To determine what show was the funniest program on radio would not be a simple task. Some might select one that produced the most jokes per half hour or one that generated the longest laughs from the studio audience or one that kept the chuckles rolling for twenty years or more. But if the criterion for funniest show is which one could make us laugh out loud both then and now a leading candidate for that honor would be The Phil Horris.Alice Faye Show.
Credit for the funny lines on the program should be given first to Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat. Singer and Chevillat belong in the pantheon of radio comedy writers with Paul Rhymer, Fred Allen, Don Quinn and Phil Leslie, and the Benny team, all of whom richly deserved the billing they received at the beginning or closing of the program. Singer and Chevillat's special talent was tailoring wisecracks to character so they made certain that the principals on the Harris-Faye show had enough foibles so they could hang an infinite number of gags upon them.
Much of the humor revolved around Phil's character or lack of same. His vanity about his looks and singing was always good for some jokes about curlers, mirrors, gold records, and southern cooking. His affinity for the bottle was evidenced every time he expressed his distaste for water or milk. And his propensity for getting into ridiculous situations was due to his bullheaded pride and his gullibility, both of which seem to have no bounds.
One fascinating aspect of the Phil Harris on this program was an outgrowth of the character he played on Jack Benny's show: he was a glib illiterate. He spelled blood b¬-l-u-d and thought the Eiffel Tower was in New York City. Words like impecnably, indubinably regularly tumbled out of his mouth.
Yet at the same time he could be charming with a line of self-confident patter followed by a sobriquet. Nobody had a greater reservoir of cognomens than Harris did. Clyde and Myrtle were his favorites. but those around rum were just so likely to be called Ogle , Thorpe, Hastings, Casper, Herman, Thelma, Ruby, Clovis, Louella, Mercedes, Hershel, or Bernard. Ed Wynn was the perfect fool; Phil Harris was the perfect cool fool.
When Phil wasn't the butt of the humor, Alice frequently was. The wealth that she had supposedly amassed from her career as screen queen was often milked for laughs. Her age was the subject of numerous jests such as "When I was in the fifth grade, my mother took me to see her in..." Little was sacred on the show, for Alice was periodically ribbed about that other subject that was not to be mentioned to women, her weight.
Alice's chief source of irritation was often not Phil but rather his left hand man, Frank Remley. Remley's vocation was playing the guitar badly. His avocation was wrecking the Harris house and straining the Harris marriage. He loved cards, booze, and women, his business associates were heading toward or had just emerged from the penitentiary, and he was totally irresponsible. In short, he was just the sort of foil needed to stir the plot.
It would probably rankle Frankie to be called a foil. In one episode he said, "Curly, you're the star of this show, but it must burn you up on Sunday when I get all the laughs." Phil replied, "But the fire's put out on Monday when I get all the money." Elliott Lewis, a versatile actor, producer, and director who worked on a score of radio programs, played Frankie so convincingly that when we hear his voice on any other show we are tempted to say, "Why is Remley playing it so straight?" Lewis acted the part with relish, delivering his lines just the way a lovable rascal should. If awards had been given for best supporting actor on a comedy series, Elliott Lewis would have won at least a couple of them.
His chief competition for that honor might have come from Walter Tetley who played Julius Abbruzio. Julius was the quintessential wise guy. the kind of imp whose entrance speech would consist of endearing sentiments like . I heard youse
guys were writing a song and I hurried right over so I could be the first one to say, it stinks. The barrage of insults he hurled at Remley and Harris usually took aim at their intelligence with his barbs often taking the form of asides like "I know everybody's got a right to be a moron, but these guys are abusing the privilege." His primary functions were to serve as unwilling guinea pig for harebrained experiments or reluctant rescuer of the maladroit pair. When he fell victim to their plots, he released his "seal cough" or sent out impassioned calls for help, but as often as not he outwitted his elders and left them with a sardonic "So long, suckers…..” Rounding out the regular Cast were Robert North as Willie, Alice's brother. and Anne Whitfield and Jeanine Roose as the Harris daughters. Willie aggravated Phil because he was everything Harris was not: effeminate, efficient, well educated , and parsimonious. Phyllis and Little Alice were more like Little Phil and Little Phil II because they Frequently delivered lines not only in the style of their father but with the very same cadence (e.g. "It ain't been easy, Clyde.")
