A Year at the Top Wasn't Tops

When Late Night With David Letterman premiered in 1982, the only one on the show I didn’t know was Letterman. I never saw his daytime show. I knew Bill Wendell’s voice from the Garry Moore version of To Tell the Truth.

Paul Shaffer I recognised from one of those sitcoms that I swear no one else watched. It was called A Year at the Top and co-starred Greg Evigan, and featured Nedra Volz as a stereotypical feisty old lady.

“You know, Yowp,” I said to myself. “You haven’t written about that show here. Why don’t you find a couple of old clippings about it?” “That I will,” I answered to myself.

The first clipping is an Associated Press story that appeared in newspapers starting in late December 1976.

Two old 'kids' reunited in 'A Year at the Top'
By BOB THOMAS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The indefatigable Norman Lear has gone to the devil for his latest television comedy, reworking the Faustian legend in today's pop music field.
The half-hour is called "A Year at the Top," and that's what a trio of old-time entertainers sell their souls for. They are Vivian Blaine, Robert Alda and Phil Leeds. Their diabolical deal allows them to transform into a now young singing group that swiftly ascends to the top of the charts.
"A Year at the Top" evolved from a partnership of Lear's T.A.T. Communications Co. and Don Kirschner Productions. Music man Kirschner created the series with Woody Kling and supplies the music. Lear is executive producer; Darryl Hickman, producer.
The show debuts on CBS Jan. 19, and the first tapings are going on at the Lear compound in Metromedia Square. All of his series, from "All in the Family" to "Maude," headquarter at the local KTTV studio, owned and operated by Metromedia.
The star of "A Year at the Top" is Mickey Rooney, also an old-time entertainer, but one who decides against making the youthful comeback. The other day he was rehearsing a scene with his customary verve, playing with his "converted" partners, Greg Evigan, Paul Shaffer and Judith Cohen, who portray the young singing sensations.
“The format is terrific," said Alda, who was observing the rehearsal. "It has appeal to both the young and the middle aged. The young will get their kind of music from the three kids, and Mickey, Vivian, Phil and I will supply the music from our era. Plus some very funny situations.
"My only concern about doing the series was that I didn't appear opposite my son Alan on ‘M*A*S*H.’ But we're both on CBS, so that's no problem."
After the scene concluded, Rooney returned to his dressing room for a conference on how to punch up the comedy. He is wearing the stubble of a beard that he grew for "Pete's Dragon" at Disney. He conferred with a producer who looked familiar behind his own black beard.
"Imagine me working with Darryl Hickman after all these years!" Mickey said. "Why, we were kids together in 'Boys Town' back in 1940. Make it 1938."
"And I was reminded of 'Boys Town' the other day," said Hickman, a onetime child actor. "Mickey did a scene with the three young people in our show, and when he finished I noticed that all of them had tears running down their cheeks. I remembered watching Mickey do a scene in 'Boys Town' when I was 9 years old, and I was crying myself."
"Isn't this great, me and Darryl being back together?" Rooney said. "We've hardly seen each other since. I was busy getting married, and he was learning to be an executive."
"A Year at the Top" is Rooney's first TV series since the ill-fated "Mickey" of 15 years ago.
"It was on and off the air before you knew it," he said. "I pleaded with Selig Seligman of ABC not to call it 'Mickey' and not to give me three children, a Filipino houseboy and have me running a motel. I want to play a character who had had three or four wives and was in alimony trouble. You know, like Mickey Rooney. It's a great device to kid yourself, like Jack Benny always did.
"Then they scheduled the show opposite Jackie Gleason in his first season with 'The Honeymooners.’ Bombsville.”

When I read this story, I was confused. I realise I haven’t seen the show in almost a half century, but didn’t remember any of this. Robert Alda? Phil Leeds?

Well, here’s what happened. The show was taken off the schedule before it even got on the air.

Val Adams of the New York Daily News reported on Jan. 11, 1977 that, a week earlier, CBS said the premiere had been postponed a week, then announced the previous day that the show would be replaced. Lear was quoted in a network news release: “We have asked the CBS television network to allow ‘A Year at the Top’ to be shut down . . . for repairs and they have graciously granted us permission to do so. After alterations are made, we will be back in production in March for possible airing in the fall on CBS.”

Adams noted this was the second go-around for the concept. Lear had produced a pilot called Hereafter, which aired on NBC on November 27, 1975 (Thanksgiving). Josh Mostel played Nathan, the devil's youngest son, who agreed to transform three over-the-hill singers, played by Leeds, John J. Fox and Robert Donley, into a young rock group in exchange for their souls after a year of success. Blaine, Shaffer and Evigan were in this version, as well as Antonio Fargas, Don Scardino and guest star Ed McMahon.

If the reason for Lear’s sudden decision to re-work the show is known, I haven’t been able to find it. However, let’s look at the “Eye on TV” column from the Newark Star-Ledger of Aug, 5, 1977, the day the show premiered.

The waiting ends for 'A Year at the Top'
By JERRY KRUPNICK
What does it take to get a new television series on the air? Well, along with the usual ingredients—money, talent and guts—add in a heaping spoonful of patience and perseverance.
For nearly three years now, Norman Lear and Don Kirshner have been trying to get air time for a musical situation comedy straight out of "Faust" which they were calling "Second Chance."
At first, it was "penciled in" for the NBC lineup, only to be scratched at the last minute. Undaunted, they changed the premise slightly, changed the title to "A Year at the Top" and changed the network to CBS.
They were all set to go again this January. Air time was announced, the promotion hoopla was going full speed, everything was falling into place, when. . .
Kirshner and Lear sat down in a screening room and decided a week or so before opening night that what they had wrought was really all for naught. So they voluntarily yanked the series before it could be unreeled.
They have spent all spring and half a summer making changes in their godchild. This time out, they have gotten rid of more than half the cast and gotten rid of the original premise—a group of aging musicians trade their souls to the devil so that they can come back for a year as kid rock superstars. What they kept was the title, along with veteran Mickey Rooney and a pair of talented youngsters named Greg Evigan and Paul Shaffer.
Greg and Paul who?
Evigan, described by Kirshner as a combination Tom Jones-John Travolta, is a young New Jersey singer-musician from Englishtown who walked into Don's office, three years ago to audition and has been labeled for stardom ever since. Shaffer, whom Kirshner enthusiastically casts in the Elton John-Paul Simon mold, was the musical conductor of "Saturday Night Live" before joining the Kirshner-Lear camp.
The series has now been entirely restructured around them—it will make it or fail on their talents, their charisma, their luck. And they get their first crack at "A Year at the Top" tonight at 8 p.m. on Channel 2. This time, Kirshner and Lear feel that they've kept on trying and finally have gotten it right.
Apparently CBS feels that way too. Even though "A Year at the Top" is arriving nominally as a five-week summer replacement series, it is being kicked off with a one-hour opener, instead of its usual 30-minute format, and the word is that if the Nielsen numbers are big enough, the series could hang around for the fall.
The opener certainly has enough pluses going for it. Kirshner and Lear are right about their two new stars—Evigan in particular is destined to make it big, if not in this show, then somewhere else. He's got enough boyish charm and handsome looks to drive the teenyboppers gaga. Greg's a winner . . . and his partner Paul could also score in an oddball sort of a way.
Rooney, of course, is an old pro fr[o]m the word go. He makes it all look so easy.
Gabe Dell is another veteran in the cast who knows what character acting is all about. Unfortunately, his approach to the role of the devil's son disguised as a talent agent is a little too fey for our liking. It's a far cry from “The Dead End Kids.”
Priscilla Lopez, who was nominated for a Tony Award when she sang "What I Did For Love" in "A Chorus Line," shows up in the opener as Greg's girlfriend and she's absolutely lovely in a sad-eyed, Piaf-Garland way.
And Nedra Volz (she was grandpa's girlfriend in "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” is delightful in a continuing role as the boys' grandmother, who keeps an eye on their budding careers.
Oh yes, the plot. Gabe, as the son of the devil, has promised his old man two more souls. Mickey, meanwhile, arrives with the boys and Priscilla in tow. It seems they have written a musical which he wants to present on Broadway. Can Gabe put up the dough?
Gabe figures he's better off grabbing the two boys for the Hell of it and makes them a career offer they can't refuse. At the end of the first hour, they are on their way to big time stuff. Mickey and Priscilla, meanwhile, are giving their regards to Broadway after conning Gabe out of the front money for the show.
So much for the pluses. On the negative side, Priscilla Lopez is absolutely wasted in tonight's first installment. She's allowed to sing a few bars of harmony in one of the songs and that's about it. Her appearance is listed as that of a guest star and she probably won't be back for the rest of the initial series.
The same is true with Mickey. He is guesting also and won't continue as a regular, which is a pity. He and Gabe Dell play so well off each other and provide all of this musical sitcom's comedy. Kirshner and Lear, however, have opted for the youth market. An album by Greg and Paul is already in the works. Look out for fan clubs and lots and lots of hypo. If "A Year at the Top" is to get its chance, they reason, it will, be because their two young unknowns have caught the public's fancy.
If CBS doesn't buy the show, in fact, the producers are prepared to package it a la “MH2” and peddle it to independent stations. They feel their patience and perseverance is about to pay off. And they want it to last for more than “A Year at the Top."

