Fred Allen: Difference between revisions

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His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian [[Jack Benny]], but that was only part of his appeal. Radio historian [[John Dunning (radio historian)|John Dunning]] (in ''On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio'') wrote that Allen was perhaps radio's most admired comedian and most frequently censored.<ref name="dunningota">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwtRbXNca0oC&dq=%22Fred+Allen+was+perhaps+the+most+admired%22&pg=PA262 |last1=Dunning |first1=John| title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio| date=1998| publisher=Oxford University Press| location=New York, NY| isbn=978-0-19-507678-3| pages=261-269261–269| edition=Revised| access-date=2019-08-11}}</ref> A master [[ad lib|ad libber]], Allen often tangled with his network's executives and often barbed them on the air over the battles while developing routines whose style and substance influenced fellow comic talents, including [[Groucho Marx]], [[Stan Freberg]], [[Henry Morgan (comedian)|Henry Morgan]], and [[Johnny Carson]]; his avowed fans also included President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], humorist [[James Thurber]], and novelists [[William Faulkner]], [[John Steinbeck]], and [[Herman Wouk]], (who began his career writing for Allen).

==ChildhoodEarly life==

In 1921, Fred Allen and [[Nora Bayes]] toured with the company of [[Lew Fields]]. Their musical director was the 9nineteen-year-old [[Richard Rodgers]]. Many years later, when he and [[Oscar Hammerstein II]] appeared as mystery guests on ''[[What's My Line?]]'', Rodgers recalled Allen's act of sitting on the edge of the stage with his legs dangling down, playing a banjo, and telling jokes.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VVpeiKxbHk Rodgers & Hammerstein as mystery guests on What's My Line?], Feb. 19, 1956, video on YouTube</ref>

The hour-long show featured segments that would influence radio and, much later, television. News satires such as ''[[Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In]]'''s "Laugh-In Looks at the News" and ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'s'' "Weekend Update" were influenced by ''Town Hall Tonight's'' "The News Reel", later renamed "Town Hall News" (and in 1939–40, as a sop to his sponsor, "[[Ipana]] News"). ''[[The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson]]'s'' "Mighty Carson Art Players" routines referedreferred to the Mighty Allen Art Players in name and sometimes in routines.

However, a year later, Fred Allen was knocked off his perch not by a talent raid but by a show on a third rival network, [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] (the former [[NBC Blue]] network). The quiz show ''[[Stop the Music (American TV series)|Stop the Music]]'', hosted by [[Bert Parks]] (debuted 1948), required listeners to participate live by telephone. The show became a big enough hit to break into Allen's grip on that Sunday night-time slot. At first, Allen fought fire with his own kind of fire: he offered $5,000 to listeners getting a call from ''Stop the Music'' or any similar game show while they listened to ''The Fred Allen Show''.<ref>{{cite news |work=[[The New York Times]] |title=Allen 'Insures' Own Radio Fans. Takes Out Bond to Repay Them for Any Prize They Lose by Tuning Out. |page=25 |date=1948-10-04}}</ref> He never had to pay up, and he was not shy about lampooning the game-show phenomenon (especially a riotous parody of another quiz show that Parks hosted by launching ''[[Break the Bank (1948 game show)|Break the Bank]]'' in a routine called "Break the Contestant" in which players did not receive a thing but were compelled to give up possessions when they blew a question).

Unfortunately, Allen fell to number 38 in the radio ratings, which was compounded by the rise of television in many major cities. By then, he had changed the show again somewhat witgwith the famed "Allen's Alley" skits now taking place on "Main Street,l" and rotating a new character or two in and out of the lineup. He stepped down from radio again in 1949, at the end of his show's regular season, as much under his doctor's orders (for Allen's continued hypertension) as because of his slipping ratings. He decided to take a year off, but it did more for his health than his career. After the June 26, 1949 show on which [[Henry Morgan (comedian)|Henry Morgan]] and [[Jack Benny]] guested, Allen never hosted another radio show full-time again.

"Allen not only couldn't poke fun at individuals," Crosby wrote. "He also had to be careful not to step on their professions, their beliefs, and sometimes even their hobbies and amusements. Portland Hoffa was once given a line about wasting an afternoon at the rodeo. NBC objected to the implication that an afternoon at the rodeo was wasted and the line had to be changed. Another time, Allen gagged that a girl could have found a better husband in a cemetery. (The censor) thought this might hurt the feelings of people who own and operate cemeteries. Allen got the line cleared only after pointing out that cemeteries have been topics for comedy since the time of [[Aristophanes]]." Allen's constant and sometimes intense, as well as often ridiculous, battles with censors may have aggravated his longtime problems with hypertension.

After his own show had ended, Allen became a regular attraction on NBC's ''[[The Big Show (radio show)|The Big Show]]'' (1950–1952), hosted by [[Tallulah Bankhead]]. He appeared on 24 of the show's 57 installments, including the landmark premiere, and showed he had not lost his trademark ad-lib skill or his rapier wit. (
The show's head writer, [[Goodman Ace]], later told radio host Richard Lamparski that Allen's lucrative NBC contract was a large factor in getting him on the show, but Allen also wrote the segments on which he appeared and consulted with the respected Ace and staff on other portions of the show.)

In 1950, NBC launched the live comedy-variety series ''[[The Colgate Comedy Hour]]'' by using rotating hosts instead of a regular master of ceremonies. Fred Allen was one of the original hosts and appeared five times before he dropped out in April 1951. The next effort, the [[Goodson-Todman]] production ''Judge for Yourself'' (subtitled ''The Fred Allen Show''), was a game show incorporating musical acts. The idea was to allow Allen to ad-lib with guests à(as ladid [[Groucho Marx]] on his own game show [[Groucho_Marx#You_Bet_Your_Life|You Bet Your Life]]), but as author Alan Havig wrote, the starAllen was "lost in the confusion of a half hour filled with too many people and too much activity."<ref>Alan Havig, ''Fred Allen's Radio Comedy'' (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).</ref> The complicated format had to be revamped in the middle of the run. The revised premise had Allen interviewing three panelists, who would listen to three new popular songs and vote for the one that they thought had the most potential. Then came a comedy series, ''Fred Allen's Sketchbook'', which did not catch on.

Allen also spent his final years as a newspaper columnist/humorist and as a memoirist and rented a small New York office to work six hours a day without distractions. He wrote ''Treadmill to Oblivion'' (1954, reviewing his radio and television years) and ''Much Ado About Me'' (1956, covering his childhood and his vaudeville and Broadway years, and detailing especially vaudeville at its height with surprising objectivity); the former, which included many of his vintage radio scripts, wwaswas the best-selling book on radio's classic period for many years. After the frustrations and failures of his attempts to succeed on television, the popularity of ''Treadmill'' revealed Allen's potential as a literary humorist.

[[Category:RadioAmerican personalitiesmale fromfilm New York Cityactors]]

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[[Category:PeabodyComedians Awardfrom winnersCambridge, Massachusetts]]

[[Category:20th-centuryMale Americanactors comediansfrom Cambridge, Massachusetts]]

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[[Category:AmericanRadio Romanpersonalities Catholicsfrom New York City]]