Editing Bob and Ray (section)

==Television==
[[File:Bob and Ray with Audrey Meadows 1951.JPG|thumb|{{center|Bob, Audrey Meadows and Ray in a skit on ''Bob and Ray''<br>(NBC, 1951)}}]]
In the early 1950s, the two had their own 15-minute television series, entitled simply ''Bob & Ray''. It began November 26, 1951 on [[NBC]] with [[Audrey Meadows]] as a cast regular. During the second season, the title changed to ''Club Embassy'', and [[Cloris Leachman]] joined the cast as a regular, replacing Audrey Meadows who left the series to join the cast of ''[[The Jackie Gleason Show]]'' on CBS. In the soap opera parodies, the actresses took the roles of Mary Backstayge and Linda Lovely. Expanding to a half-hour for the summer of 1952 only, the series continued until September 28, 1953. When ''The Higgins Boys and Gruber'' show began on [[Comedy Central|The Comedy Channel]] in 1989, it occasionally included full episodes of Bob and Ray's 1951–1953 shows (along with episodes of ''[[Clutch Cargo]]'' and ''[[Supercar (TV series)|Supercar]]'').

The duo did more television in the latter part of their career, beginning with key roles of Bud Williams Jr. (Elliott) and Walter Gesundheit (Goulding) in [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s [[Hugo Award|Hugo]]-nominated ''[[Between Time and Timbuktu]]: A Space Fantasy'' (1972), adapted from several Vonnegut novels and stories. (Vonnegut had once submitted comedy material to Bob and Ray.) Fred Barzyk directed this WGBH/PBS production, a science-fiction comedy about an astronaut-poet's journey through the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum. This teleplay was first published in an edition that featured numerous screenshots of Bob and Ray and other cast members.

Bob and Ray also hosted a [[Mark Goodson-Bill Todman|Goodson-Todman]] game show, ''[[The Name's the Same]]'', which was emceed originally by [[Robert Q. Lewis]]. Bob and Ray would do a brief comedy routine, and then play the normal game of having a celebrity panel try to guess the contestants' famous names. They would always end the show with their traditional closing: Ray saying, "Write if you get work..." and Bob finishing with "And hang by your thumbs." The rigid format of the game gave the team little room to indulge their humor, and their run as hosts lasted only 10 weeks. In their final broadcast, they omitted the usual "Write if you get work" closing and simply said, "So long." They were replaced the next week by [[Clifton Fadiman]], who finished out the series.

During the late 1950s, Bob and Ray were also on radio and television as the voices of Bert and Harry Piel, two [[animation|animated]] characters from a very successful ad campaign for [[Piels Beer]]. Since this was a regional beer, the commercials were not seen nationally, but the popularity of the ad campaign resulted in national press coverage. Based on the success of those commercials, they launched a successful advertising voice-over company, Goulding Elliott Graybar (so called because the offices were located in New York's [[Graybar Building]]).

In 1971, Bob and Ray lent their voices to the children's television program ''[[The Electric Company]]'' in a pair of short animated films; in one, explaining opposites, Ray was the "writer of words", first for elevators, then doors, finally faucets. The other, illustrating words ending in -at, had Ray as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" who can read minds and who tries to read a word in Bob's mind, that he thinks is an -at word such as "hat", "bat", "rat", "cat", "mat", etc. (Bob's word is actually "Columbus".)

In 1973, Bob and Ray created an historic television program that was broadcast on two channels: one half of the studio was broadcast on the New York PBS affiliate [[WNET]], and the other half of the studio was broadcast on independent station [[WNYW|WNEW]]. Four sketches were performed, including a tug of war that served as an allegory about nuclear war. The two parts of the program are available for viewing at the [[Museum of Television & Radio]].

In 1979, they returned to national TV for a one-shot NBC special with members of the original ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' cast, ''Bob & Ray, Jane & Laraine & Gilda''. It included a skit (not written by Elliott and Goulding) in which the team sat in chairs, in business suits, facing the audience, nearly motionless, and sang a duet of [[Rod Stewart]]'s major hit "[[Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?]]" Elliott and Goulding, reviewing the script beforehand, didn't like the idea at all and tried to refuse it, but their deadpan rendition of the song became the hour's highlight.  Near the beginning of the program, they announced a contest which would take suggestions for the "new capital of Pennsylvania", not specifically mentioning the very recent Three Mile Island nuclear accident that had taken place near Harrisburg.

In 1980, they taped a one-hour pilot for CBS late night with the cast of [[Second City Television|SCTV]] titled ''From Cleveland'', a sketch show staged on location in Cleveland. The show became a cult favorite with numerous showings at the [[Museum of Television & Radio]].

This was followed by a series of specials for [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] in the early 1980s.  In 1982, Ray Goulding told the New York Times, "It just keeps happening to us. I suppose each new generation notices that we are there."

Bob and Ray also appeared on ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]'' several times in the late 1950s and early '60s; guested on the [[The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson|Johnny Carson]] and [[Late Night with David Letterman|David Letterman]] shows throughout the 1970s and '80s; provided voices for the animated 1981 special ''[[B.C. (comic strip)|B.C.]]: A Special Christmas'', and made guest appearances on episodes of ''The [[David Steinberg]] Show'', ''[[Happy Days]]'', and ''[[Trapper John, M.D.]]''.