The Lights Out! cast in the mid-1930's.

Sidney Ellstrom---who died a thousand violent deaths during the run of this show---is at the microphone, about to be done in by an-about-to-expire cast member.

The male corpse on the top of the heap appears to be Harold Peary who, several years after this photo was snapped, assumed the role of the "Great Gildersleeve" on the Fibber McGee and Molly show (with such success that he was, in the early 1940's, able to spin the role off to his own show which became one of the genuine classics of radio's Golden Age).

Lights Out! was the malformed brainchild of NBC-Chicago producer Wyllis Cooper. Arch Oboler, one of radio's great writer-directors, assumed responsibility for the series after Cooper went to Hollywood in 1936 to pursue a career in film writing. "Lights Out" epitomized the unique style of radio drama developed in the Merchandise Mart studios. Its maccabre plots were enhanced by creative sound-effects that reproduced the crushing of skulls, the severing of digits and the eating of flesh.

"Lights Out" first aired locally in Chicago (over NBC's owned-and-operated WENR) from January 1st to April 10th of 1934 as a fifteen-minue program. Thereafter the program was expanded to a half-hour. From April 17th of 1935 until August 16th, 1939 "Lights Out" was carried by the NBC network.

Supplementing Chicago's skilled corps of radio actors in the spring of 1938 was Boris Karloff, who journeyed to the Windy City to appear on five episodes of the show. CBS revived "Lights Out" in 1942-43 (originating in New York and Hollywood); NBC brought the series back as a New York-based summer replacement in 1945. NBC-Chicago produced "Lights Out" as a summer replacement series in 1946, making use of the original Cooper-Oboler scripts that popularized the show a decade earlier.

The above writing writing is by Rich Samuels, who has a very informative web site on the NBC studios in Chicago, The Merchandise Mart. My interest is confined to the Golden Age of Radio, but Samuels has compiled a wealth of information, images, and anecdotes about the huge broadcast facility.

I will gather more information about the program as time goes on. Tonight at 8 (ish) visit here to listen to a 1939 episode of the program - "Devil's Due."  

Whoa - that's Guildy laughing at the beginning of this program. Have fun with this one. It's a hoot.

In tonight's episode of Fibber McGee and Molly the McGee's next door neighbor, Throckmorton P. Guildersleeve, is in a heck of a bind. Despite their famous rivalry, McGee decides to give him a hand. Of course, his scheme to help Guildersleeve back fires. The winner of the funniest McGee and Molly episode - if we were to hold such a contest - for the 1940 season is either this episode, "Radio Quiz Show," or "The Circus Comes to Town," which will be coming up in a few weeks.

The over-the-fence bickering between McGee and "Guildy," with Molly usually assuming the role of referee and/or peacemaker, being partial to her husband only when absolutely necessary, became a common plot device for the program. The character of Guildersleeve evolved over time. Throughout 1938-39 Harold "Hal" Peary played several characters on the program. In one memorable turn he shows up as an interior decorator when McGee is challenged by repairing a faulty window shade. Marion Jordan (Molly) was ill during much of that year, leaving Fibber without his enduring foil and better half.

By 1940 Molly was back at 79 Wistful Vista and Throckmorton P. Guildersleeve lived next door with a wife no one ever saw, (except at one point through McGee's homemade telescope applying Johnson's Glo-Coat to her kitchen linoleum). Guildy rapidly became an immensely popular character.

There are all sorts of continuity conflicts in these programs. Guildy works for the Bon Ton Department store in one episode. In another he has suddenly become a manufacturer of girdles. Well, think about that - Guildy's Girdles. Great fun. And who knows whatever happened to his wife? By the time Peary left the program in '41 to star in his own program, "The Great Guildersleeve," some astute listeners were wondering how he had disposed of her body and managed to erase her existence from memory. Yes, it seemed the perfect crime.

Harold Peary (pronounced Perry) was born Harrold Jesse Pereira de Faria in California to Portuguese parents in 1908. His early radio career in the 20's featured his singing talent. Peary was a crooner of the classic type, and he had a wonderful singing voice which he would enjoy using in later years as a comedic actor whenever he had the opportunity.

By 1937 he was in Chicago, playing several characters named Guildersleeve on the Fibber McGee and Molly program, (sometimes Fibber McGee and Company - '39), until at last the show's creative forces settled on Throckmorton P. and stuck with it for the rest of his tenure on the program.

His 'schtick' was his basso profundo voice and his immensely comical, throaty, bubbling-over laugh. As several other characters named Guildersleeves, Peary had experimented with being a trifle shady, but Throckmorton was a real square G, a pillar of his community. Affable and friendly, Throckmorton was also somewhat self-righteous, and he was quick to anger but it never lasted long. The character is actually quite real. He reminded listeners easily of such qualities in their own neighbors.

