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Fred Allen

Comedy

Fred Allen, resident comic and wit. His wife, foil, and stooge, Portland Hoffa.

Broadcast History:

• Oct. 23, 1932-April 16, 1933, CBS. 30m, Sundays at 9. The Linit Bath Club Revue. Linit Bath Soap.    Torch singer Helen Morgan. Impersonator Sheila Barrett. Double-talk artist Roy Atwell. Tenor Charlie Carlisle. Character actor Jack Smart. ANNOUNCER: Ken Roberts.  MUSIC: Louis Katzman.  ORGANIST: Ann Leaf.  PRODUCER: Roger White.

• Aug. 4-Dec. I, 1933, NBC. 30m, Fridays at 9. The Salad Bowl Revue. Hellmann's Mayonnaise.  Allen, Hoffa, Atwell, Smart. Also, Minerva Pious, ethnic character actress. ANNOUNCER: Edmund "Tiny" Ruffner. ORCHESTRA: Ferde Grofe.

• Jan. 3, 1934-June 26, 1940, NBC. Initially 30m, Wednesdays at 9:30 as The Sal Hepatica Revue. Allen, Hoffa, Pious, Smart, Ruffner, Grofe. Lionel Stander and Eileen Douglas replacing Roy Atwell. The Ipana Troubadors added. THEME: Smiles.

• Expanded to the full hour at 9 under the title Hour of Smiles as of March 21, 1934.

• Retitled Town Hall Tonight as of July 11, 1934.  Retitled The Fred Allen Show as of Oct. 4, 1939. Bristol Myers, promoting Ipana Toothpaste and Sal Hepatica.  Allen, Hoffa, Pious, Smart, etc. Also, the Town Hall Quartet (Scrappy Lambert, Bob Moody, Randolph Weyant, Leonard Stokes), circa mid-1930s; Hi, Lo, Jack, and the Dame, late 1930s; the Merry Macs (Helen Carroll and the McMichael boys-Joe, Ted, and Judd), late 1930s. ANNOUNCERS: Tiny Ruffuer, 1934-35; Harry Von Zell thereafter. ORCHESTRA: Lennie Hayton, 1934-35; Peter Van Steeden thereafter. PRODUCERS: Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, mid-1930s; Vick Knight, beginning late 1930s. THEME: Smile, Darn Ya, Smile.

• Oct. 2, 1940-June 25, 1944, CBS. 60m, Wednesdays at 9 until March 8, 1942; Sundays at 9 through June 28,  30m, Sundays at 9:30 from Oct. 4, 1942. The Texaco Star Theater. Texaco.  Allen, Hoffa, Pious, Smart, Alan Reed, John Brown, Charlie Cantor, etc. Allen's Alley format beginning Dec. 6, 1942. Minerva Pious as Mrs. Pansy Nussbaum. Alan Reed as Falstaff Openshaw. Jack Smart as Senator Bloat. Pat C. Flick as Pablo Itthepitches. Charlie Cantor as Socrates Mulligan. John Brown as John Doe. ANNOUNCERS: HarryVon Zell, Arthur Godfrey (six weeks beginning in Oct. 1942); Jimmy Wallington (for Texaco). VOCALIST: Kenny Baker, ca. 1940-42. ORCHESTRA: Peter Van Steeden; Al Goodman (beginning in the fall of 1940). PRODUCERS: Vick Knight, Howard Reilly.

• Oct. 7, 1945-Dec. 28, 1947, NCB. 30m, Sundays at 8:30. Tenderleaf Tea.  Allen, Hoffa, and the Allen's Alley cast: Minerva Pious as Mrs. Nussbaum. Peter Don­ald as Ajax Cassidy. Parker Fennelly as Titus Moody. Kenny Delmar as Senator Beauregard Claghom. ANNOUNCER: Kenny Delmar. VOCAL GROUP: The De Marco Sisters (Ann, Gene, Gloria, Marie, and Arlene). ORCHESTRA: Al Goodman.

• Jan. 4, 1948-June 26, 1949, NBC. 30m, Sundays at 8:30 until Jan. 1949, then at 8. Ford Motors.

• Also: Writers Harry Tugend (1934-38); Arnold Auerbach and Herman Wonk (1936-41), Roland Kibbee, Nat Hiken, Albert G. Miller, Herb Lewis, Larry Marks, Aaron Ruben, etc.

Fred Allen was perhaps the most admired of radio comics. His fans included the president of the United States, critically acclaimed writers, and the intelligentsia of his peers. William Faulkner was said to have liked Allen's work; John Steinbeck, who became his friend and later wrote the foreword for Allen's autobiography, called him "unquestionably the best humorist of our time" As early as 1933, when he had been on the air less than six months, he got a heartening letter of support from Groucho Marx. To Jack Benny he was "the best wit, the best extemporaneous comedian I know." Edgar Bergen, who normally shied away from gushy superlatives, told a Time reporter that Allen was the "greatest living comedian, a wise materialist who exposes and ridicules the pretensions of his times." His work, Time continued, had "an angry big-city clank, a splashy neon idiom, and a sort of 16-cylinder poetry."