A Year at the Top didn’t last a year. It barely lasted a month, and nowhere near the top. CBS jettisoned the show after five episodes.

1977 wasn’t the best year for Evigan. Lear must have liked him, as he was cast earlier that year in Lear’s soap opera/gender role satire All That Glitters, which vanished from syndication after about two months. He soon had more success, spending a couple of seasons starring opposite a chimp in B.J. and the Bear.

As mentioned, Shaffer went on to a side-kicking career reacting to Letterman, though one night on the show, Chris Elliott did an incredibly funny, not-too-exaggerated impersonation of Shaffer (similarly, Elliott’s father Bob, of Bob and Ray, did an equally cutting and accurate Arthur Godfrey) which was more like Shaffer than Shaffer. That wasn’t all. Shaffer proved himself to be a very fine musician and band-leader.

It turns out both Evigan and Shaffer had more than a year at the top. It just took a little time.

Soitenly!

Television gave new life to old short films that had been rotting away on a shelf after being seen once or twice (if reissued).

Not all of them, of course. There were musical series, newsreels, travelogues. They were of no use to television.

Cartoons and two-reel comedies were. Kids would eat them up. They could be run over and over and over. TV brought more fame (and life) to Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse than theatres ever did.

Of all the comedy series produced in the sound era, perhaps the one that benefited the most from constant airings on television was The Three Stooges.

Self-appointed do-gooder groups HATED the Stooges. So much pointless violence! But Columbia Pictures, which ground out the Stooges shorts, found gold in those old films. Thanks to television, the studio discovered millions and millions of kids loved them. They were silly. And no one really got hurt in them.

Their fans are still loyal. No doubt you don’t have to go far on the internet to find a debate over which replacement Stooge was the best/worst.

Columbia got out the pick-axes and started mining more Stooges gold. Here’s an Associated Press column from May 28, 1959.

Three Stooges Are Amazed At Popularity
Comedians Were On 'Finished' List Year and Half Ago
By BOB THOMAS
AP Movie-TV Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—Here's evidence of how fantastic show business can be: the Three Stooges are starring in a feature movie.
A year and a half ago, the Stooges were finished, washed up. They had come to the end of a record stand of 24 years at Columbia Pictures making shorts. Their knockabout comedy was considered passe, the market for short subjects had vanished.
Then it happened.
Released to TV
The Columbia subsidiary, Screen Gems, released the first batch of old Stooge comedies to TV. Wham! The Stooges, a show business team for a third of a century, found themselves at the height of their fame.
When they were making shorts, they earned $70,000 from the filming and picked up an equal amount on personal appearances. This year they are already guaranteed a $275,000 gross, and the figure may go much higher.
The boys have returned to Columbia, but not to make shorts. They are filming "Have Rocket, Will Travel," their first feature as a starring team. Back in the '30s. they appeared with their old boss Ted Healy in some MGM movies. And more recently they have done some quickie musicals.
“But this is the first time we've been starred in a feature,” said Moe Howard proudly. "And we're getting 25 per cent of the take."
Moe is the leader of the Stooges. He's the one with the black bangs. Larry Fine has the operatic hair-do and Joe Derita is the fat one who takes most of the knocks. He was preceded in his post by Moe's brothers, Curly and Shemp, both now deceased, and comic Joe Besser.
Leisurely Pace
I found the trio on a stage with a mass of space-travel props. Unlike the days when they were making shorts, their pace was almost leisurely. They've got a shooting schedule of 10 days and may go 11. They used to make the two-reelers in as little as two days.
"It's fantastic what has happened to us," Moe mused. "We've got more offers than we can handle. Now we're doing all kinds of merchandizing—hats and other things with our faces on them. We've got an advance from a bubble gum outfit that is bigger than they gave the entire National League!"
Flat Salary
The Stooges made 218 comedies and profit not a cent from their showings on TV. Not directly, that is. Like Laurel and Hardy and other comedy pioneers, they worked for flat salaries. But the results of their newfound popularity are considerable.
"We're the only act that is bringing kids into night clubs," Moe said. "The kids are bringing parents who had never been inside night clubs themselves. We play matinees for the kids and give them three shows. First, we come through the audience and greet each kid personally, then we do the act, then we sign autographs.
"A lot of trouble, yes. But let me tell you, those kids are okay. Look what they've done for us!"

In this era of residuals, it is unfathomable that film actors were paid like fast food cooks—you get paid per shift, whether you flip a burger once or ten times. But that’s how it was. Granted, no one foresaw life for a John Nesbitt Passing Parade, an RKO Pathe Sportscope with Andre Baruch, or a Stooges comedy after it appeared once in a theatre. Larry talked to the North American Newspaper Alliance about it in a column printed on May 3, 1968.

Three Stooges Know How Cruel Television Can Be
By HAROLD HEFFERNAN
HOLLYWOOD (NANA) — Three fellows who know better than anyone how cruel television can be are Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Joe De Rita, famed the world over as “The Three Stooges.”
When TV struck a heavy blow at the motion picture business 20 years ago, it began reaching out for every available old movie with which to feed its insatiable demands for day and night entertainment. Short comedies were in particular demand, and the two-reel knockabout slap-stickers— 228 of them— starring the Three Stooges became the hottest item on the market.
They were run and rerun until the sprocket holes were chewed to bits and new prints were rushed into TV projectors. A brand new generation was paying homage to the three zany clowns.
“The Three Stooges” were sitting atop the world— but in name only!
“Everyone got the idea we must be piling up millions,” said Larry Fine, the mad one with the wild fuzzy hair, the specialist in face slapping and anatomical dropkicks. “But the sad fact is we weren’t getting one thin dime. We were going broke and were out of work as we watched all the furor our comedies were creating.”
The demand for more Stooge movies became so great that Columbia Pictures, which produced the original shorts, called them back to inaugurate a series of feature comedies. Among these were “The Three Stooges Meet the Gunslingers,” “The Three Stooges Meet Hercules,” and "Have Rocket Will Travel.”
Their sixth feature-length film now shooting at Allied Artists Studio is something of a space epic titled “Flying to the Moon Looking for Green Cheese.” Marquee title appeal isn’t so important with this trio— just as long as the “Stooge” magnet goes up in the bulbs.
The reason the Stooges, along with other stars of their era— including Laurel and Hardy —never were able to cash in on the fat TV returns traces back 15 or more years to the lack of a definite plan of action on the part of the Screen Actors Guild in obtaining a residual sharing agreement with the studios selling products to TV.
Only in rare special instances were actors able to cut themselves in on the gravy train. Actually, it was not until Feb. 1, 1960, that contracts were completed whereby those participating in pictures made after that date, not before, were to share in the TV runs.
"We were at least 12 years late in forcing TV to cough up a share of the proceeds," said Fine, who figures he and his partners should have cut a melon of at least $2 million during the blacked-out period.
"A lot of us were really hard hit. While TV stations all over were burning out our old comedies, the studios weren't interested in giving us more films to make simply because we were being overexposed. It was a rank double-cross all around."
If any team was harder hit than the Stooges, it had to be the hilarious combine of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The arrival of TV found the two at the sunset of their career. Both were suffering from crippling afflictions.
Comedy-maker Hal Roach sold 60 of their famous shorts and features for a staggering sum, yet the two stars died more famous than ever and virtually penniless.
On the other hand, Bill (Hop-along Cassidy) Boyd engineered a special profit-sharing deal before his western features began flooding the airwaves and today he’s living but his life in Palm Springs luxury.
Another kind of the late show, John Wayne, never received a dollar from his 25 features still flashing through the tubes, but fortunately, the Duke and all his heirs are not ever likely to be in need of residuals.
Fine, whose troupe is an offshoot of the famous “Ted Healy and His Stooges” musical comedy act of the 1930s, places blame for the actors’ belated TV deal directly upon the governor of California.
“Ronald Reagan Was president of the Screen Actors Guild at this most critical point in the TV negotiations,” he charges “He sold the old-time actors down the river while he feathered his own nest by arranging to receive 50 per cent of all revenues of the shows he made for General Electric and the Borax people who sponsored ‘Death Valley Days.’ ”

Columbia Pictures had no pretentions about the Stooges films. It churned them out, spending less and less on them as time went on. The Stooges had no pretentions, either. Their humour was low-brow and hokey. They were anti-pretention. Maybe that's why they made people laugh. And still do.

