I’ve Heard That Joke Before

When comedians on radio got tired of jokes, they made jokes about jokes.

Fred Allen, Henry Morgan, even Boston’s Bob and Ray, pointed out radio was obsessed with making fun of Brooklyn or the La Brea Tar Pits. Morgan and the wonderful Arnold Stang had a routine, where Stang urged Morgan to jump on the overused joke bandwagon, saying Fred Allen had one about a pen that writes under water and, by procrastinating, Morgan didn’t have “one damp joke.” Morgan responded with a lovely pun that he did have a joke about a typewriter that wrote under wood.

Syndicated columnist John Crosby went further, making jokes about comedians making jokes about jokes in his missive of Friday, February 14, 1947.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
The All-American Joke
Peter Lind Hayes, who is developing into a very good comedian indeed, fell to complaining the other day about jokes. There were, he claimed, almost as many jokes about the Governors of Georgia as there are Governors of Georgia. Mr. Hayes, who is one of the brighter luminaries on the Dinah Shore show (C. B. S. 9:30 p. m., E. S. T. Wednesdays), explained that the Georgia Governors had moved to Number Four on the Hit Parade of jokes.
"What's Number One?” inquired Miss Shore.
"The most popular joke of the year was Kilroy was here. Number Two was the fountain pen that writes under water. In the third slot is a new entry which came up very fast."
"Bet I can guess—‘Open the Door, Richard.’ "
"Right," said Mr. Hayes some-what grimly. "Number Four was, of course, the Governors of Georgia. Numbers Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten were Artie Shaw's marriages. Eleven was President Truman's piano. Number Twelve was the joke about Leo Durocher saving up for a Larainey Day."
"Pete, what about Los Angeles pedestrians?" asked Miss Shore.
"Coming up—got the perfect number for them. Number Thirteen. Yes, Number Thirteen is Los Angeles pedestrians. Number Fourteen is Los Angeles smog, and Number Fifteen is Los Angeles."
Mr. Hayes then offered his version of the All-American Joke, a fool-proof number guaranteed to contain all the guaranteed laugh ingredients. Here it is:
"The other day the Governors of Georgia and the pedestrians of Los Angeles picked up a fountain pen that writes under water and wrote a letter to President Truman asking him to play the piano at Artie Shaw's and Leo Durocher's weddings and signed it Kilroy was here."
• • •
Well, it was a brave try, Mr. Hayes, but I feel vaguely dissatisfied with that All-American Joke. Some of the most brilliant running backs and four or five linesmen of indubitable All-American excellence have been omitted. No All-American team would be complete without a mention of Frank Sinatra. John L. Lewis, the Brooklyn Dodgers, portal-to-portal pay, Jack Benny's stinginess, Esther Williams's bathing suits, James C. Petrillo, Senator Claghorn, Don Wilson's waist line, Bob Hope's yo yo and the housing shortage.
Mr. Hayes's list calls attention to the flagrant favoritism the comedians pay to Los Angeles. President Truman's piano, Kilroy, "Open the Door, Richard," and the fountain pen that writes under water belong to the nation; the Governors of Georgia are the personal property of that state, but all the rest of the jokes have a distinctly local connotation. Hollywood and Vine is virtually the only street intersection in the world that ever gets mentioned on the radio. Hollywood's weather is more widely and unfavorably advertised than the weather any place else and Tommy Manville simply can't compete any longer with the Hollywood marriage and divorce mill. Nobody ever tells any regional jokes about the East, the Mid-West or—apart from the Georgia Governors and Senator Claghorn—the South, Chicago, which in my youth was the most prolific joke factory in the world, is hardly ever mentioned.
Also, it seems to me the joke-smiths have missed a couple of topics entirely. I don't hear all the jokes that are told on the air, Heaven forbid, so maybe I missed a few. Has any one told a joke about Staten Island's threat to secede from New York City, Admiral Byrd's expedition to Antarctica or Toots Shor's expedition to the White House? Any one who can't fashion a joke out of Toots Thor in the White House, to parephrase Mr. Shor, ain't tryin'.

Let’s look at the rest of Crosby’s columns for the week. As a side note, these columns had been banked as Crosby was on his honeymoon in Los Angeles when they were published.

Monday, February 10: Politicians and would-be politicians show up on Information Please. I’ll take Oscar Levant, thank you.
Tuesday, February 11: Jack Benny and Your Hit Parade were sponsored by Lucky Strike, which used a tobacco chant in its opening and closing commercials. Crosby delves into the cigarette spiel. We posted that column several years ago.
Wednesday, February 12: The BBC tries an intellectual programme, drama, poetry, plays and such.
Thursday, February 13: an odds-and-ends column, including Johnny Olson’s audience participation show and newsman Bob Trout on slang.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are by Alan Ferber and Bob Moore of the Daily News in Los Angeles.

A Close Look at Close

Commentators have been with us since before electronic media. Back then, they were found in newspapers and called “editorial writers.”

Radio networks were skittish whenever analysts veered into giving their own opinions. It usually resulted in management deciding it would be better having one less analyst. H.V. Kaltenborn was shown the door at CBS. So was Bill Shirer. Later, Howard K. Smith. Even the sainted Edward R. Murrow ran afoul of the executive suite at CBS.

