How To Warm Up a Night With Richard Nixon

We passed along a couple of stories on the weekend about Fred Allen warming-up his radio audiences.

In the television era, that task generally fell on people other than the stars. The general consensus at one time was the best in the business was Johnny Olson.

Likely your first thought when Johnny’s name comes to mind is the 1970s revamped version of The Price is Right and his excited call to contestants to “Come on down!” Those of us at the age of superannuation will fondly remember him before that on To Tell the Truth, The Match Game (the New York-based version) and “from the Fun and Sun Capital of the World, Miami Beach,” home of the mid-1960s version of The Jackie Gleason Show.

There were many, many more shows.

And there was one extremely unusual warm-up job—for a political rally.

Here’s the scoop from the Chicago Tribune of July 4, 1971.

Television’s Top Second Banana Reaps Rewards
By Carol Kramer
He jumps up and down, kisses the ladies on the aisle, makes funny, faces, and does so much to make an audience appreciative that even the most hardened cynic, including a television writer, feels impelled to applaud and applaud and applaud.
Who is this magician? Johnny Olson, television's top second banana, the man you've probably heard more often than any other television voice. This is his 25th year in television. He spent the first decade as a top banana, host of his own shows, the Johnny Olson Luncheon Club and Rumpus Room, the first daytime network television show from New York.
But then, he explains, the tide turned, and "since I had always done warmups I got the idea of being a second banana, announcing the shows and doing the stunts. I'm not seen, but the money's the same."
That money has often been as much as $100,000 a year. But he works hard for it.
I visited Johnny recently during the taping of two segments of Joe Garagiola's Memory Game. Johnny's regular assignments this season have included that show, which goes off the air soon. [He's already been approached about some other shows, as well as What's My Line? And To Tell the Truth. The latter is syndicated and not seen in Chicago just now.]
Johnny has been announcing What's My Line? for 18 years and To Tell the Truth for 12. The current top performers on those shows are Wally Bruner and Garry Moore. Johnny's first radio job in New York, when he arrived in 1944, was as a replacement for Moore on Everything Goes.
The boss that people associate Johnny with most in recent years is Jackie Gleason. Johnny warmed up the Great One's audiences for 11 years. For six of those years, he commuted to Florida every Friday night just so he could tell people that Jackie Gleason was about to step out of the wings.
Now that the Gleason assignment is over, Johnny Olson has not slowed down his pace. He does 18 shows a week.
And he doesn't confine his work to the studio. People standing in line at NBC are often surprised to find Johnny Olson shaking hands and asking them where they're from.
"I feel the pulse of the crowd and it gives me food for material. I find out if there are any special groups, and it helps to know that there are people from Chicago or Libertyville."
Over the years, he's announced I've Got a Secret, the Match Game, Play Your Hunch, the Peggy Fleming special at Madison Square Garden, and the Victor Borge special at Lincoln Center.
That warmup holds the record. The cameras kept breaking down, Borge didn't want to come out before air time, and Johnny did a 42 minute warmup.
What does he say? He never knows. The day I watched him, he found a group of kids from P. S. 227 and a little boy named George who broke everyone up because when Johnny offered George a buck to say "a big black bug" three times in a row, George refused his money.
Kids seem to take naturally to Johnny. Once, he had a show called Kids and Company on Saturdays. And when Leslie Uggams was nine years old she sang with Johnny on Rumpus Room.
Leslie has never forgotten, Johnny says, and he glows whenever he reads a quote from Leslie about how "Johnny Olson gave me my first break."
Some of the other kids who were on Johnny's early shows Include Connie Francis, Sal Mineo, Bobby Darin, Patti McCormick and George Segal.
Perhaps the most difficult warmup he's had to do, aside from those for shows that have been taped just after national tragedies, was a nontelevision assignment. Johnny was asked to warm up the crowd at a rally for Presidential candidate Nixon in 1968. It was at Madison Square Garden, the Friday night before the election, and a lot of hecklers were in the crowd. "Ron Ziegler and the others kept asking me how I would handle it. I didn't know. I never know until I get out there."
Johnny just went out and gave them that Scandinavian charm, asked the crowd to have some respect, and asked the nonhecklers to squelch any heckling as soon as it began. It worked so well that Nelson Rockefeller came over and said, "Where were you when I needed you?" [Remember Miami?]
The fact that Johnny worked at the Nixon rally doesn't indicate his political bent. He says he's nonpolitical, but he also is quick to tell you that audiences have changed in the last couple of years "and I hate to say it, but I think it started when the Republicans came in."
Whatever it is, audiences are more somber today. "They're not in that fun mood. Maybe they're more concerned with world problems. Sometimes I come out and they're sitting there in deep thought. They're not as happy as they used to be."
But being a second banana hasn't made Johnny more somber. "It was a little difficult at first. I've had to bite my tongue a lot of times. But as far as fulfillment, I get that from the audience, and I don't have any ulcers because I don't have to worry when a show is canceled."
Johnny has been married to the former Penny Towers of Stevens Point, for 32 years. During the week, they stay in their Manhattan apartment. On weekends, they head for their 16-room, four-story stone house in Greenwich, Conn. It's so big, Johnny hasn't been on the top floor in two months.
I guess that's proof enough that being a second banana at least has some monetary advantages!

Olson died in 1985. Bell-McClure Syndicate writer Richard K. Shull, long-time entertainment editor of the Indianapolis News, had a personal remembrance published Oct. 30, 1985. He reveals Olson played a little subterfuge on audience members that was similar to one on a Bob and Ray radio show, except Olson’s is funnier because it’s real.

