The Fred Allen Show
The Fred Allen Show was a long-running American radio comedy program starring comedian Fred Allen and his wife Portland Hoffa. Over the course of the program's 17-year run, it was sponsored by Linit Bath Soaps, Hellmann's, Ipana, Sal Hepatica, Texaco and Tenderleaf Tea. The program ended in 1949 under the sponsorship of the Ford Motor Company.
The most popular period of the program was the few years of sponsorship under The Texas Company. During this time, the program was known as Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen. On the December 6, 1942 episode of the program, Allen premiered his first in a series of segments known as "Allen's Alley". The segments would have Allen strolling through an imaginary neighborhood, knocking on the "doors" of various neighbors, including average-American John Doe, Mrs. Nussbaum, pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw, Titus Moody, and boisterous Southern senator Beauregard Claghorn. Texaco ended its sponsorship of the program in 1944.
Some prominent guest stars on Allen's program over the years included Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Roy Rogers, Bela Lugosi, Ed Gardner, Norman Corwin and Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy.
''The Linit Bath Club Revue''
The first version of The Fred Allen Show premiered under the title of The Linit Bath Club Revue on the Columbia Broadcasting System Sunday night October 23, 1932. The show featured Allen, Portland Hoffa, Minerva Pious and Jack Smart. Ken Roberts was the announcer while the music was furnished by Louis Katzman's orchestra and CBS house organist Ann Leaf, the latter of which was not actually present but actually broadcast from a small radio studio at the Paramount Theatre in Times Square, about a mile away.According to his official website, Fred Allen had trouble from the beginning of it all with the program's sponsor, Linit bath soaps and with the advertising agency that supervised production, apparently over the organ interludes that Allen would look on quite negatively in his memoirs. After only a single season and 26 weeks on the air, on April 16, 1933, Linit pulled the plug on the Revue.
''The Salad Bowl Revue''
After the failure and conflict brought on by Linit, in 1933 Allen made the move to NBC with The Salad Bowl Revue. The program premiered on NBC's Red Network on August 4 of that year. The program moved to a new night, Fridays. To avoid any unneeded conflict as he had with Linit, Allen took over all writing responsibilities of the show. Sponsorship changed over to Hellmann's Mayonnaise. Not popular enough with listeners, and suffering increased tension between Allen and Hellmann's, The Salad Bowl Revue concluded on December 1, 1933.''Sal Hepatica'' and ''The Hour of Smiles''
The same advertising agency that represented Hellmann's Mayonnaise also served as the representative for Bristol-Myers' Sal Hepatica laxative. So on January 3, 1934, The Sal Hepatica Revue was born. Edmund "Tiny" Ruffner from The Salad Bowl Revue rejoined Allen as announcer, as well as the Ferde Grofé Orchestra and actors Minerva Pious, Jack Smart and Allen's wife Portland Hoffa all rejoining Allen on Sal Hepatica.The biggest change besides the title and the commercials was the move from Friday to Wednesday nights. In writing the show, Allen did begin to experiment with a community show theme. He began to gain a reputation for topical humor with news from the fictional town of Bedlamville. He peppered his "Town Hall bulletins" with fictional local characters such as Hodge White the Grocer and Pop Mullen the Lunch Wagon Man, who were all described, but never given voice.
Bristol-Myers also were the manufacturers of Ipana toothpaste during this time and decided to expand The Sal Hepatica Revue to the entire 9:00 hour on March 21, 1934. Bristol-Myers felt as though they could save money by advertising two products on one single program in one hour. The program was renamed The Hour of Smiles. The first half-hour was sponsored by Ipana, "the smile of beauty", and the last half-hour was sponsored by Sal Hepatica, "the smile of health".
The concept was also slightly retooled. Allen's concept for The Hour of Smiles was to be a small town hall weekly entertainment. The program didn't have the budgetary freedom to hire big-name acts to fill the hour-long program, so other features had to be invented. The weekly newsreels gave Allen a chance to burlesque current events and people in the public eye. The second half of the show was often devoted to amateurs. Not only was this an inexpensive and entertaining time filler, but it allowed Allen to do the ad-lib, which he enjoyed very much.
