Editing Fred Allen (section)

==Return to radio==
[[File:Fred Allen 1937.JPG|thumb|upright|left|Allen on radio in 1937]]
In 1945 ''[[The Fred Allen Show]]'' returned to NBC, Sunday nights at 8:30&nbsp;p.m. EST. [[Standard Brands]]' Blue Bonnet Margarine and Tender Leaf Tea, and later, Ford Motor Company, were the sponsors for the rest of the show's run. (Texaco revived ''Texaco Star Theater'' in 1948 on radio, and more successfully on [[television]], making an American icon out of star [[Milton Berle]]).

Allen again made a few changes, including the singing [[The DeMarco Sisters|DeMarco Sisters]] to whom he had been tipped by arranger-composer [[Gordon Jenkins]]. "We did four years with Mr. Allen and got one thousand dollars a week," Gloria DeMarco remembered. "Sunday night was the best night on radio." Sunday night with Fred Allen seemed incomplete on any night that listeners did not hear the DeMarco Sisters, whose breezy, harmonious style became as familiar as their cheerfully sung "Mr. Al-len, Mr. Alll-llennnn" in the show's opening theme. During the theme's brief pause, Allen would say something like, "It isn't the mayor of Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga, kiddies."<ref>A sarcastic jab at a running gag on the show of fellow comedian Jack Benny.</ref> That device became a signature for three of the four years.
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Fredallen3.jpg|left|300px|thumb|Fred Allen visits Allen's Alley in this caricature by [[Sam Berman]] for 1947 NBC promotional book.]] -->

===Allen's Alley===
The other change, born in the Texaco days and evolving from his earlier news spoofs, proved his most enduring, premiering December&nbsp;6, 1942. The inspiration for the mythical Main Street of "[[Allen's Alley]]" came from the small-town heartland folks who were often profiled in the newspaper columns written by [[O. O. McIntyre]] (1884–1938), one of the most popular columnists of the 1930s, with some seven million readers.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&dq=alley+radio+%22peter+donald%22&pg=PA21 Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly. ''Vaudeville, Old and New'', Routledge, 2007.]</ref>

"Allen's Alley" followed a brief Allen monologue and comic segment with Portland Hoffa ("Misssss-ter Allll-llennnn!"), usually involving gags that she instigated about her family. Then, a brief music interlude would symbolize the two making their way to the fictitious Alley.
[[File:Allensalleyset.jpg|left|thumb|300px|The Allen's Alley cast (l to r): Fred Allen, [[Kenny Delmar]], [[Minerva Pious]], [[Peter Donald]], [[Parker Fennelly]].]]
The segment was always launched by a quick exchange that began with Hoffa asking Allen what he would ask the Alley denizens that week. After she implored him, "Shall we go?" Allen would reply with cracks like, "As the two drumsticks said when they spotted the tympani, let's beat it!'" or "As one strapless gown said to the other strapless gown, 'What's holding us up?'"

A small host of stereotypical characters greeted Allen and Hoffa down the Alley, discussing Allen's question of the week, usually drawing on news items or popular happenings around town, whether gas rationing, traffic congestion, the Pulitzer Prizes, postwar holiday travel, or the annual [[Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus]] visit.

The Alley went through a few changes in the first installments. Early denizens included sarcastic [[John Doe]] ([[John Brown (actor)|John Brown]]), self-possessed Senator Bloat and town drunk Sampson Souse ([[J. Scott Smart|Jack Smart]]), dimwitted Socrates Mulligan ([[Charlie Cantor]]), pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw ([[Alan Reed]]), and wry [[Jewish]] housewife Pansy Nussbaum ([[Minerva Pious]]). By 1945, Pious and Reed were joined by two new Alley denizens: [[Parker Fennelly]] as stoic New England farmer Titus Moody, and [[Kenny Delmar]], the new show's announcer, as bellowing Southern senator [[Senator Claghorn|Beauregard Claghorn]]. Pious is credited with bringing Delmar to Allen's attention. Delmar based the blowhard character on a real-life person he had encountered while hitchhiking in 1928; Delmar had originally named the voice characterization "Dynamite Gus."<ref>Kenny Delmar in ''The Great Radio Comedians'' (film), WNET-TV, 1972.</ref> Within weeks, Claghorn became one of the leading comedy characters of radio as listeners across the country began quoting his [[catchphrase]]s: "Somebody, Ah say, somebody knocked"; "I'm from the South, Suh"; "That's a ''joke,'' son"; and "Pay ''attention,'' boy!" Claghorn served as the model for the [[Warner Bros.]] cartoon character [[Foghorn Leghorn]], who first appeared the following August in the Oscar-nominated ''[[Walky Talky Hawky]]''.