Johnny Olson, master of warm up
When Johnny Olson died at age 75 a couple of weeks ago, the only photo Associated Press could find to send out to newspapers was 33 years old.
The picture was taken back in the days when Olson still was considered "talent" on TV, a fellow who could move easily from game shows to talk shows as a host.
That was before he reached his real forte as television's premier warm-up man, a guy with a special talent, who could take 200 or so human beings and train them in about 20 minutes to laugh and applaud on cue.
In recent years, he was best known for his work on "The Price Is Right." "Come on down," he would shout to prospective contestants.
But I admired him most for his glib ability to make any stranger feel like a long lost friend. He had the knack for what palm readers and fortune tellers call a "cold reading," to get people to tell all while thinking they are revealing nothing.
He never acted superior about it. Olson genuinely loved people. And the cons he pulled on them were to make them feel good, not to take advantage of them.
One rainy morning, I met Olson at the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in New York where he was scheduled to warm up audiences for three game shows. In those days, he did the warm-up for 14 different shows, a behind-the-scenes chore that brought him about $250,000 as year.
It was mid-morning, but Olson decided it was time to have a little eye-opener, so we dashed up the aisle of the empty theater intent on going to a bar next door.
He never forgot
In the lobby, a horde of tourists waited to be seated. We pushed through the crowd, and a gray-haired lady looked at Olson with anticipation.
"Good to see you again," Olson told her.
"I was here 10 years ago," she replied.
"Why, of course." Olson gushed, "You're Mrs. . . .”
"Appleton."
"Of course, Mrs. Appleton. I never forget a name. And you've come all the way from. . .”
"Davenport. Iowa."
"That's right. Davenport. Once I see a face. I always remember the name and where you're from. I'm glad you came back to see me, Mrs. Appleton."
Olson repeated the routine three more times before we got through the lobby. And each time, the women turned and beamed to their friends, a bit awed by Olson's photographic memory.
In the bar next door, Olson stowed away a boilermaker while I attempted to gag down a few sips of draft beer. It's 10:30 in the morning, remember.
Warming up an audience was an exacting science, Olson explained as he fondled the second jigger of bourbon before him. A lot of amateurs are in the warm-up business, he complained, inepts who will clumsily make an audience crest 10 or 15 seconds early, losing the moment.
He prided himself in working his audiences to peak pitch at the precise microsecond the cameras roll and the emcee steps out.
Sometimes, he said, if he had an audience finely tuned, he'd reuse it, cajoling the people to stick around and sit through another show, and maybe another, having them move around in their seats so the home viewers couldn't detect the deception.
One time, he laughed, he not only used the same audience on three shows taped for CBS, but trooped it down the street to NBC and used it on three more shows.
When he had an audience ready, it was ready for anything.
When we returned to the theater, the fortified Olson moved back through the lobby crowd, making a few more tourists feel like he'd had their names and hometowns on his lips all along.
Having a laugh-in
When the audience was seated, Olson began working with the people—gentle humor, a few jokes, maybe patter, all calculated to put the guests at ease and ready to respond to his commands.
He taped their loudest guffaws. Later, when the show was rolling and they laughed, he'd dub this pretaped laughter in on top of their live laughter, compounding the sound.
And if anyone asked if that was really the reaction of that audience, he could swear on a stack of Bibles that it was.
"Watch me, don't watch them," Olson told his audience. When he applauded, they applauded. When he laughed, they laughed.
When the game show started, Olson was in position on the wing of the stage, just out of cameras range, and all eyes in the audience were on him, not the performers. At the end of the half-hour, the emcee could congratulate himself on how well the audience had loved the show. But I knew, and now you know, it wasn't the show, it was Johnny Olson who earned their reactions.
The obituary from California said that Olson died on Oct. 12, which was technically accurate. Actually, he had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on Oct. 7 while driving to the studio for yet another taping of another game show. When there was no hope of recovery, his wife invoked a pact they had made against heroic medical measures and ordered the plug pulled on the life support systems on Oct. 12.
And all these years, you thought the audiences were laughing at the shows.

Warming up could be dangerous. A December 1961 newspaper story revealed Olson was running toward the stage as usual to begin his warm-up. It was a rainy day in New York. A woman in the audience left her umbrella in the aisle. Olson tripped on it and broke his ankle.

Perhaps even more unusual for Olson than warming-up an audience for Richard Nixon was his casting in a Broadway musical. He played himself in “The Selling of the President,” which opened March 22, 1972. Olson’s role on stage was, not surprisingly, as an audience warm-up man. He even understudied. No, he didn’t get to sing (though he did in his first radio job in 1928), and was quickly back in Los Angeles. Audiences didn’t “come on down” and the show closed after only five performances.

Johnny O wasn’t known for being on-camera, though he was eventually put into showcase sketches on The Price is Right.. But he was actually one of the first game-show hosts who appeared on the small screen. His Blue Network radio show Ladies Be Seated jumped to television in February 1945 for a short test run. He was among the hosts who stopped on the DuMont television network before 1950.

After his death, producer Mark Goodson said Olson “can never be replaced.” Of course, he was. The show had to go on. Goodson-Todman director Mark Breslow said it best when he declared “There isn’t a single person at CBS...who didn’t love Johnny Olson.” That went for millions of TV viewers, too.

Fibber, Johnny O and the Best of Intentions

Intentions don’t always turn out to be practical or viable, as one discovers when they blog.

One of the things I wanted to do on Tralfaz was post some of the early columns by John Crosby, radio critic of the New York Herald Tribune (and its syndication service), considered by many to be the tops in his field at the time. There’s are a couple of problems, one which Variety mentioned in a column in 1946—readers may never had heard the shows Crosby talked about.