Laird Cregar of the 1960s

The Batman TV show got silly when Victor Buono showed up.

Until then, the villains on the show may have been a little over-the-top, but they were still menaces. The Riddler was crazy and liable to do anything. The Penguin and Joker were a little more calculating. Catwoman slinked around to try to challenge and defeat Batman’s moral turpitude.

But King Tut was just ridiculous.

A university professor gets bumped on the head, believes he’s King Tut and surrounds himself with people who buy that? Yeah, sure.

Still, 10-year-old me liked Victor Buono. At least he seemed to be having fun on the screen, unlike someone like Rudy Vallee, who was just boring.

I knew nothing of Buono’s background. I doubt many 10-year-olds at that time had seen him try to keep up opposite Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

This feature story is from the Charlotte News of April 24, 1964; pre-Batman of course.

Is Buono Too Good?
Real Sweet Guy
By EMERY WISTER
News Entertainment Writer
Is 300 pound Victor Buono too good for the likes of modern-day movies? He may be. His insistence that filmmakers follow a strict moral code in scenes in which he appears may cost him his career.
"I've lost several good parts because producers couldn't see things my way," says Buono. "And frankly, I expect to lose more."
Buono is the fat fellow who played piano for Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" He won an Academy award nomination for his role and could scarcely have hit the screen with more impact had he jumped into a kettledrum.
Buono didn't win the award, but the nomination helped him sew up the title role in an upcoming tingler called "The Strangler."
NOW WE COME to the meat of the story. The script called for Buono to step into a boudoir and throttle the scantily-clad lady occupant.
"Huh-uh," said Buono. "I won't do it."
"Of course you will," soothed the picture's producer. "what do you think you're in the picture for?"
"I'll do it," said Buono, "but not until she puts on some clothes."
"She can't do that," the producer argued. "This picture is based on a case in Boston and every one of the strangler's victims were nearly nude when killed.
"Well, this one's not going to be," said Buono. "Either she puts on a robe or she doesn't get strangled."
And with that he stalked off the set and retired to his dressing room. Fifteen minutes later came a knock on the door. He could return to the set. He had won his argument. The lady, a blonde named Davey Davison, had put on her robe and was waiting for Buono's firm grip of death.
"They had to give in to me—that time," said Buono later. "I was holding up production and it was costing them money. But I don't think they've forgiven me yet."
VICTOR BUONO, a Shakespearean actor before he turned to the screen. is trying to hold the tide against the onrushing salacious films in Hollywood. In short he is a conscientious objector in the midst of the morality revolution now taking place on the screen.
Pressed by shocking and sometimes distasteful foreign films on one side and innocuous TV shows on the other, Hollywood is squeezing out a brand of entertainment that contains a few elements of both. And Victor Buono, known as Hollywood's practicing Christian, is trying to hold out.
He insists he is not a prude. "I think the proof of that is in 'The Strangler' itself," he said. "I'm still a sex maniac in the picture. But it all depends on how you do a scene like that. There were some things at which I had to draw the line in sheer conscience."
BUONO'S STRUGGLE began shortly after he started work in the picture.
"That argument about the girl in the scanties was nothing to some squabbles we had before production began," he said. "I made them eliminate some scenes from the picture."
By the time the strangling scene came around the picture had been half completed. The producer couldn't afford to argue too much with Buono about it. He put a heavy mark against the big man in a little black book and told him to get on with it.
"I don't think I would have got away with it if it hadn't been for that Academy Award nomination," said Buono. "Aside from the billing and the money it's wonderful what one of those things will do for you.
"But it's no guarantee of success. I've already lost several good parts because the producers couldn't see my way and I expect to lose more.
"With pictures going wild it's a serious situation for me and I don't mind admitting I'm worried about it."

Buono relished villainous roles. He was cast in a pile of them, including one in a 1977 TV series. He talks about it in this interview published August 25th

Buono's heft helps his menace
By Bob Thomas
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – What is so menacing about fat men? Sidney Greenstreet, Laird Cregar and other bulky males proved to highly effective as film heavies—a term that aptly fitted their profession.
Victor Buono carries on the weighty tradition in today's Hollywood. Ever since "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" (1963), he has earned a handsome living as menace of more slender leading men and women.
"I don't mind at all," he says airily. "The heavy is usually an interesting character, he moves the story, and his misdeeds teach a lesson. What's more, he usually has the best lines."
The Buono craft will be seen on NBC Television this fall with "Man from Atlantis," a series that may ptacate the public's hunger for sci-fi fantasy, as evidenced by "Star Wars." Handsome Patrick Duffy is found dying on an ocean shore. Navy doctor Belinda J. Montgomery discovers his problem: the poor man is from a water-breathing civilization deep in the sea. She repairs his gills and from then on the series really gets fantastic.

"I'm a semi-regular on the series; you might say an 'irregular," Buono explained in his MGM dressing room. "I appeared in the pilot film as Mr. Schubert, a madman who plays the cello in Schubert quartets between schemes on how to take over the world.
"In one of the plots I try to melt the polar cap with microwaves, the same device you use to make tuna-melts in the kitchen. My main aim is to force Pat to help me in my schemes, since he is a superior critter. So the first 45 minutes of the show I am in the ascendancy; in the last 15 he takes over.
"I always have magnificent plans to take over the world. The only trouble is that I hire certifiable nitwits to carry out my directions."
Buono, 39, seems to be enjoying himself in this amiable nonsense, and why not? Wasn't he King Tut in "Batman"? And Carlos Maria Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi, the menace of "Wild Wild West"? Not to mention Bongo Benny in "77 Sunset Strip."
"One of the things I like about 'Man from Atlantis," said the actor, "is that there are no guns, no knives, no gratuitous violence. There is some rough stuff, of course, but not with recognizable weapons.
"I am not anti-gun, but I am anti-handgun. A rifle was invented for shooting long distances in order to acquire food. A handgun was devised to kill human beings at short range."
Victor Buono grew up fat in San Diego.
"I recently came across a photograph of myself at eight, and I was heavy even then," he remarked. "It has never bothered me, though when I got up to 355 pounds a while back, I felt fat for the first time.
"Then I went off to Honolulu for a 'Hawaii Five-O' and in Hawaii you don't feel like eating. I went down to 320 and felt rather uncomfortable. Now I stay at 330." At six feet four he doesn't look that heavy.
The heft helps his menace, he believes, and so does his beard. He wears one that circles his face like an eskimo hood. "Without the beard my face looks like a blue-eyed omelet," he explained. "It's a picture of total innocence. And that's terribly bad in my line of work."

If Buono was interviewed about his experience working on a cult TV show, I haven’t been able to find it. He didn’t have a lot of time to talk about it. Buono was found dead of a heart attack in his home on New Year’s Day 1982. He was 43.

A McNulty in the Life of Dennis Day

Jack Benny’s radio show in the 1930s was incredibly popular, even without the elements that people today consider an essential part of it.

Benny hit the air in May 1932. Don Wilson didn’t show up until 1934 after Jack went through a series of announcers. Four seasons went by before Phil Harris was added to the cast as the orchestra leader. And it wasn’t until October seven years later that Eugene Patrick McNulty became the show’s vocalist under the name Dennis Day. Aside from a period during the war, Day stuck with Benny until the radio show ended in 1955, though he appeared less and less due to personal appearances.

In time, Day proved to be versatile. The huge boost Benny gave his career turned him into star material. In July 1946, he went to New York to sign a deal to star in A Day in the Life of Dennis Day on NBC for Colgate, which also inked Benny’s utility man, Mel Blanc, to his own programme. Day was a success (Blanc was not) and made the jump to television (unfortunately for him, he was opposite I Love Lucy).

While in New York, he chatted to the press. Here are a couple of feature stories, explaining the creation and care of Dennis Day. And while the INS wire story doesn’t say it, the “prima donna” singer it is referring to was the man Day replaced on the Benny show, Kenny Baker. When Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theatre was cut from an hour to a half-hour, Baker was booted.