Another lesser-known commentator was Upton Close, whose real name was Josef Washington Hall. In his newspaper days in 1932, he predicted China would become Communist, and “a mad military clique” was rising in Japan. However, on the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Close put forward the idea on radio that the Japanese government and military really weren’t responsible.

After NBC decided Close was not suitable for its airwaves, he ended up at the Mutual Broadcasting System. That’s where we find him at the start of 1947. Herald Tribune columnist John Crosby decided to do what we now call “fact checking” into some of things Close declared on his broadcasts. The Daily Worker called him a “fascist.” Crosby was more restrained in his column of Feb. 5th that year.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
The All-American Commentator
Criticism of journalism on the radio is a ticklish subject, particularly in a newspaper which is engaged in the same line of work. But, since news is not only the most popular but certainly the most important commodity radio has to offer, the handling of news and news comment is a difficult topic to avoid. Certainly all sorts of opinions, from extreme right to extreme left, should be on the air, but those who purvey them should have something to offer besides an opinion.
I'm speaking specifically of Upton Close, "defender of American principles and champion of straight thinking" or, as he is sometimes billed, "The All-American Commentator." Close, now heard on the Mutual Broadcasting System on Tuesdays at 10:15 p. m., was twice dropped by the National Broadcasting Company. After a decidedly curious interpretation of Pearl Harbor made in a broadcast on Dec. 7, 1941, he was suspended on the ground that his comments were irresponsible. His later broadcasts convinced NBC that his knowledge of the Far Eastern situation was questionable and they refused to renew his con-tract in 1944. Close's political convictions are about one hundred yards to the right of even the National Association of Manufacturers, which is pretty far right. After a close atudy of five of his scripts, and after hearing many of his broadcasts, I can report with reasonable confidence that he is anti-Communist, anti-British, anti-Russian, anti-United Nations, anti-Roosevelt, anti-Truman and even, curiously enough, anti-Republican or at least anti-Vandenberg. I use the phrase "reasonable confidence" advisedly because is very difficult to pin Mr. Close down in any one statement. His sentences start out bravely toward the Polish elections and may wind up with an oblique reference to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt's automobile accident. Here is a typical example of his "straight thinking":
"Our Communist allies have as usual clipped us with surprise offensives. We're all wrapped up by their push on Norway to fortify Spitzbergen and the election in Poland which, if we leave it alone, makes us look either like mice or admitting that eastern Europe was outside our province to begin with. Either alternative would leave the Roosevelt war effort still further without meaning and internationalism a yet more discredited illusion." For a sheer jumble of disconnected incidents, the only comparable statement I ever heard emanated from a terribly confused woman at Schraffts, who was attempting to explain the Supreme Court's gold decision.
Close, however, is not confused; he is just cautious. Sensible persons, he says, "can see no possible further use for all those in the Latin-American and Far Eastern Divisions (of the State Depart-ment) who can't forget both the hates of the last war which are no longer useful and the false loves of the last war which make us ridiculous." What are the "false loves of the last war which make us ridiculous?" Britain and Russia, apparently, but it's hard to tell. What are the false hates—Peron and Franco, or the Nazis and Fascists?
"Under a Republican Congress and with no great persuasive voice to sell them on world government, the American people are going to have sober second thoughts about the United Nations, particularly about setting up world government authority over our economy, including tariffs and prices and how much stuff we can make and grow." You will note that Close doesn't say that the "world government," which the United Nations certainly isn't, has any intention of controlling American tariffs, prices and "the stuff we can make and grow." He just says we'll have sober second thoughts about it. Who had the first thoughts, Mr. Close? No one has ever hinted at the extension of United Nations authority to include control of prices, which even the Administration has abandoned; production, which has never been attempted in this country except in war time, and farm products. Such irresponsibility isn't funny and goes dangerously beyond the ordinary concepts of free speech.
• • •
Close is adept at this sort of shadowy mud-slinging. A masterpiece of Close "straight thinking" is this paragraph in which the commentator was discussing General George C. Marshall's fitness to be Secretary of State: "Those who doubt General Marshall base their feelings largely upon his equivocal testimony before the Pearl Harbor Investigating Committee but at that time Marshall was still a soldier, who never brings dishonor upon a superior officer." The implication is that Marshall didn't tell all he knew about President Roosevelt's pre-war diplomacy but Close can't quite bring himself to make bold statements. While the air should be free to all opinion, the broadcasters certainly ought to set up some sort of journalistic standards. Close's talks are unfair, wildly implausible and at their worst are plain gobbledygook. They don't meet any editorial standards at all. No matter what his convictions, any good editor would ask Close to clarify these curious sentences, to substantiate the vague implications, and to explain why his incredible conclusions differ so widely from those of his fellow reporters.
Mr. Close is sponsored by an organization called the National Economic Council, which has dedidicated itself, it says, to "upholding the American way of life."

Close’s career at Mutual didn’t last much longer. He had been fighting with his sponsor, which decided not to renew its contact with him. Close announced on the air Feb. 11 his broadcast would be the final one for Mutual. He was being heard on 67 affiliates.

He had other problems that year. In September, his wife sued for divorce, claiming her 54-year-old husband was openly fooling around with his secretary, who was 30 years younger than him. He was living in Mexico in November 1960 when he died in a car-train crash.

The week’s columns are below. Some are dated.