In looking over his five columns for the week of May 20, 1946, only one deals with a show that’s familiar to fans of old time radio, Fibber McGee and Molly. Another involves a long-running audience participation programme that’s obscure today called Ladies Be Seated. The other three are completely meaningless today: one critiques a WOR programme called A Voice in the Night, another talks about summer replacement music shows on some New York stations, the other counters radio misconceptions by the head of the Republican National Committee.

So long, intentions. I’m only going to transcribe the first two.

Fibber McGee and Molly had a spot on the radio dial starting in 1935 and ending after NBC unceremonious dumped it in 1959. By then, it had been stripped of virtually all its elements and was merely Fibber and Molly kibitzing in an empty studio for a couple of minutes on Monitor. No music. No Harlox Wilcox shoehorning in commercial mentions, no stooges to interact with.

Crosby wrote on May 20, 1946 about what made the show a success though, I would again add, the interaction with likeable secondary characters played a huge role.

Radio in Review
By JOHN CROSBY
Don Quinn Vs. Sinclair Lewis
The most popular program on the air today, according to both the Hooper and Co-operative Analysis of Broadcasting, is Fibber McGee and Molly, which, as practically every one must know by now, may be heard every Tuesday at 9:30 p. m. over WEAF and the National Broadcasting Company. There are several dozen other shows which imitate the Fibber and Molly formula as closely as possible, but none shares this show’s immense popularity.
Fibber and his cynical wife Molly are upper middle-class types that may be found in any small city. They know every one in town from the barber to the Mayor well enough to call them by their first names. Fibber has a finger in every one else’s affairs, meddles in politics, and become extraordinarily petulant when he fails to make the Elks barbershop quartet.

There is nothing startlingly different about this type of comedy. But, it appears to me, Don Quinn, who has written the show for the eleven years it has been on the air, knows his small cities more intimately that any other radio writer. Born and brought up in Grand Rapids, Mich., the son of the city manager, Quinn has first-hand knowledge of the make-up of a small American city and uses that knowledge wisely. Jim and Marian Jordan, who play Fibber and Molly, know their small cities, too. They are the most celebrated natives of Peoria, Ill.
Simplicity Plus Shrewdness
The average man in a small Mid-West community is a more complex personality than he first appears. His simplicity is always qualified by a deep shrewdness. His frequent bumptiousness is counter-balanced by a rich vein of humor. And, after all, his preoccupation with making the barbershop quartet is not less real and no more preposterous than that of many city slickers with making Winchell’s column.
By merely skimming the surface, I think most other radio writers on this theme miss the boat. Life in a small American city is not a collection of homespun jokes; it is, in fact, an intricate web of old feuds, lifelong friendships, local custom, and highly complicated family relationships. My own home town, Oconomowoc, Wisc., is a community of only five thousand persons, but it is as full of explosive cross-currents and power politics as was Versailles at the time of Louis XIV.
Mr. Quinn appears to realize this better than does any of his contemporaries. He is not, of course, writing a serious treatise on small city life but he is shrewd enough to make comedy of the genuine elements of that life rather than the city slicker’s comic strip conception of it. His Fibber is vain, loquacious, and frequently fatuous, but he is also shrewd, good-natured and very human.
Dialogue is Genuine
Let’s drop in for a moment at 79 Wistful Vista. Fibber is discussing the downfall of a local politician who was unseated by a man who waved a newspaper at his horse. “Ah, the power of the press,” says Molly. Fibber discusses the issues that marked a recent political rally. “Councilman Zimbelprang,” said Fibber, “spoke very highly of the American flag.”
There are not terribly funny gags, but they’re certainly genuine. They have an air of innocence and good nature about them that you might find in the conversation of any intelligent couple alive to the ludicrous elements of small-city politics.
Later the couple visit city hall and Molly inquires: “Who are all these people hanging around the corridor?”
“My dear,” says Fibber, “that is one of the great mysteries of all the city halls in the country. There is a theory that these people are just left over from the crowd of excavation watchers.” As the son of a city manager, Quinn knows his city halls.
Quinn’s scripts have a great many other qualities, but I’ll have to go into them some other time. Right now I have space for only one more thought on Fibber and Molly. When historians of the future write the story of the small Mid-West American community they would be well advised to read a couple of Mr. Quinn’s scripts after they finish the works of Sinclair Lewis. Lewis and Quinn are poles apart. The truth about the American small city lies, I should say, somewhere in between.

The following day, Crosby turned his attention to Ladies Be Seated, yet another programme centred on embarrassing people live on the radio. It was hosted, for a time, by Johnny Olson, who people today think of as a game show announcer. Olson kind of fell into that role on television after hosting shows on radio and early TV, some of them with his wife Penny. I’ve always loved Johnny O., but I’ve never been a fan of laugh-at-this-guy-we’re-turning-into-an-idiot programming. Crosby wasn’t either. Crosby seems to have stared at his radio in disbelief that something like Ladies Be Seated would even be broadcast.