Dennis Day's New Program Set For Fall
Bashful Boy Has Come Long Way In Radio Since 1939
By SAUL PETT
International News Service Staff Writer
NEW YORK, July 20—On an autumn night in 1939, with more than 30 million tuned in, a shy baby-faced college boy shivered up to a mike. It was the chance of a lifetime and the very green Dennis Day was scared. Jack Benny had him on two weeks option. That meant make good or else.
“Say 'Hello,' Dennis”
Benny began to put him at ease, or tried to. He had Dennis’ mother written into the script. She fussed with his tie and made over him. Then Jack said:
“This is the mike, Dennis. Say hello to the mike.”
The young singer said hello in a high childish voice four tones above his normal speaking level. It established him as a character. Then he sang and that made him a singer.
Now at 29, the young bachelor is scared again, despite his years with Benny and a recent triumphant concert tour with symphony orchestras. He is about to achieve what Radio City reverently calls stardom. In October, he begins his own NBC program, a light comedy story called a “Day in the Life of Dennis Day,” in which he will act and sing two or three songs. Dennis will also continue with the Benny show Sunday nights.
And Still Scared
“I’m just as scared as I was in 1939,” he said. “You know, you get used to being a stooge. This one I'll have to carry myself.”
With these shakes and his own native humility, which is almost as that displayed on the air, Day is not likely to make the mistake another young singer we know of made several years ago.
He, too, had been built up by a comedian and then set up his own shop. The difference was that this fellow became a prima donna. He didn’t like the writing for his spots. He complained continually to the sponsor, an oil man, who was in no mood for complaints since the German subs were sinking his tankers at the time.
Then, the singer made the mistake of singing a song with German words. That did it. He still isn’t back on the air.
Apt To Stay Modest
As noted, Day is not likely to change his hat size, although he’s been acclaimed not only as a singer and actor but as one of the greatest mimics in radio. While we were there, he launched easily into amazing replicas of Fred Allen’s “Titus Moody,” Bob Hope's Jerry Colonna and Satan’s Hitler and Mussolini.
His imitations, which he’ll do occasionally on his own show, began as a gag among friends and became a professional asset, or more money in the bank, on the Benny program last season.
Like others on the show, Dennis has more than a contractual loyalty to Benny.
“Jack’s the greatest showman, the greatest man for timing in radio,” he says. “And he feels that the bigger the other performers on his show are, the bigger his program is.”

Louis Lacy Stevenson, who penned the “Lights of New York” column for the Bell Syndicate, also chatted with Day. This appeared July 30, 1946.

New York
By L. L. STEVENSON
Dennis Day’s appendix changed his entire career. Learned that in a chat with the dark-haired, smiling, brown-eyed, soft-spoken young singer just after he’d returned from a concert tour which included appearances with the Cleveland and Milwaukee symphony orchestras. Bora in the Bronx, Dennis was a boy soprano in school and at St. Patrick’s cathedral. When he went on to Manhattan college, he sang in the glee club. Still, the thought of singing professionally had never entered his mind. His ambition was to become a lawyer and he took a pre-law course at Manhattan. Just when he was ready to enter the law school, his appendix went on a rampage. Instead of going to school, he went to the hospital for an operation. By the time he was out, the term was well under way. As a fill in and to earn some needed money he sang on a sustaining program on radio station WHN.
❖  ❖  ❖
After Day had been singing for about three months—with the idea of being a disciple of Blackstone still in the back of his head—he did a program on the Columbia Broadcasting system and two of his songs were recorded. Just about that time, Kenny Baker was leaving Jack Benny’s program. The Day record was sent to Benny's agent and by accident, Day told me, was heard by Mary Livingstone. The result was that when Benny came on to New York, Day received a summons to meet him. The call, however, didn’t tell Day whom he was to meet so he was no end astonished when he came face to face with Jack. He managed to get through with an audition. He then waited for comments. None were forthcoming. So he departed with the feeling that that was the end of the whole matter and that perhaps, it would be the law for him after all.
❖  ❖  ❖
"Two weeks after the audition, I got a real surprise,” continued Day, "Jack Benny sent me a ticket to California. In fact, he sent a round trip ticket—evidently he was taking no chances on being stuck with me on the west coast if I didn't make good. Full of hope, I took the first train I could grab. After I reached Hollywood, I didn’t have to wait long for an audition. Again, there was no comment and what was more important to me, contract. All I could do was hang around and wait for the verdict. Hanging around and waiting was all the harder because I had no indication of what that verdict would be. A week before ray ticket ran out, I was signed. That was in 1939, and I have been with Jack over since, with the exception of the two years I spent in the navy." Day didn’t say who cashed in the unusued portion of his ticket.
❖  ❖  ❖
In the navy, Day was transferred from the amphibious force to the service force and in Hawaii, he organized a navy show that toured the entire Pacific area. Among those in it were Claud Thornhill, orchestra leader, Tommy Riggs and Jackie Cooper. He was discharged last March with the rank of ensign and immediately went back with Benny. He will return to the Benny show on September 29. Before that, he will go on another concert tour being booked for Denver in August and Tucson in September. His reason for his present visit to New York was to complete plans for his new radio show which will open on NBC October 3. It will consist of singing and situation comedy with Day doing both singing and the comedy.
❖  ❖  ❖
Not until Day made an appearance on the Fred Allen program recently was it generally known that he is a mimic as well as a singer. On the Allen show he impersonated Titus Moody, the Mad Russian, Jerry Colonna and W. C. Fields. He has a number of other characters some of which he probably will use on his own show. In the past, he merely “clowned around” with the imitations for the amusement of himself and friends. He’s good at those imitations too—even at close range. I can testify to that because, while we were talking, he passed out some samples. He also informed me that the Benny show was going to be different next season. “I’m going to get a raise,” he explained. Day is unmarried. His reason, “Nobody ever asked me.”
❖  ❖  ❖
As this was being written, Day is in active negotiations with three major studios for motion picture roIes. One is doing Johnny Appleseed for Walt Disney; another to play the lead opposite James Cagney in another picture, and a part in the musical “Up in Central Park,” opposite Deanna Durbin. So before long, Dennis will have his Day on the screen.

Before his New York trek, and after he returned to the Benny show on St. Patrick’s Day, he met with Bob Thomas of the Associated Press, who reported:

“Denny’s back and Benny’s got him.” I dropped in to have lunch with Dennis Day and asked him how he liked being out of the Navy and back on the Jack Benny show.
“It’s great,” he said. “I like the salary much better than in the Navy.” He said he now gets $35 a week but I do think Mr. Benny gives him more than that.
Dennis said he had a pretty rough time in the Navy with people who expected him to portray his radio self all the time.
“It was particularly bad when I got to be an officer,” he said. He was a lieutenant (jg).
Among the singer’s most vivid memories of the Navy days was standing on top of a wardrobe closet in the University of Arizona gym and singing without accompaniment to his 600 fellow cadets and bunk mates. After that, working for Mr. Benny should be a pleasure.

Day’s series debuted on October 3, 1946. Kind of.

It’s an odd show. Much like Verna Felton was brought in as laugh insurance when Day debuted with Benny in 1939, Jack was brought in for Dennis’ first show and carries a lot of the load. Frank Galen’s storyline is strung together by announcer Verne Smith about how Day was offered a show by Colgate and how he convinced Benny to let him do it. None of the regular cast of the new programme, with the exception of Sharon Douglas, appears. Benny’s announcer, Don Wilson, shows up for added support, and an incidental voice is supplied by Herb Vigran, who was heard periodically with Benny.

What’s even odder is the plot was apparently completely different than what was originally planned. The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, published on the 3rd, gives this as a preview, none of which happened:

Day and Benny will try various formats that have produced successful radio shows in the past: Baby Snooks, Sherlock Holmes, Lum and Abner, Blondie, Kay Kyser and the Gang Busters. Finally, they’ll do Allen’s Alley. Benny will take the role of Allen, and Day will play Mrs. Nussbaum, Senator Claghorn and Titus Moody.

The paper added Day would be singing Franz Lehar’s “Yours Is My Heart Alone,” which didn’t happen, either. Why there was such a huge change is unclear.

Variety of October 3rd gave additional writing credits to Russell Beggs, Arthur Allsburg and future TV comedy writers Frank Fox and Bill Davenport. The trade paper on the 9th identified Frank Barton as the second announcer on the Colgate Dental Crème spot.

The following week, the full regular cast appeared. To add to the oddness, Day played Dennis Day, a soda jerk in Weaverville, not Dennis Day, the Jack Benny show singer. Verna Felton didn’t play Dennis’ mother, but his girl friend’s.

You can hear the initial programme below. It was broadcast on 120 stations. Alas, there are no chimes after the unidentified NBC staff announcer (who can be heard on some Benny shows).

How Green Acres Survived

Television critics in the 1960s tended to lump together shows where characters spoke with country-fied accents. But they generally didn’t really have anything in common. No one would mistake Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. for The Beverly Hillbillies.