By 1941 The Johnson's Wax Program was beginning to turn into the Fibber McGee, Molly, and Guildersleeve show, by some accounts. Peary left the program to star in "The Great Guildersleeve," which premiered on August 31, 1941. That program would run through the rest of the decade.

In 1950, although "The Great Guildersleeve" was still at the height of its popularity, Peary left the program - without really meaning to. It was a calculated career move that went wrong. He tried to make the move from NBC to CBS but his show's sponsor, Kraft Foods, decided not to make the switch with him. Ownership of the Guildersleeve character was Kraft's, not Peary's. He was replaced on NBC by his friend Willard Waterman who had a very similar voice. Between them they agreed Peary's laugh was his trademark, however, and Waterman never tried to mimic it. Peary's new program, "Honest Hal," only lasted a season, and "The Great Guildersleeve," despite Waterman's talents, also fizzled out.

Harold Peary never achieved the same kind of success on television and in films as he did on radio. He made four pictures in the 1940's. He starred as Mayor LaTrivia on the short-lived Fibber and Molly TV show. And then, as a character actor, he appeared in the Elvis Presley movie "Clambake" ('65), and in a Disney movie. Most of his appearances were on television - spots on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "Petticoat Junction," and "The Brady Bunch."

But, through the 70's and early 80's most of us heard Peary's voice regularly on TV both as a commercial pitchman/announcer and as numerous cartoon characters for Hanna Barberra. What d'ya know about that, huh? Yes, cartoons became the medium for more than a few stars of radio's "Golden Age" who were not as successful on TV.

Who can forget Daffy Duck piping up with Peary's signature acclamation, "You're a haaaa-aaaard man, McGee!" when Guildersleeve was in his top form on The Johnson's Wax program in 1940-41? That's really the pinnacle of success, isn't it? - to be honored by a Looney Toon. It was a foreshadowing of Peary's own career in animation, too.

He really wanted to sing. I suppose that's ironic.

Anyhoo, when Peary left McGee and Molly in '41, the show was left without an anchor for a little while. Of course, the War came shortly thereafter, and during the War Years "Fibber McGee and Molly" went from being one of radio's most popular programs to THE most popular radio program. Gale Gordon, Arthur Q. Bryan, Marlin Hurt, and others joined the cast. There was a new population of Wistful Vista every bit as interesting and daffy as the denizens of that municipality in the 1930's had been. The show really took off. At the same time, "The Great Guildersleeve" was enjoying terrific ratings.

Now - tomorrow night I'll be posting a 1939 episode of the legendary horror program, "Lights Out, Everybody," and that's a program Harold Peary was also doing in the 30's. I'll be featuring episodes of the vignette series on Wednesday nights for a time, and it will be fun listening for his distinctive voice among the characters.

Stay tuned tonight for Fibber and Molly, (and Guildy), in "Radio Quiz Show."

Gracie just got back from Washington D.C. in this episode of the Burns and Allen radio program from 1940. George finally gets one of those cushy government jobs, too.

In the post below I've provided an excerpt from George Burns' autobiography recounting his early radio days with Gracie. It's fun reading.





On Wednesday night I'll feature a 1939 episode of the thriller "Lights Out, Everybody." Tune in for that. I'm pretty excited about it. I'll be providing some more information here as I research the program a bit more.

Of course, tomorrow night belongs to Fibber McGee and Molly. Until then...

Vote for Gracie!

This is an excerpt from Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns. Here, he remembers the 1933 publicity stunt that helped their radio program become one of the most listened-to in history. It also demonstrates the power of the radio medium and the comedic talent of Burns and Allen. This, by the way, is an extremely funny bit of writing. It's easy to imagine Gracie's voice where George has quoted her.

Listen here at 8 PM for a 'new' Burns and Allen program from 1940.

"The gimmick that really made us major radio stars was the search for Gracie's mythical brother in 1933. We'd been using Gracie's mythical brother as a character in our act for years. It was Gracie's brother who invented a way to manufacture pennies for only three cents. It was Gracie's brother who marketed an umbrella with holes in it so you'd be able to see when the rain stopped. It was Gracie's brother who first printed a newspaper on cellophane so that he could read it in a restaurant and still keep an eye on his hat and coat. And it was Gracie's brother who broke his leg falling off an ironing board while pressing his pants.

Actually, as we discovered, Gracie's brother had been missing for years, but no one had noticed it because he'd left a dummy in his place. Gracie's brother got lost when Stanley Holt of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and Paul White, a network executive, decided we needed an inexpensive way to publicize the fact that our show was going to move its broadcasting time from nine to nine-thirty pm. Their plan was that Gracie would show up unannounced on other network programs, supposedly in search of her missing brother, and mention the time change.