Radio in Review
By JOHN CROSBY
How Not to Spell Meringue
The audience participating show is a sort of opiate of the housewives which afflicts the air waves far too much of the daytime hours. Because so much broadcast time is now devoted to these shows, I can’t ignore them entirely, but they make a tough subject for review.
For some time I have been staring, bewitched, at my notes on a program called “Ladies, Be Seated.” The program simply defies rational comment so I give you instead a simple description.
When I tuned in, the audience, which is largely composed of housewives, was singing in a variety of keys a song whose closing lines were, “Ladies, be seated, and we’ll all have a wonderful time.” A numbing experience for the ears.
* * *
Like virtually all these programs, this one trafficked heavily in young married couples. On this day the master of ceremonies, a hearty fellow named Johnny Olsen [sic], plucked from the audience two such couples—one married two days, the other married five.
They were asked to judge a fashion show, which neither couple had done before. While a bevy of Billy Rose showgirls paraded by, the bridegrooms attempted to describe the costumes.
“Looks like she just got out of a zoo,” said one.
“Well, she’s got a lot of feathers on,” remarked the other.

“Keep your eyes off the girls and on the costumes,” warned Mr. Olsen, who never speaks much lower than a scream. “Go ahead, describe her while she tries to entice you with her lovely costume and—shall we say—her personality.”
One of the husbands responded to this invitation with a low whistle, which perhaps described the girl more aptly than the dress.
“Two days married and he’s speechless,” yelled Mr. Olsen, and presented him with a thermos bucket. The other people got nylon raincoats.
After the fashion parade came the selection of the singing housewife of the day. Several of the housewives sang a phrase or two of “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag,” and the audience selected the winner by some criterion which eludes me. The singing housewife of the day was awarded a lapel watch, a corsage, and a man’s watch.
* * *
The nub of the “Ladies Be Seated” program comes very close to the end of the half hour. Mr. Olsen gleaned several more young couples from the audience and outlined a quiz contest in which, to quote Mr. Olsen, “the wives must hit the answer or the answer hits the husband.”
The first question was: What are the two elements contained in water? I was under the impression that every one who completed eighth grade knew the answer to this one but it developed, neither housewife had any idea. Since the wives missed the questions, the husbands got hit with the answer, This consisted of the husbands breaking bags of water over each other’s heads. Then, Mr. Olsen asked the girls to spell “meringue,” as in lemon meringue pie. The first one spelled it “merine”; the second got as far as “m-a- and then gave it up as an impossible task. Therefore, the husbands obligingly pitched lemon meringue pies at each other. I’m not making this up. This actually went on.
In the general hilarity that followed the spectacle of two men smearing each other with lemon meringue, I missed the third question. Whatever it was, it got the right answer: the second one missed. The husband of the second thereupon had a feather pillow broken over his head to add, as it were, a sort of icing to his drenched and meringued exterior.
As a reward for all this he was given an umbrella. It seems scarcely worth it. How, I keep asking myself did he get home from the broadcast looking like that? The only suitable conveyance for a man covered with feathers is a rail. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if sponsors of “Ladies, Be Seated” took him home that way.

Below, you’ll find the week’s other three columns (22nd through 24nd) if you are really interested.

As mentioned above, the intention was to occasionally give you a roundup of some of John Crosby’s early columns. As not mentioned above, the other problem is as of this writing (and this was written way back in January), I no longer have access to the source material and it doesn’t appear it will return. As stated off the top, intentions don’t always turn out to be practical or viable.

Western Union Delivers Johnny Olson

By all accounts, the best warm-up man in television at one time was Johnny Olson.

Everyone thinks of Johnny as an announcer, but he kind of fell into that job in the mid-1950s. Before that, he had hosted a number of shows, first on network radio, then network television.

The warm-up guy basically gave some technical information the studio audience needed to know about applauding and behaviour during the broadcast. But he had to get them in the mood for fun. Olson did silly and funny stunts to get the people in the seats primed for the big show ahead.

We’ve written about warm-ups, and Johnny Olson, before, but I’ve spotted another wire service story from June 20, 1963. Olson was working out of New York then, mainly on Goodson-Todman game or panel shows. For whatever reason, his name was constantly misspelled in newspaper stories. I don’t envy anyone trying to warm up an audience for Keefe Brasselle.

What the Stars Owe To Warmer-Upper
By JOAN CROSBY
New York — When Bud Collyer, John Daly, Gene Rayburn, Robert Q. Lewis, Keefe Brasselle, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar and Victor Borge walk out on a stage to face a television studio audience, they find a group of relaxed, happy people waiting to laugh at the least flicker of an eyebrow. And the performers owe it all to Johnny Olsen, the industry's number one audience warmer-upper.
To give you an idea of the esteem in which Olsen is held, Jackie Gleason flew him to Florida this past season to perform a ten-minute warm-up for a ten-minute skit to be inserted in one of the Great One's shows. Johnny, in addition to warming up the audience is also the off-camera announcer for most of-these shows, and he is even, occasionally, seen on-camera.
Olsen is a 25-year veteran of radio and television—20 years in New York—and one of the busiest commercial men around. Between his announcing and warm-up chores, it's not unusual for him to be scheduled for 23 shows within one week.
Why is it considered so important for an audience to be warmed-up before the star appears? "The majority of people in audiences are not from New York," Johnny said. "They are often distracted in a television studio by the lights, the cue cards, the technicians and the cameras--which get in their way. Well, we can't have them grumbling 'I'd rather stay home.' So the warm up man comes out ahead of show time and acts as a liaison between the personality and the audience."
Johnny works Play Your Hunch, then follows this immediately with The Match Game. "Here I act as a Pied Piper. Many times at Hunch, I tell the audience I'm going upstairs to do another show, and I ask them if they want to join me. We march up the stairs together, and I know at least I've got part of the group set and ready to respond."
• • •
OLSEN, who hosted such shows as Ladies, Be Seated, Break the Bank and Rumpus Room, sometimes has some tight schedules which necessitate an imaginative to the problem of beating New York traffic.
"Once I hired two detectives to take me from one show to another. With their help I got 23 blocks uptown and 8 blocks crosstown in four-and-a-half minutes. "Another time I had approximately 70 seconds to get five blocks down Sixth Avenue. But, Sixth Avenue is a one-way street, going the wrong way for my purposes. I finally hired a Western Union kid and his bicycle and we sped through the one-way traffic and made it just in time."