Even the three Filmways “rural” shows on CBS—Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres—were dissimilar. Despite an attempt to locate them together geographically, which always struck me as an attempt to import Hillbillies’ huge audience, only one was set on a farm.

And Green Acres’ atmosphere was entirely different. It was filled with odd denizens and surreal, unexplainable situations that were treated as normal life by everyone but the confused Oliver Wendell Douglas. Grocery store owner, and reality anchor, Mr. Drucker never questioned it. Even Oliver’s sophisticated, Park Avenue-loving wife Lisa settled in and developed her own brand of illogic that meshed with the Hooter(s)ville folk. Only the setting made it rural. The tone could have come from one of those “Behind the Eight Ball” shorts that Richard Bare directed at Warner Bros. before his time behind the cameras on Green Acres.

Here’s a bit of background behind the show. This appeared in papers from October 22, 1966 onward, when Green Acres was into its second season.

Don’t Under Estimate Corn
By BOB THOMAS
AP Movie-Television Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP) –Some observers of the television scene drew this lesson from the first Neilsen ratings of the 1965-66 season: Never underestimate the value of corn.

This is the attitude of certain sophisticates who sniff at the fact that among the top 10 shows in audience ratings were such offerings as “Green Acres," “Gomer Pyle,” "The Andy Griffith Show" and “Beverly Hillbillies.”
The most impressive showing among series in the ratings was made by "Green Acres," which captured the No. 3 position below the blockbusting Sunday night movie, "The Bridge on the River Kwai.” Do they grow corn on those "Green Acres”?
"I don’t think so," says Jay Sommers, who created, co-writes and produces the series. "I think it’s a fairly sophisticated show."
Sommers, a rotund, owlish veteran of the gag-writing jungle doesn’t really care what the smart crowd thinks of "Green Acres.” It’s his baby, and as long as the public buys it, that’s all that matters.
The inspiration for the show came from Sommers' boyhood, of which two years were spent on a farm in Greenvale, N.Y. His stepfather went broke trying to earn a living from the soil and the experiences remained with the boy. He capitalized on them with a 1950 radio show, "Granby’s Green Acres,” which starred Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet, the latter now star of "Green Acres", sister show of “Petticoat Junction.”
When “Green Acres’ went on CBS last season, the original plan was to exchange performers with "Petticoat Junction.”
"We’re getting away from that concept now,” said Sommers. "It’s awfully hard to schedule when the actors will be available, and they are busy enough with their own shows. Besides, I think “Green Acres” should stand on its own feet.”
The series is doing a good job of it. Credit is due Sommers who spends a 12-hour day at General Service Studios, overseeing everything from script to cutting. Despite the rural nature of the show, it is filmed almost entirely on the lot. "The people are important, not the settings," explained Sommers.
The secret of "Green Acres' " success?
"I think it appeals to a basic human urge; everyone would like to buy a farm," Sommers theorized. "And we came up with a brilliant combination in Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. They work together like a dream.”

A thick Hungarian accent didn’t stop Eva Gabor from giving interviews about her series. Indeed, columnist Hal Humphrey talked to her about it in 1965 and 1968. Read them in this post. He also talked to her in 1966. This story appeared on Sept. 5, 1966.

Eva Gabor Spoils Image
By HAL HUMPHREY
Los Angeles Times Service
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 5—Eva Gabor, of the Hungarian Gabors, has a particular reason for being happy that her and Eddie Albert's TV show, Green Acres, survived its first season.
“It gives me a chance to spoil my image. Everyone always thinks I am the temperamental actress. I remember the very first time I did a TV show, the producer had a girl standing by to take over. They thought I either wouldn’t show up or would walk out after the first act.”
A similar type of storm signal went up when Eva was signed to play Lisa Douglas in the comfed “Green Acres” series. Besides insisting on the town’s most expensive makeup man and her own hairdresser, Eva held out for the chic Jean Louis to do her wardrobe.
IT WORKED
“But you see? It worked, didn’t it? With Gene Hibbs doing my makeup and Peggy Shannon my hair, I really saved the producer money, because I am always ready. And I don't like to take too much credit, because Jay Sommers and Dick Chevillat write marvelous scrips, but I established this character when I wore a chiffon negligee to chase a chicken across the barnyard.

The scene just described by Eva was in an early episode at the beginning of the season with Lisa trying to adjust to living on the farm her husband, Oliver (Eddie Albert), had just purchased. Instead of the ordinary robe prescribed originally, Eva persuaded the director that if Lisa ever chased chickens at all, it would be in a Jean Louis negligee.
“I know this character,” Eva maintains, "because she is like me. When Lisa wears jeans, I make sure they have diamonds for me to wear with them, and I mean real diamonds. If I know they are real diamonds, then the viewers believe it, too.”
STRIVE FOR QUALITY
When Eva digs in adamantly for such conditions, she does not consider it temperament but a striving for a standard of quality that will benefit everyone concerned. She knew she was running the risk of blowing the whole deal by insisting on Jean Louis gowns, diamonds, etc., and Eva wanted this break of co-starring in her own series. “But, darling,” as she says, “what is a break, if it is not done right?”
And, of course, she is right. In one “Green Acres” episode the past season Eva wore a Jean Louis she had worn few weeks earlier. Within two days she had letters from fans demanding to know, “What happened? Can’t you afford a new dress?”
The only temporary setback Eva encountered in her battle for quality was over a proper dressing room. Her first one was a portable job which even the chickens in “Green Acres” might have declined to roost in.
HAS EVERYTHING
“Ah, but after the first Nielsen rating came in, you should see my dressing room. It has everything! But why not? This lunch you and I are having is the first time I've been out of my house or the studio since June. I don’t go to parties. I have to train like an athlete. But I don’t mind. I adore acting. That is why I am 10 minutes early on the set every morning. Also, what these Hollywood people don't realize, I come from the stage and I have discipline.
“I believe there is such a thing as ‘the show must go on.’ Just yesterday I get word that Jolie, my mother, has fallen getting out of her swimming pool and broken her kneecap in three places, a horrible thing. And on the same day my little dog has a stroke, so I am very worried, but I am on the set working anyway.”
MORALE RISES
Eva’s morale has risen since her husband left his stockbroker's job in New York and moved to Hollywood (he waited for the third Nielsen rating on “Green Acres”). Soon after arriving, he became a vice-president for Filmways, the corporation that produces “Green Acres.”
Only two things have not worked out for Eva according to plan. She dare not wear in private life any of the 160 Jean Louis dresses accumulated from the show, because everyone has already seem them on TV. Second, the hillbilly slang on “Green Acres” is spoiling her not-too-recent mastering of the American idiom. When someone on the set mentioned sex the other day, Eva said, “Don’t kick it.” It took a few seconds for the assembled group to figure out she meant “Don't knock it.”

The second season carried on bizarreness (Lisa’s hen lays square eggs) and sly satire (Arnold the Pig gets a draft notice) and continued to get renewed until 1971 when CBS wiped the show off the schedule after 170 episodes.

The Dashing Joker

The main villains on the Batman TV show were all quite different from each other, and I think the variety helped the series.

Burgess Meredith’s Penguin was snarky. Frank Gorshin’s Riddler was unhinged. Cesar Romero’s was happy, even gleeful, in committing crime.

Of the three, Romero was the biggest name at the time, having appeared in all kinds of movies in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Over the years, Romero was interviewed many, many times, especially by local entertainment columnists whenever he appeared in dinner theatre in a city.

For a good summary of Romero’s career, here’s a wire service story published on June 23, 1984 (depending on the newspaper). You’d never know he worked in television or on a Batman movie (1966) reading this.

Romero celebrates 50 years in film
By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Fifty years ago, a young Broadway dancer came to Hollywood to appear with William Powell and Myrna Loy in "The Thin Man." Unlike most of his contemporaries, Cesar Romero is still here. Not only is he here but he's working, as he has done since 1934, minus service in the Coast Guard during World War II.
He recently was feted on his 50th anniversary in show business with a party on the Santa Fe, N.M., location of "Lust in the Dust," his 134th movie. Or is it 152nd? He's lost count.
"The New Mexico Film Commission presented me with a trophy for my 50 years in films," Romero said in an interview. "I said I was happy to get it — considering the alternative."
He has played almost every kind of role, but “Lust in the Dust” is a first. “I play a priest who used to be a rabbi. No explanation is given. I think it's going to be a very funny picture — not campy but funny.
"The cast is great: Tab Hunter, Lanie Kazan, Henry Silva and Divine, who happens to be a female impersonator. The director, Paul Bartel ('Eating Raoul’) is a charming guy. I had a great time."
Through great films and duds, Romero has brought the same brand of enthusiasm to his work. Still classically handsome at 77, he'll get another award for his career achievement this month from Nosotros, the organization that has sought more work for Latino actors.
"I guess I was lucky; I was never typecast in films," he remarked. "I played a wide variety in most of my career. It has only been in later years that I seemed to be thought of as an Hispanic. That surprised me. I was born in New York City, my mother was born in Brooklyn. I never considered myself a part of the Latin group."
Still, he is proud of his Latin heritage:
"My grandfather, Jose Marti, was the liberator of Cuba," Romero said. "The Cuban war of independence was planned in my grandmother's house. In 1965, I attended the ceremonies when a statue of my grandfather was unveiled at 69th and Avenue of the Americas in New York. It was quite a day. The pro-Castro Cubans lined up on one side of the statue, and the anti-Castro Cubans on the other, and it ended in a riot.”