The stunt began on January 4, 1933. Eddie Cantor was in the middle of a story when Gracie suddenly appeared and tearfully announced she was searching for her missing brother. A half-hour later Jack Benny was on the air when Gracie wandered in and explained, "I'm looking for my missing brother. Have you seen him?"

"Well," Jack asked, "what does he do?"

"He was going to go into the restaurant business, but he didn't have enough money. So he went into the banking business."

"Your brother didn't have enough money so he went into the banking business?" Jack also did my part very well.

"Yes. He broke into the banking business at two o'clock in the morning and was kidnapped by two men dressed as policemen."

Two days later Gracie and I were scheduled to appear with Rudy Vallee on NBC. The script was written, we were in the studio. But moments before the show went on the air NBC ordered Vallee to delete any mention of Gracie's missing brother from his script because they didn't want to give additional publicity to stars on CBS....

George [Burns] and Gracie [Allen], still working for CBS, were involved in a running gag about Gracie's "missing brother" George Allen.... In working out their opening exchange [for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallee's radio show on NBC], all hands agreed it might begin with Rudy saying, "Hello, Gracie, have you found George yet?" Scripts were prepared accordingly. NBC, in a last-minute ruling, decreed otherwise. The missing brother gag, NBC held, was a CBS promotion, and nuts to a rival network promoting itself over NBC facilities. The script would have to be rewritten, the missing brother crack thrown out."

-New York Daily News, May 6, 1958

...So the script was trimmed and Gracie's missing brother really was missing from the new script. But when we went on the air, our friend Rudy Vallee "mistakenly" picked up the wrong script and asked Gracie about her brother. As soon as he did, a nervous engineer in the control room cut him off, and the entire NBC radio network went dead for four seconds. Gracie hadn't even been in the radio business for a year, but she'd succeeded in knocking the second-greatest network off the air.

The fact that NBC had censored Rudy Vallee, even for four seconds, created a publicity bonanza for us. Suddenly, everybody in the country wanted to get in on the gag. No bit had ever captured the attention of the public as quickly as this one did. Radio had only recently put large areas of the country on almost instantaneous contact with other areas, and this was the first stunt to take advantage of that capability. Gracie walked in on "Guy Lombardo," "Mystery in Paris," "The Tydol Show," soap operas, dramatic shows.

"Has anybody here seen my brother, George?" she would ask. Someone would say no, and she would respond happily, "Oh well, then bye-bye." In the middle of a tense drama set inside a submerged submarine a telephone rang, and someone on the surface asked the captain, "Is Gracie Allen's brother down there with you?"

One night Gracie appeared with the popular Singin' Sam, who offered to help in the search and asked what Gracie's brother called himself. "Oh, you're so silly," Gracie laughed, "He doesn't have to call himself, he knows who he is."

"What I mean is, if your brother was here, what would you call him?"

"If my brother was here," Gracie pointed out, "I wouldn't have to call him."

Singin' Sam wasn't about to give up. "No, listen to me. If I found your brother, and I wanted to call him by name, what would it be?"

"It would be wonderful."

The stunt rapidly spread beyond radio. On Broadway, actress Grace Moore, appearing in Du Barry, responded to a costar's line asking where she'd been by ad-libbing, "I have just been out hunting for Gracie Allen's brother." Stores all over the country advertised, "Shop here. You'll find excellent bargins--and you might even find Gracie Allen's missing brother." In Congress, Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth objected to a speech made by Senator Huey Long, telling reporters, "It sounds like Gracie Allen's brother." Time magazine reported that famed big-game hunter Frank "Bring 'em Back Alive" Buck had joined the search. The catchphrase "You look like Gracie Allen's brother" became popular throughout the country, and comedians joked, "If an empty taxicab pulls up and no one gets out, that's Gracie's brother."

Newspapers in several cities ran stories about men who had been arrested and were claiming to be Gracie's missing brother. And people all around the country warned friends, "If you see something on the ground, don't step on it. It might be Gracie Allen's brother."

We took full advantage of the publicity. We hired the Burns Dective Agency to search for him. Gracie was photographed at the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Coney Island, looking for her brother. Wherever we appeared, she went to the lost and found department of the largest-circulation newspaper to see if anyone had turned in her brother. When we played a theater in Washington, D.C., she went to Griffith Stadium to meet Babe Ruth and his twin brother, telling reporters that she knew he had a twin brother because she'd read that Babe Ruth's double had won a game for the Yankees. Within two weeks we recieved more than three hundred fifty thousand letters, some of them claiming to be from kidnappers who had Gracie's brother and warning that unless we paid a substantial ransom they would be forced to return him immediately. Our Crossley rating skyrocketed. Gracie's brother had become more famous by disappearing than I had by showing up."