Audience Warm-Ups, 1943

“Don’t forget to laugh loud,” cajoled Jack Benny, “that is, if you ever want to get here again.”

Benny never said it on his show. He said it to his audience as part of the pre-show for a radio broadcast (of October 24, 1954 to be precise). The warm-up is still used today in television, as producers try to assure the audience at home that what they’re seeing is worth watching because the people in the studio enjoy it.

We talked about Johnny Olson and his warm-ups in this post; Johnny was called the best in the business by many. We’ve done a story about a Jack Benny warm-up. Somewhere on the blog, you’ll find a tale of Fred Allen’s words before a show to the studio audience. Here’s a story from the New York World-Telegram of May 1, 1943, talking about what happened before some of the shows that aired from the Big Apple (incidentally, do apples grow in New York?).

Radio Stars Get Audience in the Mood
By HARRIET VAN HORNE
Holding a mirror low in front of him, a sad-eyed young man walks through the audience, steps absently to the platform and stands there a full minute before the announcer deigns to notice him.
“What are you doing with that mirror?” he is finally asked.
“The doctor told me to watch my stomach,” replies the young man, still staring down at the glass.

This, in case you never attended a broadcast of Truth or Consequences on Saturday night, is part of the gag routine that precedes the show. It is part of the radio institution known as the warmup, without which the laughter you hear wouldn’t be nearly so long, so loud or so spontaneous. It is a custom peculiar to radio alone, based on the theory that an audience will not reach the high point in laugh response unless, like a race horse, it is trotted around the comedy track for workout aimed to limber up the funny-bones.
Gags Relieve Tension
It is peculiarly necessary in comedy shows, because the atmosphere in any studio in those hushed minutes just before air time is tense with excitement, not at all conducive to laughter.
Besides jollying the audience into a receptive state of mind, the warmup serves to introduce the performers. Acquainted with a comedian’s technique, they laugh more freely—and more quickly.
Of all warmup shows Truth or Consequences undoubtedly is the most strenuous, for both performances and guests. Ralph Edwards and his producer, Herb Moss, knock themselves and the audience into a kind of joyous delirium with a half hour of nonsense out of the same corn-bin as Hellzapoppin’.
Not for the Worrisome
“Do you care what happens to you tonight,” Edwards will ask, as he strolls down the aisle seeking contestants for the wildest comedy quiz on the air. “Are you sure you don’t care?” he will repeat, as two of his stooges walk stealthily down the opposite aisle, bearing a sheet-covered stretcher. “This? Oh, just one of last week’s contestants,” a stretcher-bearer will tell a curious lady on the aisle.
Edwards’ questions are not to be considered rhetorical when you remember that this is the show that sent an innocent contestant to Town Hall, where, for the first time in her life, she played the violin. Another contestant was put into a fight ring where he sparred with a kangaroo—until the latter was disqualified for kicking.
Garry Moore, master of ceremonies on Jimmy Durante’s Thursday night show, ad-libs for a half an hour before the show, good-naturedly insulting the audience. People are always surprised when they see Garry for the first time. He looks like a college freshman. His hair is cut crew style, standing up straight over his head. He lets the audience stare at him for a full minute before he says a word. Then, running fingers through his wiry thatch, “So what did you expect—feathers?” Durante takes little part in the warmup, appearing at the last minute from a seat in the rear of the studio. His timing is perfect, however, for the audience is applauding him and laughing uproariously when the signal is given “We’re on the air.”
Styles of Other Stars
Jack Benny usually presents a violin solo—complete with gags—before his show. Milton Berle ad-libs in his customary manner for several minutes, as does Phil Baker.
Fred Allen, one of the few comedians who are natural wits, has his audience rocked in mirth 15 minutes before the program starts. His routine varies little from week to week. He warns the audience against swallowing laughs, citing a recent medical discovery (by Young Doctor Malone) that swallowed laughter has a bad habit of accumulating at the end of the spine. “You don’t want to be a lead-end kid, do you?” he’ll ask. To further impress studio guests with the need for laughter—and lots of it—Fred tells the sad story of a man who swallowed all his laughs the wrong way, until finally Young Dr. Malone had to operate. And when he began to carve the incision went “Huh-haw.” Fred makes it an old, old laugh with an unmistakeable death rattle in it.
Red Skelton provides the audience with very little laugh ammunition before the show. He resorts instead to the old spinach-now-candy-later psychology. “If you’re a good audience,” he advises, “and laugh as hard as you can at all our jokes I’ll put on a real show for you after the broadcast.” And he does.
How Cantor Warms Them Up
Cantor clowns for the folks before and after the show. He warms them up, gives them a show, then cools them off, as he puts it. Duffy’s Tavern has no warmup, save for a brief introduction of the performers by Announcer Dan Seymour. Information Please stages an informal quiz before the show, more to put the guest experts at ease than anything else. Likewise the Quiz Kids, who occasionally have a grownup guest who is shy of the mike, and scared silly in the presence of so much youthful genius.
Musical shows, naturally enough, rehearse a few numbers that the audience will hear again on the show proper. Dramatic shows introduce the leading members of the cast. Diane Courtney and the Jesters present a half hour of variety numbers, usually including their famous arrangement of McNamara’s Band. Accompanist John Gart gives a novachord demonstration. Most comedians and musical artists are too weary to give an epilogue. Garry Moore probably speaks for the majority when he says to the audience, “Beat it.”