Romero's yen to act started in boarding school when he played four roles in "The Merchant of Venice." His father, who lost his fortune when the sugar market collapsed, found his son a job in a Wall Street bank. He spent his evenings at debutante dances and met an ink heiress, Elizabeth Higgins, who suggested they form a dance team.
After a career in nightclubs and in musicals, Romero won a contract at MGM. Summarily dropped, he landed at Universal, then caught the eye of Darryl Zanuck. When Zanuck's 20th Century merged with Fox, Romero was added to the contract list. He stayed 18 years.
He said his best three movies were "Show Them No Mercy," "Captain From Castille" and "any one of the musicals — 'Weekend in Havana,' 'Springtime in the Rockies,' 'The Great American Broadcast,' etc." The three worst? "A couple I did at Universal: ‘Armored Car' and 'She's Dangerous,' with Tala Birell," he said, "also one for Sam Katzman at Columbia, 'Prisoners of the Casbah' with Gloria Grahame and Turhan Bey."
For 37 years Romero lived in a Brentwood, Calif., house he originally bought for $15,000 and sold for $400,000.
He's on the road much of the year playing dinner theaters, returning to the apartment he shares with his sister, Maria. He has never married.
"How could I, when I had so many family responsibilities?" he said. "I was living with my parents, two sisters, a niece and a nephew. Could I tell a girl, 'Let's get married and you can come and live with my mother, my father, two sisters, a niece and a nephew'?
"I have no regrets, no regrets. Right now I'm seeing a lady quite a bit younger, and we have a good relationship. It'll stay that way."
Romero said he would never retire. "What the hell would I do if I quit? I can take time off when I want, and work when I want," he said. "It's an ideal situation."

What did Romero think of working on Batman? Interviews he gave over the years are consistent. He thought of it as fun. Here’s the Associated Press again; the story was published starting May 8, 1966.

Long a Lover, Now ‘The Joker’
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD (AP)— For years Cesar Romero played suave leading men. Handsome lovers in white tie and tails. And, as he puts it, "playboys, heavies, gigolos and lounge lizards."
Now he was hardly recognizable in pasty white makeup, a clown's painted grin and a wild thatch of green wig.
This was romantic Romero as, zounds, The Joker of "Batman!"
MOVIE VERSION—Cast and crew of that television hit are making a movie version. Over lunch the smooth Latin from Manhattan said of his new career as comic villain.
"I love it. It’s a kooky, way-out character, the easiest I ever played. I can be as hammy as I like and do all the things we were told not to do: mug, overact, accentuate. It's fun because you're not tied down, inhibited."
As Batman's fiendish but never quite successful adversary In the film, Romero has a grand time staging a kidnapping, flying by umbrella like Mary Poppins and wielding a disintegrator that turns humans to powder.

NEW YORK BORN—"And I don't have to worry about circles under the eyes or whether my hair is combed," he noted.
Romero, 59, a towering 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, has been in pictures 32 years. “This town,” he said, “has been very good to me.”
He was born in New York City to a Cuban mother and Spanish father. As a boy vaudeville fan, hanging around stage doors, he knew that show business was for him. After a turn as a $17.30-a-week bank clerk he teamed up with a girl dancer and appeared in supper clubs.
STAGE DANCER — He became a stage dancer in musicals along with a youth named George Murphy, now U.S. senator from California, who later in Hollywood gave Romero his nickname—Butch.
Dancing led to stage acting—"Strictly Dishonorable," "Dinner at Eight," etc. M-G-M brought him to Hollywood in 1934 for a role in “The Thin Man.”
Romero became one of the town's most attractive bachelors, escorting Joan Crawford, Virginia Bruce, Loretta Young, Ann Sothern, Barbara Stanwyck. He still occasionally takes Jane Wyman to dinner parties at friends' homes.
NOT ELIGIBLE—In 1940 he built a house in Brentwood where he lives with a spinster sister. Marriage? "It just never happened," he said. "There's nothing very eligible about me now, and I have no intention of changing my status.
"In many ways I regret not marrying. I would have liked to have children."

I’ve gone through more than a dozen interviews made over the decades with Romero and in all of them, he’s asked why he’s single. He pulled his punches, but that’s not surprising given the era (and, perhaps, it probably hasn’t changed for really big names in Hollywood).

The stories also crow about his great physical condition. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the situation at the end. He was hospitalised with severe bronchitis and pneumonia and died from complications related to a blood clot on New Year’s Day 1994 at age 86.

Not-Laugh-In Looks at the News

Producer George Schlatter and comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin combined to put Laugh-In on the air. After a rather unpleasant split, both sides tried to recreate it. And not very successfully.

Schlatter revived the show for the 1977-78 season with an all-new cast, including Robin Williams. Meanwhile, Rowan and Martin signed a deal with ABC to develop a weekly comedy series starting January 12, 1976—but a week before, asked out of their contract.

Why? George Maksian of the New York News wrote at the time it was because the network changed its mind about another Rowan and Martin venture.

One of the regular segments on their old show was “Laugh-In Looks at the News,” with an opening musical number, followed by (at least in the early years) phoney headlines and sketches based on news of the past, present and future. Rowan and Martin decided to rework the concept and took it to ABC.

Here’s the Associated Press talking about it in a wire story dated October 22, 1975.

TV News Funny Stuff Set by Rowan-Martin
By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Is the nation ready for a weekly Rowan and Martin review of the news? Rowan and Martin think so, ABC heartily agrees, and the network will present the pilot show Nov. 5.
"Two years ago we couldn't have done a show like this," says Dick Martin, the basset-faced zany of the comedy team. "Watergate was still going on, and people were too uptight to laugh at the news."
"Now the timing is just right," agrees Dan Rowan, the smooth straight man. "We're coming into an election year, the Fords are doing things you can make jokes about, and the Democrats are funnier than ever."
"The Rowan and Martin Report" next month will set the pattern for a series expected to reach the ABC network in January. Both comics and producer Paul Keyes declare it will be unlike anything television has ever seen before.
Does that sound like show biz hyperbole? Perhaps. But eight years ago all three were saying the same thing about their new show "Laugh-In," and their prediction turned out, to be true.
"When we went on the air with 'Laugh-In,' critics tried to compare it to early Ernie Kovacs, 'Hellzapoppin' or whatever, but it bore no relationship to anything that went before," says Martin. "Nor will the new show."
Rowan, Martin and Keyes bristled at the suggestion their show might resemble "That Was The Week That Was."
"TW3 used sketches to satirize the news," explained Keyes. "It was a failure because it had an Englishman (David Frost) telling us what is wrong with America, and the principal target of the sketches was President Eisenhower, whose popularity was 65 per cent in the polls. Besides, the show wasn't funny.
"Our show will have no sketches, no music, no laugh track, no guest stars, nothing but funny stuff about the news done the way television normally handles the news."
After their enormous success with "Laugh-In," Dan and Dick kept a low profile in television.
"It would have been ridiculous for us to do stand-up comedy routines on variety shows," said Rowan, 53. "Except for the Emmy show which we did for Paul (who was producing) we've tried to stay off the tube as a team. But both Dick and I like to do the game shows as singles."
Two months ago, the pair and Keyes took their idea for "Report" to Fred Silvermann newly moved from CBS to ABC as chief programmer.
"Fred said he could only give us 20 minutes because his schedule was tight," Rowan recalled.
"Silverman bought the show seven minutes after we entered his office," Keyes added.
Now they're in the process of assembling a team for their show. They were over in Burbank, Calif., of all places, the other day to audition performers at a tape studio.
Unknown actors and actresses from local improvisation theaters and nightclubs trooped before the camera and read gagged-up news items. Out of the candidates may come the future Henry Gibsons, Lily Tomlins, Arte Johnsons and Goldie Hawns.
“We’re looking for people can seem to be newscasters but have a way with comedy,” said Martin, 53. “They will also have to think fast on their feet, because the show will be live, and we may throw in last-minute news items.”