Other characters had catchphrases that were almost as famous as Claghorn's, such as Titus Moody's "Howdy, Bub", and Falstaff Openshaw's "That is precisely why I am here." Mrs. Nussbaum always greeted Allen by saying, "You were expecting maybe...", and then she would mispronounce the name of a glamorous film star, such as "Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra Bankhead?" The Alley sketches made only one further cast change, when [[Peter Donald]]'s chipper Irishman Ajax Cassidy succeeded Reed's Falstaff.
[[File:1948-Allens Alley Ford ad.JPG|thumb|The show was popular enough for Ford Motor Company to feature it in a ''Life'' magazine ad in April 1948.]]
Despite the ethnic diversity, the Alley characters seemed less citified and more akin with O. O. McIntyre's small-town America. Allen's [[topical humor]] is sometimes thought an acquired taste for audiences curious about his generation of radio stars; Dunning has written that when he "went into topical humor, he may have forfeited his only opportunity to be the Mark Twain of his century. He had flashes of undeniable brilliance. But the main body of his work deals with the day-to-day fodder of another time, and sons have seldom been amused by the embarrassments or tragedies of their fathers."

However, others find many parallels to today's world and its absurdities. The "Allen's Alley" stereotypes make some cringe, as Allen biographer Robert Taylor noted (in ''Fred Allen: His Life and Wit''), but others find them lancing more than lauding stereotypes, letting listeners make up their own minds about how foolish they could be. "Interestingly enough," wrote Frank Buxton and Bill Owen in ''The Big Broadcast 1920-1950'', "[Claghorn, Nussbaum, Moody, and Cassidy] were never criticized as being anti-Southern, anti-Semitic, anti-New England, or anti-Irish. The warmth and good humor with which they were presented made them acceptable even to the most sensitive listeners."

Allen employed a writing staff, but it served as his sounding boards and early draft consultants as much as actual writers. It was Allen who had the final edit, rewrote of each week's script, and worked as long as 12 hours a day on ideas or sketches. His ad-libbing ability caused many a show to fade away behind the ending network identification because Allen often ate up air time. It was not as unusual for him as for others to sign off with "We're a little late, so good night, folks." Allen's habit of signing off late affected fellow former vaudevillian [[Phil Baker (comedian)|Phil Baker]], whose quiz show ''[[Take It or Leave It (radio show)|Take It or Leave It]]'' immediately followed the Allen show. Baker hatched a comic plan to remedy the situation. He kept track of how much time he was losing to Allen over a period of a few months, and when the total reached 15 minutes, Baker barged into the studio 15 minutes earlier than schedule, while Allen was on the air, and took over the show by welcoming the audience to ''Take It or Leave It''. Allen, aghast but amused, surrendered the microphone to Baker. Allen's parting shot was, "I'll write a letter to Senator Claghorn about this!"

Allen also "died" more eloquently than other radio comics, particularly in the later years. When a joke was greeted with an awkward silence, Allen would comment on the lack of response with his ad-libbed "explanation" almost always funnier than the original joke, a technique that was later adopted successfully by Johnny Carson. {{Citation needed|date=January 2013}}