Monday, February 3: The movie The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) was inspired by a radio show written by Fulton Oursler, who also got a credit on the film. Of course, the radio show was inspired by something that was a little older. Crosby gives the radio version a passing grade.
Tuesday, February 4: Odds and ends, including a rare story about television. Crosby leads off with his take on something got lots of notice—Lee DeForest’s public complaint about commercial radio. My recollection is Crosby appeared in a short film after a clip of DeForest dictating this column.
Thursday, February 6 and Friday, February 7: a two-part piece on the F.C.C. and the new Republican congress.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are by Bob Moore of the Daily News in Los Angeles.

It Ain't Over Until...

There are vast numbers of Americans, it seems, who love sentiment mixed with patriotism. And there are people who are adept at dishing it out to engage in another love in the U.S.—making money.

Such describes Kate Smith.

Well, only partly. She had (at least, in my opinion) a lovely singing voice. Since few of us go back to the early 1930s, when she made a name for herself on network radio, most people who remember her connect her to hockey’s Philadelphia Flyers, for whom she sang “God Bless America” before each game at the Spectrum.

But back to radio.

Smith fronted a number of musical shows in the 1930s and into the war era, sponsored by General Foods. The company forced Jack Benny and her to switch products between Grape Nuts Flakes and Jell-O (one of the reasons Benny got miffed and dumped the company for American Tobacco). After the war, she had settled into a chatty weekday show where she served up buckets-full of warm fuzziness (and, occasionally, recipes), as her manager Ted Collins hitched along for the ride.

Radio satirist Henry Morgan took a jab at Smith’s “Hello, everybody” greeting to fans. Radio columnist John Crosby wasn’t quite as cynical, but he gave his assessment of Smith’s show in his syndicated column of January 29, 1947. Smith never married, let alone had children, which Crosby notes in her continued gushing about motherhood.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Big Ray of Sunshine
There was a time not so many years ago when Kate Smith was as important to the gag-writing profession as John L. Lewis is today. (“I once made a non-stop flight around Kate Smith.”) Today a joke about the golden-throated contralto with the impressive architecture would be almost profane.
Some idea of Miss Kate’s standing in the community can be gained from the titles of her two radio programs, “Kate Smith Speaks” (C. B. S., noon, Mondays through Fridays), and “Kate Smith Sings” (C. B. S., 6:30 p. m., Sundays). Like the phrase “Garbo Laughs,” the titles of these programs are the simplest possible statements of what goes into them and nothing else is required. You have to be a national institution before a simple subject and predicate explain your activities so completely as to be understandable to every one.
Miss Kate is now rated as radio’s top feminine entertainer, which is a misnomer. The gentle, folksy, harmless and overwhelmingly sentimental banalities which she voices in her soft, homespun voice on her daytime program are not so much entertainment as heart balm and solace to millions of housewives. She and Ted Collins, her manager—or Svengali, as he is referred to by the more cynical Broadway characters—simply chatter for fifteen minutes about any folksy news item that gives Miss Kate an opportunity to say at some point, though not in these words, that God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.
. . .
A news item from Columbus, Ohio, announcing that a survey revealed 51 per cent of American women prefer the kiddies and the dishes to careers will send her into paroxysms of sentimental delight, which sound a little odd, coming from a woman whose career is one of the wonders or broadcasting.
“No career on earth could give any woman the warm satisfaction of watching her little child at play. Nothing gave me more pleasure than this survey in Ohio. The American home is safe” she will cry. Any one who can say “The American home is safe” without making a parody of all home life is unquestionably a genius of some sort.
The sanctity of the home, mother and America are Miss Kate’s constant themes. Any criticism of America, no matter how slight, will bring down her wrath and also that of Mr. Collins. Recently, for instance, a French expert had the temerity to suggest that American women used too many rich fats in their cooking, fried too many meats, overcooked their vegetables.
“I hope he survives his visit,” said Mr. Collins with withering sarcasm.” “It would be awful if he starved to death over here.”
“I feel sorry for this visitor,” said Miss Kate. “I wonder if he’s ever tasted a hot apple pie made with cinnamon or Maryland fried chicken or sugar cured hams or apple pan dowdy.”
. . .
Food, housekeeping, children and clothes are probably closest to the American housewives’ hearts and Mr. Collins, who does the thinking on this program, sees to it that they make up the bulk of the chit-chat. However, Miss Kate, an excellent cook and a hearty eater, can summon up more enthusiasm for food than anything else, which is just as well since she’s sponsored by General Foods.
The news that English war brides in Chicago were taking cooking courses to learn how to bake doughnuts brightened her whole day. She gave the project unqualified blessing, which is as close to knighthood as you can come in this country. “Cooking,” she will say, as if she’d just thought it up herself, “is the way to a man’s heart.”
When she isn’t exulting over new recipes, Miss Kate likes to tell cheerful little stories about the lame, the halt, the blind and the orphaned. Speaking of an orphanage run by the Loyal Order of Moose, she said: “It’s pleasant with all our unhappy headlines to contemplate this school built on love.” Right there is not only the root of her philosophy but the secret of her success. Her fans have had enough of the unpleasant headlines: they want a little sunshine and Miss Kate is bursting with sunshine. They will even forgive her for saying “sumpin’” for something and for her frequent redundancies (“and et cetera”) because her heart is pure.
. . .
Even her evening program is pervaded with optimism. When “Kate Smith Sings” her sentimental contralto sounds best in ballads, particularly the ones that shout to the world that it’s great to be alive, especially in America.