Everyone in the cast was a master of timing and delivery. The questions "This is a wrestler?" and "Are you kidding?" are not particularly amusing unless someone like Tetley can give them just that right touch of skepticism. North’s smug "'Good morning, Philip" gets on our nerves as much as it did on Phil's. When Lewis would say, "Some people are nearsighted. You are neareared." he had a way of making such inanities sound perfectly logical. After Remley reveals that he has a total of thirteen cents to get them into the circus,
Phil unloads two sentences of priceless sarcasm: "'You think it's safe to carry that kind of money around? Somebody might roll you for the whole wad." On one show when Phil says, "This'll take brains," and Remley adds, "Let's put our heads together. Alice delivers the perfect squelch: “that ain't gonna do it.”
But, or course, even Groucho or W. C. Fields could not produce guffaws if given Duff. Singer and Chevillat handed the Cast a bountiful supply of ludicrous situations and snappy one liners. They made Frank and Phil the ultimate klutzes, a pair of bumblers who repeatedly dismantled the Harris house or poured money into dubious ventures. The banter that flowed between the duo were some of the best lines on the show as this excerpt from the June 26, 1949 episode demonstrates:
Harris: I've got a good band.
Remley: So has Lombardo.
Harris: So far we're even. Let's go to point two. Lombardo ain't a comedian. Remley: You're still even.
Harris: Point three. Lombardo don't sing like I do.
Remley: That puts him ahead.
It wasn't just in the exchanges with Harris that Frankie got the big laugh. He liked to tease Curly about being henpecked ("Sometimes I'm sorry we married her") and his appearance “ I think it's very attractive the way your chins cascade into your chest. I imagine that when you drool it looks like a babbling brook") Nothing could faze him. Even after Mr. Scott (Gale Gordon) told him "I don't want you on the show. I wouldn't have you if you paid me and you can start looking for a new job because you're fired," Remley still has the last word: "Undecided, huh?" Confronted with the problem of disguising a sway¬backed horse from Alice, his recommenda¬tion Was "Let's turn it upside down and tell her it's a camel." Julius's suggestion was even better: "How can we win a race with a thing like that? Every time he takes a step his stomach bounces along the ground like a basketball. I can't ride him. I’ll have to dribble him around the track." Then Phil tossed in one nag gag as the plug was clip-clopping his way around the track and started to snore. I’d wake him up," Phil said, "but' believe he's going faster this way.¬
That series of jokes exemplifies the technique the writers used week after week: start with a predicament and build a fortress of jokes around it. The structure was so rigid that the audience was trained to expect entrances or catch phrases. When Phil asked Remley a question like "Who can you get that will be willing to jump out of a second-story window?" everyone knew that Julius would appear immediately. When Harris asked where he could buy a steer or a boat or a mink coat or anything alive or dead, Remley was sure to say, “I know a guy...”
On the June 5,1949 show after Frankie declared that after an operation "I couldn't eat any solid food. I was on a liquid diet," the audience began laughing without waiting for the punchline because his dissolute reputation rendered any further comment superfluous.