Warming Up With Johnny Olson

Johnny Olson was a daytime host on network radio and early television who saw his career somehow take a turn and ended up as an announcer on a pile of TV game shows. Olson’s voice was well-known to audiences long before he came up with “Come on down!!!” when The Price Is Right was re-worked and returned to the tube in 1972. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the best announcer in game-show history.

One of Johnny’s talents the home audience never saw was his warm-up act, where he got everyone in the studio all hyped for the taping of the programme that was to follow (or a live broadcast, in the case of the 1950s Goodson-Todman shows). His abilities as a mood-setter were praised on the air by John Daly, Gene Rayburn and Jackie Gleason, who would have no one else warm-up his audience, and flew Johnny to Miami Beach for tapings of his shows in the ‘60s.

Here’s Johnny in a UPI column I found from August 7, 1966. His last name seems to be have misspelled on far too many occasions. He talks about the dos and don’ts of audience warm-ups.

Warm-Up Man Rates Gleason Job Best
Johnny Olsen, 25-Year Veteran, Does 14 Shows a Week
By JOHNNY OLSEN
By United Press International
NEW YORK — I've been an announcer and studio warm-up man for many years now, and one of the most enjoyable assignments I have had is doing Jackie Gleason's "The American Scene Magazine" comedy-variety show.
It was a problem fitting it into my busy schedule — I do 14 shows a week, including "What's My Line?", the daytime and nighttime "To Tell the Truth" programs and "I've Got a Secret."
When I stepped to the microphone onstage in the Miami Beach Auditorium and said these familiar words — "and away we go!" — some 3,000 people in the audience exploded and burst into a solid roar of applause, shouts and cheers.
PRODUCTION - Those words signaled the call to action of more than 100 people involved in the production of the show. As usual, June Taylor's lovely dancers started things off with a fast, lively routine to the rhythm-packed tunes of Sammy Spear's orchestra. And this set the stage for Jackie's first appearance when he walked on, beaming amid the rising roar of approval that came to a climax when he spread his arms and said, "How sweet it is!"
That's when I knew I had done my job well, because for about 15 minutes before that electric moment, I had the studio audience in my charge, making them happy and comfortable, and putting them in a warm, receptive mood.
The art of "conditioning" an audience for Jackie's type of show requires specialization and tact in convincing 3,000 persons how important they are to the show—and they are!
BASIC RULES - I have developed a few basic rules for myself over the years in warming up a studio audience and keeping it warm, and I guess I've been lucky—they've worked well.
First rule is: Don't take the edge off the show itself. In other words, don't try to be too funny; don't overpower the audience; don't sell yourself—sell the star and the show that's to follow.
Second rule: Keep the star out of the warmup. I had to talk Jackie out of wanting to come out before each taping to chat with the studio audience. He gets more reaction, more excitement, when the audience sees him for the first time.

NEXT RULE — Don't have too many things around that clutter the stage and distract an audience from concentrating on the star and his supporting players. Of course, this is not always easy to accomplish because of the great variety of technical gear needed for a television show. But it helps if the producer and director keep things to a minimum. And don't overdo your warmup. Don't exhaust the audience and get them fidgety before the show starts. Say or do what you're going to — concisely, clearly and enthusiastically. And bring them to that magic level, of great expectations. Then, they're ready to give the show a terrific response.
COMMUNICATE — Oh, yes, I have one more rule for myself. I never sit down, from the moment I get on the stage until that very last moment when the show is over I like to stay on my toes and keep in tune with Jackie while he's on. This way, I'm able to sense his every move and the nuances of his laugh-provoking "bits" — and I try to communicate this to the studio audience.
Last year, on one occasion, I was flying back to New York on a Sunday afternoon and had to make the "What's My Line?" show that evening. A storm blew up, and we couldn't land in New York, Philadelphia or Washington. So, we flew back to Florida, then turned around and finally landed in Baltimore.
I raced for a New York train and made it to the studio less than half an hour before air time. I must have flown 4,000 miles that day.
USES SCOOTER — Another time, leaving New York. I had to catch a plane at Kennedy Airport following a taping of "To Tell the Truth." Knowing in advance that I had a touch-and-go time and traffic situation, I had a friend whisk me to the midtown tunnel on his scooter. There, I transferred to a waiting sports car — another good friend helped me on this one — and I made it to the plane just on time.
Oh, yes. It was winter in New York, and I had to carry summer clothes in a bag and over my arm and change into them while en route to Miami Beach.
GREAT NAMES — But it's all part of the business, and I love it. I've worked with many top names in my more than 25 years in the radio and television business — Mayor LaGuardia, the great singer Madame Schumann-Heink, Ameila Earhart, President Herbert Hoover, President Franklin D. Roosevelt —and, yes, Jackie Gleason. He makes you feel great when he says, after a good job, "You're beautiful, pal."
And it certainly beats working in a drug store. I started working in a drug store in my hometown of Windom, Minn. But here I am in show business.
It's just as well—I never could make sandwiches.

Long Before He Said "Come On Down!"

Johnny Olson was (and still is) my favourite game show announcer and I always got a kick out of seeing him on camera. It happened rarely in the ‘60s and, usually, it was a quick, dark shot of him off-stage. When Goodson-Todman revived “The Price is Right” in the ‘70s, he started being placed in little showcase sketches which were the best part of the show.