The rest of the Crosby columns for the week:

Monday, January 27: A comparison between shows aimed at rural listeners to CBS and NBC.
Tuesday, January 28: One of Canada’s radio exports to the U.S., besides Alan Young and Gisele MacKenzie, was an obscure programme of music and stories called Once Upon a Tune (above, top). Crosby’s description makes it sound like a children’s show, but he doesn’t call it that. DuMont briefly broadcast a television version in 1951 with different writers.
Thursday, January 30: Odds and sods, partly dealing with a doctor’s conclusion about high blood pressure and radio (above, bottom). Apparently, Gabriel Heatter was bad for your health. Ah, there’s no good news tonight!
Friday, January 31: One of daytime radio’s evergreens that wasn’t a soap opera was Galen Drake (right), whose gimmick was a club called “The Housewives Protective League.” Drake began in the late ‘30s and carried on until the dying days of network radio in the early ‘60s, with his show finishing its run on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are from the Daily News in Los Angeles.

Miscast Cronkite

Careers on television take detours, even for someone as venerable as Walter Cronkite.

Uncle Walter wasn’t quite as venerable in 1954 as he was when he took over the CBS Evening News eight years later, and is today considered to be a yardstick of integrity in news broadcasting. But he was in the top echelon, having anchored the 1952 political conventions and election night coverage on television.

At the start of the year, he was narrating the historical re-creation show You Are There when the network brain trust decided he was the perfect person to put up against America’s number-one chimp, J. Fred Muggs.

Thus was born The Morning Show.

CBS’ answer to Dave Garroway’s Today show went on the air March 15, 1954 (it was not broadcast on the West Coast). A syndication service talked to Cronkite about his expectations for it.

CBS Brass Has High Hopes For New ‘Morning Show’
By TV KEY
Snooping around at rehearsal for CBS’ upcoming “Morning Show”—which bows in tomorrow at 7:00 am—in search of anchor man Walter Cronkite, we couldn’t help noticing the small platoon of brass-encrusted network bigwig who had come to take a look. We sidled over to CBS head Hubbell Robinson to get his reactions they were favorable. We tried the same tactics with News and Special Events’ Chief Sig Mickelson. He was ecstatic. Then we talked to newsman Charles Collingwood, who will be handling the reporting on the show. “People want to know what’s happening in the world when they get up in the morning,” he said, “And we’ll tell them. How can that miss?”
When we finally pried Walter Cronkite away from the run-through he radiated the same general enthusiasm. “This will be basically a news show,” he told us. “We’ll have features, too, but we’ll try to give all of them a news peg. We’ll do interviews with as many interesting people as we can get—authors, actors, prominent figures. We have the Bairds (Bill, Cora, and puppet retinue) for a lighter angle. No, we don’t have anything specifically designated as women’s features—for that matter there’s nothing specifically for men, either. If we have film or interviews about, say, sports or fashions, all well and good, as long as they tie in with the news. That way they will interest everybody.
“Of course,” said Mr. Cronkite slowly, “there will inevitably be people who say we’re imitating ‘Today.’ We are—but in the most complimentary way possible. We did independent studies for a year to find the best formula for a morning show and we came up with this format. (During the last few months a virtually unprecedented six kinescopes of the “Morning Show” were made employing different people, and the best elements of each were retained for the present format.) It’s inevitable for a show like this.
Of course, the day may come when people will sit down and stare at TV for long periods in the morning, but until then, this is pretty much the way it will have to be. Our main attraction, we feel, is content, And personality. And the warmth and friendliness of a smallish group that knows and likes and respects each other.”
Mr. Cronkite lit a cigarette and looked around at the jumble of cameras and sets and stagehands and machines that was gradually shaping up into a television show.
“Being an anchor man involves more than people think,” he said. “It’s not like being an old vaudeville m.c. with no time problems and everything worked out so you just have to announce it. Here there’ll be practically no rehearsal, practically no forewarning. I’ve got to be able to come in at 4:30 a.m., pick up the items for that day, and take off from there, working out the sequence, padding between items to make the time come out right, moving from area to area without losing the cameras. Most of that work is done behind the scenes; if it’s done well nobody notices it, but if it isn’t, the whole show falls apart. You’ve got to be able to think on your feet—and at 4:30 in the morning.
Mr. Cronkite grinned. “I thought I was through with those kind of hour. 10 year ago when I gave up the early shift at UP, but here I am again, jumping into the shower before dawn—and waking up all the neighbors. You get used to it, though. In a few weeks maybe I could even be singing in the shower. If I could sing. . .”

If you’re wondering how Cronkite’s show went, we can do no better than reproduce Herald Tribune syndicate John Crosby’s column of March 18.