===Closing the Alley===
[[File:Fred Allen Texaco Star Theater 1940.JPG|thumb|upright|right|Allen on the ''[[Texaco Star Theater]]'' in 1940]]
''The Fred Allen Show'' was radio's top-rated show of the 1946–47 season. Allen was able to negotiate a lucrative new contract as a result not only of the show's success but also in large measure to [[NBC]]'s anxiety to keep more of its stars from joining [[Jack Benny]] in a wholesale defection to [[CBS]] as well as to retain its services for its rapidly-expanding television programming. The CBS talent raids broke up [[NBC]]'s hit Sunday night, and Benny also convinced [[George Burns]] and [[Gracie Allen]] and [[Bing Crosby]] to join his move.<ref>{{cite news |work=[[The New York Times]]|title=Fred Allen Signed by NBC for Next Season. New Competition for Benny Program|page=28|date=1949-03-19|quote=Fred Allen has signed a contract which commits his services in both radio and television for next season exclusively to the National Broadcasting Company.}}</ref>

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 with the famed "Allen's Alley" skits now taking place on "Main Street" 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.

==="Feud" with Jack Benny===
[[File:Fred Allen Earl Wilson 1949.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Allen and columnist [[Earl Wilson (columnist)|Earl Wilson]], 1949]]
Good friends in real life, Fred Allen and [[Jack Benny]] inadvertently hatched a running gag in 1937 when a child prodigy, the violinist [[Stuart Canin]], gave a very credible performance on the Allen show and inspired an Allen wisecrack about "a certain alleged violinist" who should hide in shame over his poor playing. Allen often mentioned his show-business friends on the air ("Mr. Jacob Haley of Newton Highlands, Massachusetts" was Allen's way of saying hello to his pal [[Jack Haley]]), and on the Canin broadcast Allen knew Benny would be listening. Benny, according to Allen biographer Taylor, burst out laughing, then responded in kind on his own program. The rivalry gag went on for a decade and convinced some fans that the two comedians really were blood enemies.

The Allen-Benny feud was the longest-playing, best-remembered dialogic running gag in classic radio history.<ref>By far the longest-running sound gag in radio had to be [[Fibber McGee and Molly|Fibber McGee]]'s clattering cluttered closet</ref> The gag even pushed toward a boxing match between the two comedians and the promised event was a sellout, but the match never occurred. The pair even appeared together in films, including ''[[Love Thy Neighbor (1940 film)|Love Thy Neighbor]]'' (1940) and ''[[It's in the Bag!]]'' (1945), Allen's only starring vehicle, also featuring [[William Bendix]], [[Robert Benchley]], and [[Jerry Colonna (entertainer)|Jerry Colonna]]. He also starred with [[Oscar Levant]] in 20th Century-Fox's anthology film ''[[O. Henry's Full House]]'', in ''[[The Ransom of Red Chief]]''.

Some of the feud's highlights involved [[Al Boasberg]], who is credited with helping Benny refine his character into what may have been America's first [[stand-up comedian]]. Boasberg was well known behind the scenes as a top comedy writer and script doctor, but he seldom received recognition in public. He worked, uncredited, on many films (including [[the Marx Brothers]]' hits ''[[A Night at the Opera (film)|A Night at the Opera]]'' and ''[[A Day at the Races (film)|A Day at the Races]]''). Steaming mad because of his long battles for recognition, Boasberg was said to have delivered a tirade that ended up (in slightly altered form) in an Allen-Benny feud routine:

<blockquote>ALLEN: Why, you fugitive from a Ripley cartoon ... I'll knock you flatter than the first eight minutes of this program.

BENNY: You ought to do well in pictures, Mr. Allen, now that [[Boris Karloff]] is back in England.

ALLEN: Why, if I was a horse, a pony even, and found out that any part of my tail was used in your violin bow, I'd hang my head in my oatbag from then on.</blockquote>

Benny's side of the feud included a tart interpretation of Allen's ''Town Hall Tonight'' show, which Benny and company called "Clown Hall Tonight." A signature element of the feud was that, whenever one guested on the other's shows, the host would tend to hand the guest the best lines of the night. (Both Benny and Allen revealed later that each man's writers consulted with each other on routines involving the feud.)

They toned the gag down after 1941, though they kept it going often enough as the years continued, climaxing on Allen's May 26, 1946 show, in which a sketch called "King for a Day," satirizing big-money game shows, featured Benny pretending to be a contestant named Myron Proudfoot on Allen's new quiz show.