Some of the most sustained laughs came not from scripted lines but from bloopers and the ad libs that Phil made after the blunders. On the April 24, 1949 show after Harris answered the telephone Alice asked, Who was that the cone call was from?" Phil wouldn't let it pass: "You better get your teeth fixed before you go back to pictures. If you walk in there with that revolving bridge...Take it one more time, but let me stand back." When one of the girls mumbled a line on another show Harris quipped, "Why do you have to come in here every morning with a mouthful of mashed potatoes?" After Frank Nelson stumbled over a word on a 1953 show Phil had a line ready: "I'm the one that's a test pilot for Seagram's." He also made the best of his own mistakes. On the October 2, 1949 show he said, "The one with the silery, silery, ¬silery-celery sticking up inside the garbage can," and then quickly added, "This program has been transcribed for earlier broadcast." On a 1953 program in which a crow was a major character he followed a slight flub with "might do the crow before the show's over," It's no wonder that Rexall and RCA sometimes lost part of their final commercials; they couldn't count on the unexpected happening, but perhaps they should have for extended laughs were apt to come from any source.
And the program remained funny right up to the last 1954 show. The best episodes in the series are probably those done during the 1948-50 seasons, but the later shows are amusing even after Willie had virtually disappeared, Lewis began playing a Remleyesque gent named Elliott Lewis, and the Singer-Chevillat team had been replaced by writers like Ed James and Jack Douglas. The pattern of the show changed little from season to season: the problem was set up with some familial persiflage, Lewis was brought in, a Harris song and a Faye song, a complication of the problem with Julius, and then the inevitable failure of Phil's plans.
Audiences liked the taste of that recipe and kept lapping it up and laughing it up week after week. It was a delicious mixture of one part picaresque characters, one part farce, and two parts zesty monologue with a pinch of exquisite delivery topped in to give it just the right flavor. It's the kind of tempting dish that even today makes us come back for seconds. Or thirds. Or...
PHIL HARRIS: Born in Linton, Indiana on June 24, 1906 son of a traveling musician. Educated in Nashville, Tennessee public schools and at Hume-Fogg Military Academy. Harris was a drummer with several dance bands before beginning his own orchestra. Made his first radio appearance in 1932 on program known as 'Melody Cruise'. During 1933/34 Harris was heard on Listen to Harris on the NBC Blue network. He joined the Jack Benny program in 1936.
ALICE FAYE: Born Alice Jeanne Leppert in NYC on May 5, 1912 the daughter of a policeman. When she was 13 she auditioned for the Ziegfeld Follies but was turned down. A year later she obtained a job with Chester Hale's dance group and appeared at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway and also toured in the George White Seandals of1931. She worked with Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee and Ray Bolger. It was at this time that she changed her name to Alice Faye. Made her radio debut on May 4, 1933 over CBS. That year she also made her first recording for RCA Records. In 1934 she made her screen debut in the film version of George White “Scandal” and as a Jean Harlow look-alike she sang something called 'You Nasty Man'. Miss Faye was signed to a long term contract by 20th Century Fox films. In 1937 she was seen in '"Wake Up and Live" which was a satire on the radio industry and was built around the alleged feud between Broadway columnist Walter Winchell and bandleader Ben Bernie. On July 2,1937 Alice began a half hour radio series on CBS with the Hal Kemp band. She married actor/singer Tony Martin in September 1937. The couple divorced in March 1941.
Phil Harris and Alice Faye were married in Mexico on May 12,1941. When the couple learned that his divorce from his first wife was not yet final they were re-wed on September 22,1941 in Galveston, Texas. Daughter Alice, Jr. was born the following year. A second daughter, Phyllis was born on April 26, 1944.
On September 29, 1946 Phil Harris took over as host of the Fitch Bandwagon program which was heard immediately following the Jack Benny program. The Fitch Bandwagon format continued through the spring of 1948 when the show became known as the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show which premiered on Sunday, October 3, 1948 for Rexall Went off in 1954.
Alice Faye made her television debut with her husband on a Timex Hour special aired on February 6, 1959. In 1962 she returned to the screen for a re-make of 'State Fair' in which she played singer Pat Boone's mother. Through the years she has made various guest appearances on TV including a special appearance on the Hollywood Palace on November 14,1964 in which she sang a medley from her hit film 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'. In 1938 composer Irving Berlin called her 'Hollywood's best song plugger' .