Radio in Review
By JOHN CROSBY
SINCERE FLATTERY
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then CBS-TV’s new program, “The Morning Show” (7 to 9 a. m. Mondays through Fridays) is the nicest compliment that has ever been paid to its two-year-old opposite number on NBC called “Today.”
The chief difference between “Today” and “The Morning Show” is that Walter Cronkite has a moustache and Dave Garroway hasn’t, and Garroway wears glasses and Cronkite doesn’t. Of course, it’s just possible this is the only kind of show that is possible so early in the morning and that imitation is inevitable. But it does seem to me they went a little far, that there might have been some points of departure that might have been explored.
* * *
As it is, the morning audience now has to choose between Garroway who is urbane, relaxed, witty and intelligent and Cronkite who is urbane, relaxed, witty and intelligent. (If there are any bopsters around, Garroway is slightly the cooler of the two but they’re both pretty cool, man.)
* * *

Like “Today,” “The Morning Show” goes in heavily for news and though CBS is renowned for its news coverage and its commentators, it has not managed to grapple with news any more successfully than the NBC program. On both shows you get headlines endlessly repeated.
There is not even an attempt to dig under the headlines with comment and interpretation which news so desperately needs today. I realize the boys are dealing with what they consider successive platoons of husbands dashing off to work who are supposedly only half listening. Still, it would be nice if CBS every morning supplied one very serious and thorough breakdown of the most important news story of the day from one of its stable of topflight correspondents scattered all over the world. Maybe they will.
For features, Cronkite first interviewed a toy-maker named John Peter who informed us that cardboard was the biggest news in toys this year. He displayed some huge cardboard toys which were apparently as indestructible as if made from cement.
“Did you know that America spent $450,000,000 on toys last year,” asked Mr. Peter.
“I believe it,” said Cronkite. “I spent most of that myself.”
* * *
There ensued five minutes of news from the local communities which happens to be an exact replica of the way they do things on “Today.” Then Cronkite showed us a live shot of commuters scurrying to work at Grand Central. It just so happens that Garroway on “Today’s” opening show also showed us shots of commuters wandering around Grand Central. These boys just can’t seem to get out of Grand Central. If ABC decides to have a morning show I respectfully suggest they take us to Penn Station just for a novelty.
Where “Today” has a chimpanzee, J. Fred Muggs, “The Morning Show” has Charlemagne, the lion, a puppet operated by Bil and Cora Baird who sounds a little like Finnegan in “Duffy’s Tavern.” Charlemagne plays records and trades badinage with Cronkite. While the records are playing, the Bairds’ inexhaustible supply of puppets make like they’re singing or dancing or playing instruments. This bit is done with great charm and ingenuity and grace. It’s a lot of fun to watch.
“The Morning Show” is not quite as gadget-happy as “Today” but they do have an electronic weather map, product of nearly a year’s research by the network’s new effects department, which is supposed to show rain where it rains, snow where it snows, and so forth. To me it just looked like a lot of lights flashing on and off but if the new effects department is happy with it, I am too. Frankly, though, I think Garroway’s little informal chat with the weatherman in Washington is more entertaining than all those lights.
* * *
Other features included a very nice interview with Stephen A. Mitchell, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and with Ivy Baker Priest, Treasurer of the United States. Best of all was a telegram from another network to the effect: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.’’ It was signed Dave Garroway, Jack Lescoulie and Frank Blair who have been in this exhausting business a couple years now.

Cronkite became unhappy rather quickly. Whether chatting about the stories of the day with a puppet was a factor wasn’t revealed, but the New York Times reported on July 20 that Cronkite “has notified the network that he does not want to continue in the role if the show stresses amusement and entertainment features” and that Cronkite “prefers to be known as a newsman and commentator and not a clown.” This was despite the fact he became the host of a Goodson-Todman quiz show called It’s News To Me that month.

The following day, the Times revealed Cronkite was out as of August 16, Jack Paar was in, and the show was being moved from the news division to the programme department. Paar told a story for years and years—one that first appeared in Earl Wilson’s column of September 9, 1954—that his mother wrote CBS saying she hated to see Cronkite leave.

Paar was gone soon, too, but both he and Cronkite went on to bigger things. Television was better for it.

Here's Our Next Contestant

Game shows appeal to people for various reasons. One is viewers like to see ordinary people get something for nothing. It’s something they can identify with.

Another is the viewers like to see if they can guess the answer to a question by the host (this applies to the more intelligent of the shows).

Still another is, if TV or movie stars are involved, they enjoy seeing and laughing with the celebrities.

And another is, sometimes, there’s a quirky contestant that the viewers can’t help but like. Some are a little clueless. Others say things that come out of nowhere.

All this goes back before television, into the Golden Days of Radio. That’s where today’s story takes place.

Herald Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby was bemused by one particular episode of a Monday through Saturday daytime game show called Give and Take. These kinds of programmes give and the contestant takes, if they’re not too much of a dullard. One contestant seems to have got things backward, among other unexpected oddities and non sequiturs that the poor emcee, who had radio and TV experience in 1947, had to roll with.