Little did I know back then that Johnny had appeared on camera in the early days of television. He hosted a number of shows but, for reasons I still don’t quite understand, ended up announcing instead of hosting. And little did I know that Johnny had emceed several daytime shows in the latter days of network radio, some of them with his wife Penny. In fact, his radio career goes back to at least 1926, when he interviewed taciturn President Calvin Coolidge.

I stumbled onto this feature story about Johnny and Penny in the Radio and Television Mirror of November 1949. Johnny had a Saturday morning radio show at the time and was also on TV on the DuMont network (where his replacement on “To Tell the Truth,” Bill Wendell, was on the staff).

The Mirror was a magazine aimed at housewives, who were Johnny and Penny’s main audience. So it’s no surprise that the article talks an awful lot about cooking, keeping house and marriage—and this is from a woman who also had a career on radio at the time—with a bit of soap opera-style adversity thrown in. It sounds old-fashioned and hokey, but they were married 46 years until Olson died so it must have worked for them.

The story consistently spells their name “Olsen” with an “e.” So do some newspaper obituaries. But he spelled it with an “o” and that’s what’s on his grave.

The photos you see here accompanied the story.

Come and Visit Johnny Olsen
By Helen Bolstad
In Penny's voice, the enthusiasm and happiness bubbled like champagne when she telephoned her invitation. “Our new apartment is finished at last. Radio Mirror readers had a hand in it, you know. How about coming over to visit?”
The idea was fine. For all their success, Johnny and Penny Olsen remain the young couple next door. The New York locale doesn't count. Half an hour after you first meet them, you feel as though you were in the middle of a class reunion with your best friends.
As viewers and listeners long ago guessed, Johnny and Penny are home folks. Johnny, born in Windom, Minnesota, still reads the Cottonwood County Citizen each week. Instead of talking about celebrities at Sardi’s, he’ll convulse you with an account of how, when at a small station in Mitchell, South Dakota, and singing with Lawrence Welk’s band, he joined the musicians in turning mechanics, converted two cars into a bus, and started the trek toward big bookings.
Penny, whose roots strike equally deep into Wisconsin soil, can still name the top performer at WLBL, the Stevens Point station where she began singing at the age of six. She met Johnny at a country dance where he was an announcer at Milwaukee’s WTMJ. He wooed her by writing new words for his theme song each day, proposed on a boat during a Lake Michigan storm, and married her in Decorah, Iowa, the place his family first settled when they came to this country.
A visit to the Olsens is always delightful. The only problem was time.
Reminded of it. Penny pondered. “Oh yes, the schedule. The wonderful, thrilling, awful schedule. All we need is some hours.
“Let’s see . . . Rumpus Room goes on every morning, and so does Luncheon Club. Saturday is ABC’s for Johnny Olsen’s Get Together, and then there’s Prince Charming on Mutual, I mustn’t forget What’s My Name with Arlene Francis, and Fun for the Money, televised from Chicago. ...”
It sounded like the start of what television people call a “hassle,” for Johnny and Penny, these days, are probably the busiest couple on the air.
Penny found a solution. “Let’s make it like an old-fashioned progressive dinner where you move to a new location for each course. Just latch on and keep up until we can go home.”
It sounded hectic but fun. In the WABD dressing room, where Penny was firmly lipsticking a televisable mouth and Johnny slicking his smooth hair down just a little slicker, there was only time enough to ask, “How’s Lena, the good luck poodle?”
Forty-five minutes and a half-dozen quiz contestants later, in a taxi, Penny caught her breath to answer, “About Lena—I just clipped off all her hair, and she’s the funniest sight. I was walking her on Riverside Drive the other day when a boy stepped up to ask, ‘Lady, is that really a baby lion?’”
Lena’s position, officially, is that of mascot. Her arrival marked the end of a run of hard luck and sorrow which Radio Mirror readers, too, had a hand in breaking.
“You remember all the awful things which happened to us after our little dog died last winter,” says Penny. “That was the start, and a deluge followed, Johnny’s father passed away, and we were both terribly broken up. Then it was the apartment. That meant an awful lot to us, for it was the first real home we’d had in years. We sent for our antiques and started to settle down at last.”
Her face clouds at the recollection. “It never occurred to us, when we talked about it on the air, that we were inviting disaster. On a Rumpus Room broadcast, we announced it was finished. That same night, on another show, we got word it was on fire. We rushed home and found that we had been robbed, too—all we had left was the clothes on our backs.
“It hit doubly hard because I had to go to the hospital for an immediate operation. Next, Johnny’s best programs cancelled. We felt as though we had lost our last friend.
“We were feeling so low that John Gibbs, Johnny’s friend and agent, decided to take a hand,” Penny continues. “He brought us Lena, assuring us a new dog would change our luck.
“It was the strangest thing, but do you know she did? The very next day, Johnny got a new show. Then the Radio Mirror story ran—but let us show you, rather than tell you, what happened after that.”
When the taxi delivers you on Park Avenue, Lena, the animated good luck piece, makes herself heard before she is seen. Her happy yips start as soon as the elevator lands, and when the door opens, she hurls herself, ecstatic with joy, into Johnny’s arms.
Says Penny, “She’s the jumpingest dog. Sometimes I think she’s crossed with tomcat or jackrabbit.”
Although the Olsens look out on the towers of Manhattan, the interior of the apartment presents a rustic aspect. Johnny and Penny, forever homesick for the country, have created a sky-high version of a Midwest farmhouse.
Antiques furnish the spacious living room, and each one has a story. Stopping in front of the open-front maple dresser, Penny lifts a plate. “This china came from Johnny’s home, and the milk glass was my mother’s.”