A test episode aired as scheduled. If anyone wondered where Cousin Oliver of The Brady Bunch went, he was hired by Dan and Dick. Robbie Rist, age 12, was the show’s TV critic and wrote his own material. 11 writers were hired and the show was taped only 24 hours in advance to be current. Keyes told the Gannett News Service prior to the broadcast there would be five reporters, but didn’t name them. He described the segments at “Rumor Corner,” “Man in Washington,” “Statistics,” and “Names in the News.”

As for the reviews, Percy Shain of the Boston Globe proclaimed “It’s all pretty static and not very funny. Sometimes, in its ethnic shots, it’s rather tasteless. Nothing emerged to stick to the memory, except for those flushing numbers at the bottom of the screen, which revealed that while the show was on the national debt increased $3 million. There’s certainly nothing humorous in that.”

But Win Fanning of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it “a sure winner,” adding “The fast-paced, up-to-air-time combination of actual news stories and inspired, witty commentary recaptured the best of the ‘Laugh-In’ excitement—without being in any way derivative.”

John J. O’Connor of the New York Times also approved. “[T]he two comedians and a small but choice cast of funny people commented on a wide range of current events, from President Ford’s latest press conference to Jacqueline Onassis’s new $200-a-week job in book publishing. ‘The Rowan and Martin Report’ brought some badly needed topicality and nice lunacy to the battered concept of ‘family hour’.”

Jay Sharbutt of the Associated Press was concerned about the stupidity of viewers: “What with its realistic-looking anchorman’s set, its joshing and its reporter who is seen across the street from the White House, ‘The Rowan and Martin Report’ is a frightening prospect for TV. People might mistake it for a local nightly news program.”

And what did George Schlatter think? He told the New York Daily News “It will make things better for me if I want to do ‘Laugh-In’ again.” He stayed away from a direct comment about the content.

But maybe Freddie Silverman’s golden gut couldn’t stomach what he saw. He passed on finding it a January time-slot, so Rowan and Martin went from potentially two shows to none at the start of 1976. Ironically, Schlatter's effort at ABC a few years earlier, Turn On, lasted one show as well.

Jump ahead 40 or so years to an era of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Maybe Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were way ahead of their time.

Serious Soupy

Other than they talked to the same age group, there wasn’t a lot in common between Captain Kangaroo and Soupy Sales.

The Captain was very low key. Soupy was energetic. The Captain was full of common sense. Soupy was silly.

Yet Soupy had a serious side, too, that he chose to express off the air. Here’s a story from September 29, 1962 about how Milton Supeman tried to help teenagers.

The Serious Side of Soupy Sales
By BOB THOMAS
AP Movie-Television Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—It's tough on new comedians to discover that the established comics have taken up most of the known diseases for their pet projects.
The rules of show biz are such that a funnyman must also have his serious side—as spearhead for some worthy cause. Soupy Sales realized this as he started pushing into the television bigtime as slapstick favorite of the younger crowd.
He chose as his particular cause that disease afflicting thousands of teen-agers—drop out.
The youngster who drops out of high school and goes no further with his education has been getting attention from many civic-minded persons, up to and including President Kennedy. They reason that the drop out is a waste of the nation's resources. Further, education is increasingly important in today’s world, in which automation is replacing work done by unskilled labor.
"I had been doing charity work, but it wasn't being directed toward anything," said Soupy. "Jerry Lewis has muscular dystrophy and the other comedians have their own causes. I thought since I had worked with kids, I should find something that affected them.
"Combating the drop out is just as important as fighting any dreaded disease. This is a kind of disease that can blight lives, yet it can be cured by the people themselves, if given enough love, understanding and guidance."
Soupy has gone all out with special television and radio spot announcements to coincide with the return to school. He also carries on the campaign with his daily television show in Los Angeles. The local station, KABC, has put together a 25-minute short called "Drop Out Blackouts."
Last week the film was presented to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Anthony J. Celebrezze for use in the nation's schools. I saw the film and it is an effective piece of salesmanship, getting to the teen-agers with Soupy's unique brand of humor.
“Don’t be a drop out,” warns Soupy, and a body plunges off a high roof.
The comedian revealed he almost dropped out of high school as a lad. "I figured I was going into show business," he said. "You don't need a diploma to tell jokes, I thought.
"But I changed my mind and even graduated from Marshall College in Huntington, W. Va., getting my degree in journalism. I'm glad I did. Now I write all my own material."
Parents might find this a poor argument for his campaign, but at least the teenagers are on his side.

1962 was an interesting year for Soupy. He, rather improbably, was picked as a guest host for the Tonight show. NBC was using fill-ins of all kinds, awaiting Johnny Carson’s contract on another network to expire so he could permanently take over.

Perhaps the most sour critic in America, Harriet Van Horne, disapproved. Mind you, she seemed to disapprove of almost everything, judging by some of her other columns we’re transcribed here. This one is dated June 6, 1962. She has a low opinion of everyone who filled in for Paar, and Paar himself.

Tonight Show in Soup
Substitute MCs Keep Program In Embarrassed Suspension
By HARRIET VAN HORNE
Scripps-Howard Staff Writer
NEW YORK, June 6—Until Johnny Carson—a pro—assumes command of the Tonight show on Oct. 8, NBC is flinging substitute M.C.'s onto the screen as if they were dummy hands at bridge. From a viewer's vantage, a malign hand would seem to be dealing—and from a rather soiled and tattered old deck.
In consequence, the Tonight show is now in a state of what might be termed embarrassed suspension but live and in color.
This week the master of the revels is one Soupy Sales. I've seen Mr. Sales' name in the daytime TV log a thousand times. But until recently, I was under the impression that Soupy Sales was an animated cartoon.
Well, having viewed the Tonight show I can now report that Soupy Sales is not a cartoon, though his animation is such that it nearly qualifies him for the rank. An anxious man with blurred diction and the arrogance that probably hides a sinking heart, Mr. Sales has made a notable success of his kiddie shows. In his own field, I am advised, he is superbly at ease, with a golden arm for pie-throwing.
In truth, Soupy, if I may be so familiar, made his name and fame hurling pies. It was taken for granted that he would open his week's run on Monday by tossing an open-faced custard at some poor stooge standing there (at union minimum) braced for impact.
Ah but Soupy staged a stunning surprise. He resisted the obvious and hurled a man into an enormous pie. Versatile you might say. A man who refuses to be a dupe to his art.
To give you a full account of all that transpired on the Soupy show last night would tax your credulity. I still can't believe it myself.
First, we had Marie Wilson. While her host was busy grimacing and offering footnotes of total irrelevance, Miss Wilson told us some backstage stories. How she once borrowed Zsa Zsa's wig in Las Vegas—a lovely Blue wig—how she usually dresses for a show (a low cut bathing suit turned frontwards) and so on. For whatever it means to her, Miss Wilson had our sympathy.
Not so Gene Shepard, the disk jockey, idol of the "night people," a man of raw and un-concocted conclusions. Mr. Shepard offered what I can only describe as a skull solo. He thumped his head with his knuckles while the band played "The Sheik of Araby." Bowing modestly to the studio applause, Mr. Shepard volunteered that he keeps his head in condition by soaking it in ointment. I believe you, Mr. Shepard.
I expect there was a great deal more of this sophisticated entertainment but my little screen suddenly went dark—by arrangement.
It strikes me that all the substitutes seen so far on the Tonight show have one quality in common with Jack Paar. That is, a note of privileged vulgarity runs through every sentence. There's also a tendency toward petulance, the egomania that's almost out of bounds. Perhaps it's something the Paar "personal," as they say, left in the studio air.
While I've not watched every new face on the Tonight show, it would seem that the M. C. viewers found most at ease was Merv Griffin. A number of viewers have said so in their letters. I must beg to disagree.
Mr. Griffin is a man of over-weaning courtesy, and as such a pleasant change from some of the others. But he's a graceless, non-listening interviewer, the sort who smiles cheerily as he interrupts a good story with a senseless question.
Mr. Griffin has another habit I find annoying. He tells brittle show business stories, the sort of stories that must be told with a theatrical air, and gets them all wrong. Also, he relates these glittery yarns in the tone of a man putting a child to sleep with a bedtime story.

Soupy talked to adults later in his career when he appeared as a panelist in the ‘70s syndicated version of What’s My Line?. The show shed its Park Avenue atmosphere of the ‘50s and ‘60s and became a little more down-to-earth. Arlene Francis was still charming and got off some clever humour. Anita Gillette was bright and friendly. And Soupy, well, couldn’t help being “on” some of the time, but at the same time he made fun of himself, especially if one of his jokes didn’t go over. It was a really good mixture.