This column appeared on January 23, 1947.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Mrs. Caniff Goes to Town
To the student of human nature, audience participation shows generally reveal only that a great many citizens are hopelessly greedy and totally misinformed. However, on rare occasions, the master of ceremonies will unearth a gold mine of personality and character. I'm speaking specifically of Mrs. Caniff, who appeared recently on a program called "Give And Take" (CBS network 2 p. m. Saturdays and 10 a. m. Mon.-Friday outside of New York.)
Before we get into Mrs. Caniff's unique personality, it might be well to describe "Give And Take." It’s a quiz program presided over by a good-natured gentleman named John Reed King, an ornate handle that would look better on a supreme court justice than on a master of ceremonies. As I understand it. Mr. King invites members of the audience to come up and help themselves to tablesful of loot. The only requirement is that they answer a few questions, most of which would insult the intelligence of your ten-year-old son. Was Washington’s birthplace in Massachusetts or Virginia?)
* * *
You can’t miss on this program. Mr. King, for instance, asked one contestant whether the title page of a book was on the left or right hand side of the book. The man guessed the left side. After informing him that this was the wrong answer, Mr. King asked the second contestant whether the title page of a hook was on the left or right hand side of the book. The second guy got it right. Process of elimination, you see.
Well, that’s just background. The real heroism of this story is Mrs. Caniff, whose accent suggests she lives in New York City. Mr. King asked her a question which comes up on all these giveaway programs. “Where are you from?” inquired Mr. King.
“De Far East,” said Mrs. Caniff happily.
“The Far East!” exclaimed Mr. King.
“Foist Avenoo,” explained Mrs. Caniff.
Right there, Mr. King appeared to take stock. You run into a lot of problems as emcee of an audience participation show and the worst problem of all is a participant who has more personality than you have. Mrs. Caniff was one of those problems. “Now, Mrs. Caniff, just look over those tables and tell me what you’d like to have. How about that toaster over there — chromium plated, automatic.” . . .
“I got three toasters at home,” said Mrs. Caniff benignly. “I give you one.”
Mr. King explained hopelessly that he gave away on this program; he didn’t get them. "Let’s look over some of the other things. Forget the toaster. There’s a wonderful assortrnent of.” . . .
“I’m expecting a baby,” said Mrs. Caniff.
“You’re . . . uh . . . when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
“Not tomorrow,” said Mrs. Caniff briskly. “I have company coming in tomorrow.”
“Look, Mrs. Caniff, time is running short. We have come to the point in this program when” . . .
“Don’t you ask me questions?” inquired Mrs. Caniff anxiously.
“I’m trying to . . .”
“I like the bedspread.”
“Good!” shouted Mr. King. “The bedspread! Now listen carefully, Mrs. Caniff. Tell me” . . .
“And the layette. Right there—the layette.”
“You said the bedspread. No, you can’t have them both. Now listen carefully, Mrs. Caniff. Tell me what is wrong with this sentence. ‘A horse divided against itself cannot stand.’ What is wrong with that sentence?”
* * *
Silence fell on the program, as Mrs. Caniff wrestled with the problem. ‘A horse divided against itself cannot stand,” repeated Mr. King. “What is wrong with that sentence?”
“I need my glasses,” said Mrs. Caniff.
“She needs her glasses,” muttered Mr. King. “Now why on earth . . . . Well, she’s GETTING her glasses.” Again silence enveloped the program while Mrs. Caniff got her glasses and put them on. “A horse divided against” . . .
started Mr. King.
“House,” said Mrs. Caniff promptly. “House is de woid. Not horse.”
“That’s correct,” shouted Mr. King. “And here is the bedspread. No, we haven’t got a coffee-maker, Mrs. Caniff” . . .

The rest of the Crosby columns for the week:

Monday, January 20: A special series of programmes by Norman Corwin about world unity. Evidently Crosby was impressed with Corwin, as this was the second column in two weeks which mentioned the series.
Tuesday, January 21: The early days of radio advertising. Crosby plugs a book.
Wednesday, January 22: The Count of Monte Cristo is on Mutual. Crosby mentions television for a second time, though he focuses on baseball, which isn't played in January. New York had three stations at the time (plus one experimental outlet no one counted), Los Angeles had a pair, Chicago was getting by with one, as were Schenectady, Washington and Philadelphia.
Friday, January 24: Another dramatization of the news, this one on Mutual.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are from the Daily News in Los Angeles.

Tarnish in the Golden Age

For every successful radio sitcom like Burns and Allen or Blondie or Our Miss Brooks, there’s an equally unsuccessful one, perhaps no one but extreme radio die-hards have heard of.

That’s Finnegan would qualify.

The series has the distinction of a name change, a cast change and a network change. About the only thing that stayed the same was the sponsor.

Household Finance announced, through agency Shaw-Lavally in Chicago, it was paying the bills for Phone Again Finnegan, which debuted on NBC on Saturday afternoons from 5 to 5:30 Eastern time starting March 30, 1946, replacing the equally-memorable Square With the World. Only 57 stations cleared time for it.

The Hollywood Reporter said the debut episode “bears too great a similarity to many other shows, living and dead.”

On June 27, Household Finance moved the show to CBS because NBC said it wasn’t good enough to put in a nighttime slow. Columbia gave it Thursdays at 10:30 Eastern. It appears the star agreed. The Hollywood Reporter announced Stu Erwin felt “the role he portrays is not suited to his talents” and he quit Sept. 19.