“And Penny’s grandfather carved the settee in the hall,” Johnny volunteers.
“We’re sort of sentimental,” Penny confesses, "I guess we both like old- fashioned country things best of all.”
“We’re sentimental about our fans, too,” says Johnny. "Our families’ fire shower surprised us, but the second shower, from Radio Mirror readers, really knocked us for a loop. Come on. Penny, let’s get the things.”
They return, arms heaped high with hand towels, bath towels, dish towels and sheets. “I’ve never had such linen in my life,” Penny says. "I received some of the most gorgeous luncheon sets.”
Deeply serious for a moment, Johnny says, “Tell everyone how much we appreciated the gifts, will you? We’ll never forget what our friends did for us.”
Says Penny, “Much as I love every single present, I can't help feeling people shouldn't have done it. I know some of them had to sacrifice things they needed themselves in order to send these to us.”
"Well," says Johnny reflectively, “there’s joy in giving, as well as receiving. We’ve handed out over a million prizes, but I still get just as much kick out of it as the contestant, providing it's a fun prize—something which doesn’t amount to a great deal, but which the person will enjoy using.
“This may be a strange thing for a quiz master to say, but it turns me sick to have a contestant get within reaching distance of a whopping big award and then miss the question. When I see that shocked, dead look come over their faces, I realize that winning, to them, meant getting rid of the mortgage or paying for an operation. I know they’ll forever reproach themselves for missing the question.”
Penny, well aware of Johnny’s habit of carrying his listeners’ problems home with him, seeks to switch the conversation to a lighter vein. “I won a quiz prize once. In fact, because of it, I actually got on ABC before Johnny did.”
She goes on to tell how, when Johnny came to New York to apply for a job, she waited in the corridor until a man came by and asked if she would like to be on Ladies Be Seated.
Penny says, “I had never heard of a ‘regular’—a person who goes to every audience show—and I certainly didn’t know that their badge at that time was a red hat. Ed East, with a then-new show to run, thought it wise to choose a few persons who had seen a microphone before. He spotted the red hat I had on and invited me in.
“I answered my questions, and I’d won an ironing board before it dawned on me that would be pretty clumsy to tote home to Milwaukee if Johnny didn’t get his job. I also thought of how little cash we had. So I asked East if he would buy it back. He gave me the most disgusted look. He must have figured he had a real nut on his hands and it was worth anything to keep the peace. He gave me three dollars.”
The big clock booms three deep notes. Johnny looks up with a grin. “Coffee time?”v “Coffee time,” Penny agrees. Leading the expedition into the kitchen, she comments, “After ten years of learning Olsen's Norwegian habits, you’d never guess my ancestors were Irish.”
She sets the coffee to perk, then says, “It will take only a minute or two to get dinner started. We’re having Johnny’s favorite dish — Norwegian hamburger soup.”
“It’s really like a stew,” Johnny explains. “My mother, having ten children, used to cook it to make the meat stretch. We’d make a meal of it.”
Penny takes a fresh recipe card from her file box. “Let me tell Radio Mirror readers how to make it. Giving the recipe is one way to say thank you for the shower. Just follow these directions:”
Norwegian Hamburger Soup
Break an egg into a mixing bowl. Beat slightly, and to it add salt, pepper, a dash of sage, a chopped onion, and just a little garlic. Add the hamburger, mix thoroughly, shape into small balls, and roll the balls in flour. Melt fat in a dutch oven, and when it’s sizzling, drop in the hamburger balls to brown. Add some water, and let simmer for about three hours or more.
When the meat is cooked, add the vegetables—carrots, celery, potatoes, peas, green beans, cabbage and tomatoes. Simmer for an additional thirty minutes.
“Then add one more line,” Johnny instructs. “Deeelicious! Penny is my favorite cook.”
“And it’s just lucky I like it,” Penny continues, “for Johnny never wants to go out to eat. I suppose the only way we manage the schedule we do is because when we’re through, we come home, get into old clothes and really let our hair down and relax.
“Johnny has his record collection, and I’ve got my cooking for hobbies. The most fun I’ve had in a long while was when my niece came here on her honeymoon. I’d always wanted to cook a wedding dinner, so we put all the leaves in the table and called our friends and relatives. “I set the table with my best linen, and of course there were flowers. First of all, we started with cream of chicken soup, and after that, we had fried chicken, carrots and peas, potatoes and gravy, and green salad. For relishes, I had home made dill pickles, stuffed celery, and radishes. I baked Parker House rolls and served them with melting butter. For dessert, we had strawberry shortcake, followed by mints and coffee.”
“Just a simple little meal, tossed together after a day over a hot microphone,” says Johnny with a grin.
Penny matches his smile. “Savour the recollection, my lad, for you get store-bought cake with your coffee today. The housekeeping suffers when I fly out to Chicago to watch you televise Fun for the Money.”
“It’s worth it,” Johnny replies. “We’ve worked together so long that I’m lost without Penny. Even if she isn’t on the show, I need her in the audience. We are partners in everything we do. One is no good without the other.”
“How’s about a little partnership in setting the table?” Penny suggests.
“The hamburger balls are almost brown enough, Lena wants to be fed, the coffee’s ready, and everything seems to be happening at once.”
“Sure,” says Johnny, ambling into the yellow-walled dining room. He takes dishes from the china closet, then holds up a cup for inspection. The pattern is a scene which might have been drawn from Penny’s Wisconsin hills.
“See,” says Johnny, “we can’t get away from it, even in dishes. We may live in the biggest city on earth, but Penny and I like to think we’re still country kids.”