''Town Hall Tonight''
On July 11, 1934, The Hour of Smiles was renamed Town Hall Tonight keeping in sync with Allen's town hall concept on Hour of Smiles. Regulars on the program included Allen, Hoffa, Pious and Smart along with newcomers Scrappy Lambert, Bob Moody, Randolph Weyant and Leonard Stokes and Helen Carroll. In the fall of 1938, Allen signed The Merry Macs to a full-season contract. Tiny Ruffner was the original announcer for this version of the program with Harry Von Zell taking over those duties starting with the second season, which also saw Peter Van Steeden take over from Grofe. Town Hall Tonight was renamed The Fred Allen Show on October 4, 1939.Opening and closing
A typical opening heard by listeners on Town Hall Tonight might have been as follows:A typical closing that could be heard by listeners every week on the program might have been as follows:
The Benny–Allen Feud
The memorable "feud" between Fred Allen and Jack Benny of The Jell-O Program began on a 1936 episode of Town Hall Tonight. On December 30, 1936, Allen had as one of his guests in the amateur portion of his program future professional violinist Stuart Canin. Then 10-year-old Canin performed Schubert's The Bee on his violin. After his rendition of the classic, Allen made reference to "a certain alleged violin player should be ashamed of himself," noting the not so good violin playing synonymous with Benny.For a decade, the two exchanged insults on both men's shows so convincingly that fans of either show might have believed they had become blood enemies. In fact, the two men were good friends and admired each other greatly. Benny and Allen often appeared on each other's shows during the feud, both in acknowledged guest spots and surprise cameos. On one Christmas program, Allen thanked Benny for sending him a Christmas tree, but then added that the tree had died. "Well, what do you expect," quipped Allen, "when the tree is in Brooklyn and the sap is in Hollywood." Benny in his memoir, Sunday Nights at Seven, and Allen in his memoir, Treadmill to Oblivion, revealed that both comedians writing staffs often met together to plot the direction of the mock feud. If Allen parodied The Jack Benny Program, Benny responded with a parody of Town Hall Tonight. Their playful sniping also appeared in the films Love Thy Neighbor and It's in the Bag!
The comedians planned to settle their fictional feud on March 21, 1937, during a broadcast of Jack Benny's show from the Hotel Pierre in New York, but the event never transpired and the trade of insults continued for years.
One memorable period during the feud came during Allen's parody of the popular quiz show Queen for a Day. Calling the sketch "King for a Day", Allen played the host and Benny a contestant who sneaked onto the show using the alias Myron Proudfoot. Benny answered the prize-winning question correctly and Allen crowned him "king" and showered him with worthless prizes. Allen proudly announced, "Tomorrow night, in your ermine robe, you will be whisked by bicycle to Orange, New Jersey, where you will be the judge in a chicken-cleaning contest." A professional clothes press was wheeled on stage to press the suit Benny was wearing; Allen instructed his aides to remove his suit, one item at a time, ending with his trousers, each removal provoking louder laughter from the studio audience. After his trousers came off, Benny howled, "Allen, you haven't seen the end of me!", to which Allen immediately replied, "It won't be long now!" The sketch and the ensuing laughter ran so long that announcer Kenny Delmar was cut off by the network before he could finish his final commercial and the show's credits.
Production costs and ratings
To promote Town Hall Tonight, Bristol-Myers spent between roughly $20–25,000 an episode. By 1938, costs decreased to around $10,000, around $4,500 less than the average production cost of a top-ten rated radio program. Network time, however, for the hour-long program cost approximately $1,200 more than other shows in the top ten.According to a 1937 ratings survey conducted by the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, Town Hall Tonight was the fifth most listened to program in America amongst urban listeners. The show did not score well in the ratings among rural listeners.
''Texaco Star Theater''
In the early months of 1940, Allen's contract with Bristol-Myers was set to expire. However, during the same time, Allen was in contract negotiations with the Texas Company. Allen and the Texas Company, or Texaco, as it was more commonly referred to, reached a deal during the third week of May which had Allen hosting the new Texaco Star Theatre.On October 2, 1940, the Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen premiered on Allen's home station of CBS airing Wednesdays at 9. This was the first time Allen hosted a radio program on the network in seven years. The show moved to Sundays on March 8, 1942, replacing The Ford Symphony Hour. On October 4, 1942, the show changed from an hour-long format to a 30-minute format marking the first time Allen hosted a 30-minute program in eight years.
The program saw the inclusion of regulars Charlie Cantor, Alan Reed and John Brown. Jimmy Wallington was the show's announcer, except for a number of programs in the fall of 1942 when he was briefly replaced by Arthur Godfrey. The bandleader was Al Goodman.
For the show's first two seasons, singer Kenny Baker was a featured player, having appeared on both the previous iteration of the Texaco program and more importantly, on Jack Benny's show, serving up a new angle to the humorous "feud" between both comedians. However, by late 1941, Baker had become increasingly difficult to manage, as his song choices were often slow tunes that lasted up to four minutes, and controversy arose in December when he performed "Ave Maria" in German, just a few weeks after the U.S. actively entered World War II, leading irate listeners to address their complaints to the network and sponsors. By the time the show switched to Sunday evenings, Baker's role was reduced to singing his weekly numbers with little interaction with Allen whatsoever—in fact, Variety reported that both men were not on speaking terms by the end of the 1941–42 season.
Allen's health issues led him to extend his summer 1943 vacation until late December and hosted his last episode of Texaco Star Theatre on June 25, 1944.