great deal more of it but I think that's enough to give you the quaint quality of Skelton comedy. The places where you are expected to laugh are clearly indicated. The rest is up to you.

On the other hand, Crosby had some affection for a fairly banal radio sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Despite bouncing around on the radio dial in the 1940s, the series settled in during the 1950s and remained on television for 14 seasons, going off the air on September 3, 1966 after 435 episodes.

Here’s Crosby’s column from Jan. 9, 1947. No, I don’t know why the drawing accompanying the Los Angeles Daily News version of this story shows Ozzie and Harriet had a daughter.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Ozzie and Harriet
A great many young married couples strain mightily to portray marital bliss on the air but very few of them succeed. One of the most successful and certainly the most convincing of these young couples is Ozzie Nelson and his wife, the former Harriet Hilliard. The word young may be out of place in their connection. The Nelsons have been married 11 years, have two children, and appear to take matrimony more or less for granted. Possibly just force of habit gives their program an easy-going air, missing in most of the other of these connubial affairs.
Mr. Nelson, it will be recalled, was once a bandleader and pretty good one. Miss Hilliard was his vocalist. They were married in 1935 and, after Miss Hilliard had a brief fling in the movies, settled down in radio. The couple put in a long period of apprenticeship with Joe Penner and Red Skelton before they got their own program (“Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet CBS, 6 p. m. E.S.T. Sundays) two years ago. Originally the idea was for Miss Hilliard to sing once in a while but this idea was dropped and nowadays the Nelsons merely portray married life and make it sound very fetching too.
* * *
It’s difficult to catch in print the charm of the Nelson show. Much of Harriet’s dialog consists of such admonitions as "Drink your milk, David,” and the children’s conversation runs largely toward "Golly" and “Holy Cow.” The problems that beset the Nelsons are so minute that you sometimes wonder how in the world they'll last half an hour. They do though, chiefly because the Nelsons devote a good deal of time coping with the small, vexing details which make up much of our lives. They have difficulty getting David off to school, Ozzie up from the sofa, getting waited on in stores, and even finding a place to park the car.
Recently the problem was helping David with a theme that had to be produced at the end of his holidays.
“How much have you got to do?” inquired his mother.
"Not much.”
"How much is not much?”
"All of it.”
"Really, David, haven’t you done any of it? I don't know where you get such habits—such bad habits.
“Oh, it’s not so bed,” says his father.
"Yes, I do," remarks Mrs. Nelson.
* * *
Ozzie, a bland, frequently feather-brained, procrastinating sort of fellow, volunteers to help his son with the theme. He dispatches himself to the public library to do some research on the costumes worn in 1847 although his wife voices the suspicion that he is headed for the movies.
"Do you think I’d sneak off to the movies Instead of doing David's research?” he inquire indignantly. “I don't like the tone of what you're saying.”
Unfortunately, on the way to the library, he runs into his old friend Thornbury, who is on his way to "The Killers” at the Rivoli. "No, no, I can’t, Thorney,” says Ozzie, resisting temptation. “I've got to go to the library.” "Why don't you do this, Ozzie? Flip a coin and then it's not your fault. It's fate.”
"I haven’t got a coin.”
"Tell you what we'll do. We’ll go to the Rivoli and buy two tickets and then we’ll have a coin."
* * *
In the end it is Mrs. Nelson who does the research and I'm happy to report David got an A. He is a big-hearted lad and cheerfully gives his father credit for an assist on the though it isn’t quite clear what his father did to deserve it.
Ozzie is the spring around which most of the program revolves. He has a nice radio personality which will remind you a little of Jimmy Stewart in the movies. The rest of the family are pretty nice, too, including the two kids who play Rickey and David. They manage, somehow to avoid that air of precocity, which is so irritating other childish radio actors.

“1847” was a commercial tie-in. The show advertised “1847 Rogers Bros” silver cutlery. Ricky and David Nelson didn’t play themselves until 1949; Henry Blair was Ricky and Tommy Bernard was David when Crosby wrote this column.

We’ve mentioned three of Crosby’s columns for the week. The other two:

Wednesday, January 8: A look at the Ginny Simms show, featuring announcer Don Wilson, and comments about the pre-Chairman-of-the-Board version of Frank Sinatra, when everyone was making jokes about how scrawny he was.
Friday, January 10: a wordy examination of radio “contact men.” Crosby takes four paragraphs before he gets to his subject. He could have easily cut them out and started with “Whenever prosperity.” The drawing to the right is, like the other two, from the Daily News of Los Angeles.

You can click on the columns to read them better.