Editing Bob and Ray (section)

==Radio==
Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers (Elliott a disc jockey and Goulding a newscaster) in [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]] with their own separate programs on station [[WEEI (AM)|WHDH]], and each would visit with the other while on the air. Their informal banter was so appealing that WHDH would call on them, as a team, to fill in when [[Boston Red Sox|Red Sox]] baseball broadcasts were rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise comedy routines all afternoon, and joke around with studio musicians.

Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946. ''Matinee with Bob and Ray'' was originally a 15-minute show, soon expanding to half an hour. (When explaining why Bob was billed first, Goulding claimed that it was because ''Matinee with Bob and Ray'' sounded better than ''Matinob with Ray and Bob''.)  Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs."

===''Matinee with Bob and Ray''===
''Matinee with Bob and Ray'' was broadcast Monday through Saturday on WHDH. The weekday half-hours were broadcast live; the Saturday shows were usually 25 minutes long and were sometimes recorded in advance. Staff musicians Ken Wilson (organ) and Bill Green (piano) opened each show with a sprightly rendition of "[[Collegiate (song)|Collegiate]]".

Fans who are familiar with Bob and Ray's later routines, which were carefully scripted and timed, might be surprised by surviving episodes of ''Matinee with Bob and Ray''. These shows were completely impromptu and always irreverent, demonstrating how very alert and quick-witted Bob and Ray were. They would follow any comic thread for a few minutes, and then just as suddenly abandon it to move on to another topic. If Ray happened to mention a distant city, Bob would solemnly introduce a travelogue and the pair would narrate a mock documentary. A chance remark about a labor-saving device would bring home-economics expert Mary Margaret McGoon (Ray) to the microphone, offering an unlikely recipe or promoting a useless appliance. If an idea ran out of steam, Bob and Ray's cowboy entertainer Tex Blaisdell (voiced by Bob in a laconic drawl) came out of nowhere to plug his latest personal appearance in some tenth-rate theater. Almost all of the incidental characters passing through the studio were named Sturdley, which became a buzzword of the series.

A regular feature of ''Matinee with Bob and Ray'' was a soap opera parody, "The Life and Loves of Linda Lovely". Ray would portray Linda, using a soft, breathy falsetto, with Bob portraying her beloved David in a halting, deliberate baritone. Neither Bob nor Ray knew what each story would involve, so each would cue the other and bat the dialogue back and forth as each situation got out of hand. A 1948 broadcast had Linda suddenly interrupting the story to take an urgent phone call, only to have David counter this turn of events by taking his own call; then Linda announced someone at the door and took a ''third'' phone call, which David accepted while Linda greeted the guest at the door and took a ''fourth'' phone call.

When the show took time out for a recorded commercial, the team would continue in the same vein. A testimonial by actor [[Basil Rathbone]] would be followed by Bob and Ray adopting British accents and outlining a mystery. A commercial for a toy dealer would result in Bob immediately introducing a children's story as told by "Uncle Ray". Beginning in October 1948 they satirized a regularly scheduled singing commercial for Mission Bell Wines, which called for an announcer to read the ad copy live between the opening chorus and the closing jingle. Bob and Ray took any number of liberties, singing the copy drunkenly or punctuating the written copy with sarcastic remarks.

Musicians Wilson and Green performed two selections during each show. Bob and Ray often dragged them into the action, with comments about their clothes, their vacation plans, their musicianship, or their work ethic (Ray: "I don't care if you two have [[James Caesar Petrillo|Petrillo]] behind you, you always come in here thinking you own the place."). One episode had Bob and Ray commenting on a Wilson-Green duet and then discussing the many success stories of the Wilson and Green School of Music. These were all voiced by Bob and Ray, all awful musicians, and all named Sturdley.

Although ''Matinee with Bob and Ray'' did not have a studio audience, local residents (often high-school and college students) dropped by the studio daily to watch Bob and Ray. The team's wilder flights of fancy would elicit laughter off-mike.

===Other radio projects===
''Matinee with Bob and Ray'' became a favorite with listeners in New England, which brought Elliott and Goulding to the attention of [[NBC Radio|NBC]] in New York. They continued on the air for over four decades on the NBC, [[CBS Radio Network|CBS]], and [[Mutual Broadcasting System|Mutual]] networks, and on [[New York City]] stations [[WINS (AM)|WINS]], [[WOR (AM)|WOR]], and [[WEPN (AM)#WHN|WHN]]. From 1973 to 1976, they were the afternoon drive hosts on [[WOR (AM)|WOR]], doing a four-hour show. In their last incarnation, they were heard on [[National Public Radio]], ending in 1987.

[[File:Bob and Ray Tedi Thurman Monitor.gif|right|200px|thumb|''[[Monitor (NBC Radio)|Monitor]]'' publicity shot of Bob and Ray with Miss Monitor ([[Tedi Thurman]]). All three made extended stays at the NBC studios in order to do hourly live appearances throughout the weekend on ''Monitor'', which could explain why they were grouped for this promotional photo.]]
They were regulars on NBC's ''[[Monitor (NBC Radio)|Monitor]]'', often on standby to go on the air at short notice if the program's planned segments developed problems, and they were also heard in a surprising variety of formats and time slots, from a 15-minute series in mid-afternoon to their hourlong show aired weeknights just before midnight in 1954–55. During that same period, they did an audience-participation game show, ''Pick and Play with Bob and Ray'', which was short-lived. It came at a time when network pages filled seats for radio-TV shows by giving tickets to anyone in the street, and on ''Pick and Play'' the two comics were occasionally booed by audience members unfamiliar with the Bob and Ray comedy style.

Some of their radio episodes were released on recordings, and others were adapted into graphic story form for publication in ''[[Mad Magazine|MAD]]'' magazine. Their earlier shows were mostly ad-libbed, but later programs relied more heavily on scripts. While Bob and Ray created and improvised much of their material, they did accept sketches from writers. The first was Boston broadcaster Jack Beauvais, who had performed as a singer for [[WEZE|WEEI]] in Boston during the 1930s and also worked for some of the big bands in the 1940s and 1950s.<ref>[http://www.wuml.org/history3.php WUML: Jack Beauvais] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206040725/http://www.wuml.org/history3.php |date=February 6, 2012 }}</ref> The pioneering radio humorist [[Raymond Knight (radio)|Raymond Knight]] was a fan, and submitted ideas and sketches. (Bob Elliott later married Knight's widow.)

The most prolific freelance author was [[Tom Koch]] (pronounced "Cook"). In 1955 he was a staff writer for ''Monitor'', and he sent Elliott and Goulding 10 bits. "They bought eight," recalled Koch, "so I sent them 10 more and they never did reject another one." Koch always submitted his work by interoffice or postal mail, and although Elliott and Goulding spoke with him in person occasionally, the working relationship was remote: "The check would come and that would be it."<ref>Tom Koch to David Pollock, ''Bob and Ray: Keener than Most Persons'', Applause Books, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2013; p. 145.</ref> Koch captured the Bob and Ray style so well that the team would recite from his scripts verbatim. Koch remained with Elliott and Goulding, off and on, for three decades.