Herald Tribune syndicate critic John Crosby finally got around to reviewing the show, and his eye-rolling was published on January 15, 1947.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Somewhere in "That's Finnegan," which, if you're not careful around 10:30 p. m. Thursdays, you're likely to hear on CBS, a Swedish Janitor name Larsen is almost certain to say "Yumpin Yiminy," a mild form of Swedish profanity. Besides substituting Y's for J's, Larsen also garbles metaphors and words in general.
"Did you ever pull a tendon?" he was asked.
"No, but I pulled a boner once."
Larsen is the Janitor of the Welcome Arms apartment, which is operated by Frank McHugh, or Finnegan as he is known on this program. The part was once played by Stuart Erwin, who, I think, was wise in getting into another line of work. Erwin and McHugh, no doubt everyone knows; are movie actors of almost identical personality — that is, addlepated, good-natured, butter-fingered and easily frightened by mice.
“Bills! Bills! Bills!” said Finnegan on this program. "I don't know where they all come from. When I go into a store, the salesmen are all billing and cooing. Now they're just billing me." (Don't blame me for these jokes. I’m just quoting them.) According to my notes, Finnegan said once; "I took her to a taffy pull and got stuck with her," a gag I wouldn't pull at a church social.
Originally titled "Phone Again, Finnegan," this inane little comedy series has been on the air for some time and was once on NBC at 5 p.m. Saturdays. Anyhow, Finnegan’s current problems don’t have much to do with the Welcome Arms apartment house but with his 14-year-old nephew Jiggs. Jiggs' conversation is dominated fairly heavily by exclamations such as "Gee," "Golly" and sometimes, when he's heated up to an extraordinary degree, "Gosh," and he has a girl named Helen.
"Gee, uncle, did you ever have a girl look at you and you got butterflies in your stomach?" he asks, referring to Helen.
“Not for quite awhile."
“Who was she?"
“Clara Bow."
"Gee, uncle, I've known this girl for a week now and I haven't even had a date yet — and I’m not getting any younger."
Helen is a breathless young thing who behaves like Judy Foster though in a more restrained way. The only scrap of her dialogue I seem to have on record is: "Gee, imagine making such a remark about a poor defenseless baby." I can't think what would provoke this statement, but it's fairly typical of Helen's conversation.
There isn't much else to be said about “That’s Finnegan." On the test program I heard, Jiggs tried to touch Uncle Finnie for five bucks and got a fine lecture about how well people could get along without money. One minute later, the Household Finance Company, a small loan outfit which sponsors the program, jumped in with a rather convincing argument about how difficult it was to get along without money. It's none of my business but it seems to me they're defeating one another's purposes on this program.
At any rate, Jiggs was reduced to earning his own five fish, which he did by tending Clancy’s baby for him. Clancy is a cop, naturally. (All people named Clancy are cops and conversely all cops are named Clancy. This is known as Crosby’s Law). Well, to get on with this, there's some pretty confusion about where Jiggs' money is coming from and when Finnegan finds Clancy is after him, he assumes the worst. "They won't railroad my boy Jiggs to jail,” he shouts.
“They don’t railroad them any more,” says the faithful Larsen. "It’s cheaper to send them by bus.
It all came out happily.

By the time this review was in print, the show had already been cancelled. Broadcasting magazine of January 6 said Household Finance was replacing it on March 27 with a show far better remembered by radio fans—The Whistler (Signal Oil continued to sponsor The Whistler on the CBS Pacific Coast network on Monday nights).

As for Crosby’s other columns for the week:

Monday, January 13: The former Edward VIII spoke on American radio for the first time since abdicating the British throne in 1936. This speech was only picked up on ABC, and the network admitted he may not have attracted a large audience. He attracted a very unflattering drawing by Alan Ferber next to Crosby’s column in the Los Angeles Daily News.
Tuesday, January 14: Better late than never, I suppose, but Crosby relayed predictions for radio for the coming year from a number of sources, including a note about television. There were still fewer than a dozen stations in the U.S. at the time and limited networks in the east. He also promoted a new Norman Corwin series.
Thursday, January 16: WMCA, a local station in New York, imitated Orson Welles’ most famous radio broadcast except, in this case, atom bombs attacked New York City. Crosby’s drily dismissed the drama.
Friday, January 17: ABC mounted a new version of stories based on Sherlock Holmes, pointing out there wasn’t much new about Conan Doyle’s character, though he thought the English-isms in the script were jolly good fun.

You can click on the columns to read them better.

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.

Don’t Tune in Tomorrow

As the calendars changed during the 1950s, one by one, the big-time radio network programmes disappeared as the audience—and advertisers—moved to television. By 1960, about all the networks were supplying was news and information, not entertainment.

CBS valiantly hung on. Its afternoon schedule had become the final home of that most ridiculed of formats—the soap opera. That changed on November 25, 1960. After 7,065 episodes Ma Perkins closed her lumber yard and put away the Oxydol. Young Dr. Malone gave up his practice. The Second Mrs. Burton no longer had to cope with the first Mrs. Burton. Listeners lost The Right to Happiness. They were the final four soaps on network radio. In addition, The Couple Next Door moved off the daytime schedule to oblivion, Whispering Streets became silent and Best Seller rung up a “No Sale” sign.

Ah, but there was a time the soaps had seen a Brighter Day. Through the 1930s and 1940s, they filled radio airtime. In 1940, CBS aired 25 of them while NBC broadcast 20. At their end, newspaper syndicated editorial researcher Richard Spong called them “steeped in misery, saccharine, and virtually inert.” Their dialogue, acting and plots were tailor-made for spoofing by Fred Allen, Henry Morgan and other comedians/satirists (on one of Allen’s shows, all the characters died but, regardless, listeners were told everything would somehow turn out all right, and to be with them again tomorrow, same time, same station).