<blockquote>ALLEN: Tomorrow night, in your ermine robe, you will be whisked by bicycle to [[Orange, New Jersey]], where you will be the judge in a chicken-cleaning contest.

BENNY (rapturously): I'm ''King'' for a Day!

[Allen proceeds to have Benny's clothes pressed:]

ALLEN: And that's not all!

BENNY:  There's more?

ALLEN: Yes! Upon our stage we have a Hoffman pressing machine.

BENNY: Now wait a minute! Wait a minute!

ALLEN: An expert operating the Hoffman pressing machine will press your trousers in seconds.

BENNY: Now ''wait'' a minute! (total audience hysteria and laughter, as Benny's pants are literally removed)

ALLEN: Quiet, King!

BENNY: Come on, Allen, gimme my pants!

ALLEN: Keep your shirt on, King.

BENNY: You ''bet'' I'll keep my shirt on!

ALLEN: We're a little late, folks! Tune in next week –

BENNY: Allen, this is a frame... (starts laughing himself) Where are my pants?

ALLEN: Benny, for 15 years I've been waiting to catch you like this!

BENNY: Allen, you haven't seen the ''end'' of me!

ALLEN:  ''It won't be long now!''

BENNY: I want my pants!</blockquote>

Allen and Benny could not resist one more play on the feud on Allen's final show. Benny appeared as a skinflint bank manager and mortgage company owner bedeviling [[Henry Morgan (comedian)|Henry Morgan]]. Typically, Allen handed Benny the show's best crack: "''Nobody'' ever made me ''this'' cheap on my ''own'' program!"

Benny even used the feud on his TV show, when Fred Allen appeared as a special guest in 1953. The program depicted Benny and Allen as rivals for the sponsor's favors. When the sponsor pointed out that Benny was also a musician, Allen countered with a passage on his clarinet.

As Benny said in his co-memoir, ''Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story'', "[T]he sky was the limit. Or rather, the mud was the limit."

Benny was profoundly shaken by Allen's sudden death from a heart attack in 1956. In a statement released the day after Allen's death, Benny said, "People have often asked me if Fred Allen and I were really friends in real life. My answer is always the same. You couldn't have such a long-running and successful feud as we did, without having a deep and sincere friendship at the heart of it."

===Censorship===
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[[File:Fred Allen-Man playing the tuba..jpg|right|thumb|upright|Allen playing the tuba, date unknown.]]
Allen may have battled censors more than most of his radio contemporaries. "Fred Allen's fourteen-year battle with radio censorship," wrote the ''[[New York Herald-Tribune]]'' critic John Crosby, "was made particularly difficult for him by the fact that the man assigned to reviewing his scripts had little sense of humor and frankly admitted he didn't understand Allen's peculiar brand of humor at all." Among the [[blue pencil (editing)|blue pencils]], according to Crosby, were:

* At the time of socialite [[Brenda Frazier]]'s wedding, Allen was barred from saying "Brenda never looked lovelier" unless he could get direct permission from the Frazier family.
* Allen was ordered to change the Cockney accent that he assigned the character of a first mate aboard the ''Queen Mary'' on the grounds that the ship's first mate had to be a cultured man, who might not like a Cockney accent.
* Allen had to fight to keep Mrs. Nussbaum in the Allen's Alley routines because NBC feared Jewish-dialect humor "might offend all Jews" although Jewish dialect humor had been a vaudeville and burlesque staple for years.
* Allen was ordered never to mention the fictitious town of North Wrinkle unless it could be proven that no such town existed.

"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.

===Life after the Alley===
[[File:Fred Allen Edgar Bergen Charlie McCarthy 1946.JPG|thumb|upright|right|[[Charlie McCarthy]], [[Edgar Bergen]] and Allen, 1946]]
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 some ways, ''The Big Show'' was an offspring of the old Allen show; his one-time ''Texaco Star Theater'' announcer, Jimmy Wallington, was one of ''The Big Show'''s announcers, and Portland Hoffa made several appearances with him as well. On the show's premiere, Allen, with a little prodding from head writer [[Goodman Ace]], could not resist one more play on the old Allen-Benny "feud," a riotous parody of Benny's show called "The Pinch Penny Program."