Arrogant? Hardly. Sinking heart? Give me a break. Soupy Sales was a guy who liked a little innocent, and perhaps corny, fun. There was more to him than tossing a pie or two. I guess he had that in common with the Captain, too.

The Happy Professor

Once upon a time, Bob Hope had a radio show. It was a good radio show. My favourite part of the Bob Hope Show isn’t Hope. It’s a wonderfully eccentric man named Jerry Colonna.

Colonna started out as a musician but somehow ended up spouting non sequiturs and using peculiar logic during dialogues with Old Ski Nose. He had several catchphrases, some of them you’ll hear if you watch old Warner Bros. cartoons with Colonna-like characters.

He lasted through the ‘40s with Hope. By then, Colonna wanted to do his own show and Hope wanted to freshen his with new people.

Let’s look at 20 years of Colonna’s career. First up is a 1941 column.

Hollywood Screen Life
BY ROBBIN COONS
HOLLYWOOD, Mar. 6—Even after sitting across a table from Jerry Colonna, you find it hard to believe in the reality of his most treasured possession, his moustache.
Even close-up, that gallant, larruping, upstanding decoration loons like something fabricated in a wild moment by a make-up artist. It's real, though, and Jerry hasn't been without it for 16 of his 36 years.
All those years, many of them before the moustache became an ingredient of his comic front, he has been receiving "double-takes" from incredulous passers-by.
Jerry (real name Gerard) credits the wonderful item to the inspiration of his late grandfather, who had a really prodigious pair of handle-bars that reached half-way down his chest and curled up at the ends. Jerry started early and to this day hasn't parted with one of the original hairs. He has become expert at resisting the blandishments of yearning barbers, and does his own trimming.
• • •
Once Jerry joined an orchestra as a trombonist when he couldn't play the trombone, a deficiency he quickly remedied by hasty study For several years he made his living at music—in vaudeville (both on stage and in pit), in concert orchestras, on the air. The trombone further justified the moustache, he says. A moustache helps to cushion the lips for performers on any wind instrument, for which reason he still shaves his under-lip sparingly, even though for three or four years he has played the trombone infrequently.
Jerry came into picture via "52nd Street" after a guest aired with Fred Allen. He was under contract briefly at Warner's, where his bulging, rolling eyes and his fabulous moustachios appeared in a couple of bits—nobody, apparently knowing what to do with them.
He did better at Paramount, and with Bob Hope on the air. His latest film is "You're the One," his current job the "romantic lead opposite Judy Canova in "Sis Hopkins." (If Republic hasn't picked Judy's next story, they can have this tip free: Why not a burlesque musical of "Trilby," with hypnotic-eyed Colonna as Svengali—singing in his own distinctive "grand opera" style?)
• • •
Jerry's comedy springs—aside from his eyes, singing volce (?), and moustache—from dialogue. He borrows a couple of Bob Hope's writers to go over the scripts, looking for ways to twist straight lines into Colonna gags without hurting the sense or the story.
He turned down a chance to play a role in "Marie Antoinette" because it would have required him to shave. For "You're the One," Producer Gene Markey wanted him to shave for one scene, but Colonna won the argument. He says has no wish to be an actor of other roles than Jerry Colonna—with, possibly, some alterations. In person he is quiet, almost shy.
He has been married foe 10 years. Mrs. Colonna, he says, has never objected to his moustache—in fact, never has seen him out it. Sometimes he himself wonders what he looks like underneath the shrubbery.

Now, to July 11, 1950. Colonna talked with NBC but ended up spending the rest of the year appearing at clubs.

Jerry Colonna Latest Of Top Radio Comics To Get Own TV Show
By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press Hollywood Writer
HOLLYWOOD—Jerry Colonna, the man with monstrous mustache and the steam-whistle voice, is the latest to get into the television picture.
The comic is shaping up his own show, which he hopes to have ready for the fall that should help enliven the coming season, which promises to be the most competitive in the young industry's history. Such stars as Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor, Martin and Lewis and Groucho Marx have been mentioned as definite or probable starters in the TV field.
Colonna severed his professional life with his old sidekick, Bob Hope, two years ago and has been doing mostly theatre dates since. The split was a friendly one and arose over Jerry's desire to have a show of his own. Hope's sponsor wouldn't go for it and so Jerry took a walk.
"I SPENT $9,000 whipping up an audition," Jerry recalled, "but I hit the market just when the bottom was dropping out of radio."
He declared he had no regrets over the secession from Hope, he gained a chance to try something different. But Jerry admitted the working conditions were ideal. He arrived two hours before the show and sometimes didn't go over the show until an hour before the broadcast. For reading about five gags he was paid $1,750 per week!

And finally Let’s stop in 1961. Colonna had pretty well given up on TV and settled in at casino resorts.

Jerry Colonna, Masterful Madcap of Radio and Movies, Has Night Club Act
By JANET FERRIS
STATELINE, May 7 (AP) — Almost two decades since the Road to Rio and the Road to Singapore, comedian Jerry Colonna, 56, now is hitting tho road to Reno, Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas.
His gay nineties mustache as black and bristling as ever, the whites of his great Barney Google eyes prominent against his dark-skinned face. Colonna now plays Nevada night clubs with his group of seven musicians.
Colonna arranges and writes all the music, including his satire on popular songs. His group puts on four 45-minute shows five nights a week, 46 weeks a year. After working almost until dawn, Jerry gets up early enough in the afternoon to take a sunbath to preserve his tan.
"We sometimes ad lib our way out of routines," he said in an interview, "Not out of boredom but from trying to see if we can top ourselves."
How can anyone be funny 46 weeks of the year?
"When the lights go on and the curtain goes up, the old firehorse in me comes out," he explained.
In World War II days, "The Professor" was called one of the leading experts on doubletalk. He still uses these famed patter routines.
"I like to do the pattern piece phonetically," he explained. "Mine is the iambic pentameter type. I like to watch the expressions on their faces. I like to do it so they're sitting up on their chairs trying to grasp it."
How does playing against the rattle of dice and clanking slot machines of the gambling casinos compare with playing in a quiet studio to radio end television audiences?
"This is a lot more confining and a lot harder than radio," he acknowledged.
"On radio, we had time to rehearse. We also had a preview of each show to check it out for the big laughs, so we knew what we were doing. On the other hand in TV, there was never enough time to rehearse.
"People who come to a radio or a TV show come to be entertained," he said. "These night club people aren't a captive audience. They may stay through three shows, in which case you have to keep putting in fresh material. Or they can walk out in the middle of an act."
Entertainment seems to run in Colonna's family. One of his brothers had a comedy quartet in vaudeville.
"I didn't lean toward that side of the stage then," he said. "I was more interested in trombone and jazz."
Colonna got on the Fred Allen show when he was playing trombone with the Columbia Symphony orchestra. At CBS he did Dixieland mornings, dance music afternoons and symphony in the evenings.
"Radio was mostly sustaining then. There were hardly any commercials so we really worked, 15 hours a day."
His big comedy break came when the woman playing Mrs. Nusbaum, the gossip of Allen's Alley, told her boss: "Did you see that man with the mustache. He's an opera singer."
Colonna's closest contact with opera had been studying trombone with the first trombonist of tho Metropolitan Opera company, but he was willing to try.
"I broke out with a long, searing note, Fred went down on the floor. He said: "We're going to use this on our show next week."
In the ensuing performance, Colonna tried to sell Fred Allen on doing a concert.
When the roads opened up—a long connection with Bob Hope, motion pictures, radio, television and Nevada.
The roads haven't all been strewn with daffodils, but Colonna obviously has enjoyed traveling them. Married for 30 years, his wife, Florence, has traveled with him and set up housekeeping "wherever we are."

The first time I saw Colonna was on McHale’s Navy in 1965. I thought he was a character invented for the episode; I hadn’t heard the old Hope shows yet. Colonna had a stroke in 1966, but had recovered to appear on a Christmas special with Hope. He made a few more TV appearances, either with Hope or saluting his old boss. He had a heart attack in 1979 and Hope was at his bedside the following year when he had heart troubles. Bing Crosby’s former Road partner delivered his eulogy when Colonna died in 1986 at the age of 82. Referring to their dozen-plus tours of military bases, Hope said “Jerry would pop out of the audience wearing a uniform and I’d ask him, ‘What were you before you joined the Army?’ And he’d answer, ‘Happy.’ Well, I have a feeling that St. Peter's question might be, ‘What were you in life?’ And Jerry would have the same answer—‘Happy.’

Find an old Bob Hope show from the early ‘40s and listen to the crazy antics of Professor Colonna. You’ll be happy, too.