New York Herald Tribune critic John Crosby was known for his caustic observations, but soap operas would have been too easy a target for him. Instead, he related what is really a sad story about a listener caught up in the world of one programme. This was his column in the Herald Tribune for Monday, December 30, 1946.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Soap Opera Fan From Brooklyn
The dim twilight of soap opera is not everyone's world. It is a special world, it would appear, built purposely for those persons whose credulity has no apparent limits. To the skeptical listener with a ready fund of humor the agonies of soap opera offer neither escape nor amusement. For that sort of listener, of whom there are a great many, a far more rewarding study than soap opera is that of the people who listen to the darn things, or, as someone put it so well, the proper study of man is man.
Soap opera is not so much a taste as an addiction. Even broadcasters will admit that the soap opera fan listens not to just one but to several, sometimes five or six in a day, deriving from the later ones even more comfort than from the early ones as they sink further and further into the nebulous world of fancy and farther and farther from the prosaic world of the dishes. Just how virulent this soap opera drug can become was well illustrated by a recent occurrence in New Jersey.
* * *
A Mrs. Davis of Hillsborough Township near Somerville, N. J. recently received a note on which was scrawled: "Steve killed Betty MacDonald. Irma has him on her farm. I hope you will come out of this with flying colors." Mrs. Davis turned the letter over police who traced it without difficulty to a woman in Brooklyn, from whom they wrung this remarkable confession.
The writer told police that listened every day to a soap opera called "When a Girl Marries." On this program recently a Betty MacDonald was killed and Harry Davis of "Somerville" was arrested. The Brooklyn letter writer went on to explain that Harry Davis was really innocent. The real murderer, she told the startled cops, was a man named Steve, Betty's lover, who was now hiding out on Irma's farm. (Irma loved him, too.) She had written the letter to Mrs. Davis to reassure her that everything would come out all right and to assure her that her faith in Mrs. Davis and Harry remained unshaken.
* * *
That's all there is to the story. The police presumably told the Brooklyn lady not to write any more letters and may even have advised her against taking soap opera so seriously. The reaction of the Brooklyn addict to a visitation from the cops remains unknown. Does she still listen to "When a Girl Marries?” What went through her mind when she discovered that Harry and Irma and Steve were people of fancy, not fact? Was she outraged this betrayal of her implicit trust and, if so, has she found anything to take its place? Or, to put it more plainly, are there any other anodynes so satisfying and undemanding as soap opera for credulous ladies from Brooklyn?
The spy psychiatrists will have to take it up from there. This column is out of its depth.

This post is one of a series transcribing one week’s worth of columns by Crosby, a suggestion made some time ago by radio/film researcher and scholar Kathy Fuller-Seeley. We’re going to deviate to give you a post-script. The same day CBS killed its radio soaps, its night-time schedule bade farewell to its last entertainment show: The Amos ‘n’ Andy Music Hall. The stars had gone through several different formats; perhaps the best-known was a weekly half-hour sitcom. The Music Hall was their last gasp, as the title characters were little more than disc jockeys with comic dialogue in between records.

When Monday, November 28, rolled around, CBS’s morning entertainment block of Arthur Godfrey, Art Linkletter (House Party), Garry Moore and the transcribed Bing Crosby/Rosemary Clooney show (where they, more or less, introduced themselves on record) was still standing. So were three network dramatic shows: Gunsmoke, Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. They eventually dropped away. Bill Conrad’s Marshall Dillon hung up his badge on CBS radio on June 18, 1961, while Johnny Dollar cashed out on September 30, 1962, immediately followed by the last time radio listeners could listen to a tale well calculated to keep you in Suspense.

As critics noted, it was cheaper for affiliates to hire a disc jockey to play records than to pay CBS for programming.

If you’re wondering how the soaps wrapped up their plots, Bud Sprunger of the Associated Press told newspaper readers the next day:

Dr. Malone, the hero of “Young Doctor Malone,” decided in the last chapter to return to his job as director of the clinic at Three Oaks. Dr. Malone polished things off by convincing Scotty’s mother that the young man’s love must be shared. The mother said she would attend the wedding of Scotty and Jill.
Ma Perkins...ended with Charley Lindstrom accepting a job in the East. As the family gathered at Ma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, the philosophical heroine saw happiness ahead. Anushka, an immigrant girl, and Ma’s grandson, Junior, at to be married next month.
Claudia Nelson...was the heroine in “The Right to Happiness,” which was the story of an attractive widow with a teen-age son named Skip...As things ended, Grace assured Skip he was the only boy in her life. Dick Braden was paroled from prison. Lee’s court case came to a satisfactory close and Lee and Carolyn faced the future with assurance.
“The Second Mrs. Burton” [involved] a social dowager who lives in Bickston, a Hudson River community near New York...the Second Mrs. Burton [was] the dowager’s daughter-in-law. The daughter-in-law, in the final chapter, stops the dowager from making a fool of herself over an artist and everybody concentrates on getting ready for a Christmas bazaar.



Now for Crosby’s other columns to finish out 1946 (and start 1947).

Tuesday, December 31: When the winner didn’t take all on Winner Take All.
Wednesday, January 1: Year-end honours.
Thursday, January 2: Detective dialogue.
Friday, January 3: Maisie, starring Ann Sothern.

The artwork above comes from the Los Angeles Daily News, which skipped the column of the 31st.