Bob and Ray Tonight: "Lucky Phone Call" (plus an encore presentation of "The Cranberry Man")

At the moment our host doesn't seem to be loading audio or video files. Well, this too shall pass. (I hope.) -- Ken



With the addition now of the above photo (from Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray), I thought it was worth what the Car Talk guys would call "an encore presentation" of Wally Ballou's Times Square interview of Floyd Smith, the cranberry grower, from the Original Broadway Cast album of Bob and Ray: The Two and Only. And now we proceed to tonight's new business, a Bob and Ray "Lucky Phone Call." -- Ken


FOR TONIGHT'S "LUCKY PHONE CALL," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Bob and Ray Tonight: Part 2 of "Spelling Bee" -- the annual Bob and Ray Grand National Spelling Bee Contest (plus Bulletin No. 4)

Bulletin No. 4 (see Bulletin No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3)

"We are ready to go round in our second, deciding go-round in our Grand National Semifinal Spelling Bee. Our contestants are still bickering among themselves about the unfortunate fact that two of them drew hard words and one of them drew an easy word in the first round."

-- Bob, in tonight's Part 2 of "Spelling Bee"

by Ken

Last night, in Part 1 of "Spelling Bee," we witnessed the thrill-packed and controversial first round of the finals of the annual Bob and Ray Grand National Spelling Bee Contest. Contestants Betsy Ross (representing the middle Atlantic states) and Benjamin Franklin (replacing the scheduled Russell Plume representing the Southern states) seemed to feel that, even though the contestants were picking their own words blindly from the "barrel of words," third contestant Paul G. Revere (representing the Western states) was receiving unfairly favored treatment, simply because they were receiving words like "paleolithic" and "interfenestration," while Paul Revere's word was "who."

That spitfire Betsy Ross went so far as to ask, "What kind of badger game is this?" As we left last night, we were going to commercial before returning for the second and final round.


FOR PART 2 OF "SPELLING BEE," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Bob and Ray Tonight: Part 1 of "Spelling Bee" -- the annual Bob and Ray Grand National Spelling Bee Contest (plus Bulletin No. 3)

Bulletin No. 3 (see Bulletin No. 1 and Bulletin No. 2)

BOB: Russell Plume, are you here?
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: Russell couldn't be here.
BOB: Well, Russell was the Southern states champion . . . Well, who are you?
FRANKLIN: I'm Benjamin Franklin from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and I'm gonna substitute for him.

-- from tonight's installment of "Spelling Bee"

Now you know that a spelling bee chez Bob and Ray isn't going to be like any other kind of spelling bee. This one gets so out of control that I've had to split it into two parts. -- Ken


FOR PART 1 OF "SPELLING BEE," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PEELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Bob and Ray Tonight: "Emergency Ward" (plus Bulletin No. 2)

Bulletin No. 2 (see Bulletin No. 1)

DOCTOR GERHART SNUTTON (HANDSOME YOUNG PHYSICIAN): Carrying the burden of mankind's survival is serious business, Nurse Rudehouse. But I think I've made a major breakthrough. Yesterday, I injected germs of the common cold into sixteen charity patients. And would you believe that every one of them is sneezing and sniffling today?
NURSE RUDEHOUSE (HIS ASSISTANT): Well, yes, I'd believe it. In fact, I don't see anything very thrilling or surprising about it at all.
SNUTTON: Nurse Rudehouse, if you want thrills and surprises, go to Disneyland. Medical science offers nothing but hard work.

-- from "Emergency Ward"

by Ken

There are a number of pieces in Write If You Get Work where the printed version gives no indication as to who -- i.e., Bob or Ray -- takes which part(s). This used to frustrate me, but now I find it a plus, because it makes it possible to imagine each part done by both. This might at first seem to change the piece dramatically, but actually playing multiple versions in my head, I realize it really doesn't. Oh, you would get differences of emphasis and momentary effect, but I'll bet the overall result would have changed surprisingly little.

In "Emergency Ward," for example, the female part of Nurse Rudehouse naturally suggests to me Ray, which would leave handsome young physician Doctor Gerhart Snutton to Bob, and it's certainly not hard at all to hear the piece that way. But it occurs to me that it's also not hard to hear the roles reversed. And since the man with the unfortunate facial misalignment would have been done by whoever did Nurse Rudehouse, that role too would be flipflopped, to intriguing effect. It would be different, yes, but at the same time remarkably undifferent.

Which raises the interesting question of the writing process. I imagine that generally when the fellows were writing they had a clear idea of who would do which voices, but there were other times when they didn't, and perhaps more times when in the course of writing and preparing a daily radio show they changed their minds in the face of all the rigors of getting the show produced. It seems likely that a fair number of such decisions were made, and changed, on the fly.


TO SAMPLE LIFE IN THE BOB AND RAY
"EMERGENCY WARD," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Bob and Ray Tonight: "Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy" (plus Bulletin)

"A blue moon over salmon-pink mountains [isn't] a drink, my good man. I thought you were one of our agents, so I gave you the secret greeting. You see, I'm Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy. Here's my business card."

-- Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy, in "Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy"

by Ken

Luckily I haven't kept count, so I couldn't tell you if I wanted to how many times I've reread, in whole or in part, last night's "Bob and Ray Tonight" offering, the stupendous foreword that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. provided for Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray, with such gently fond remembrance of that Bob and Ray radio broadcast he witnessed the day he was ostensibly there to talk about a writing job, mingled with the undiminished awe he felt at the wonders he witnessed; and the witness he bore to the boys' puzzling melancholy; and finally the eerily accurate appreciation of their humor, culminating in the speculation:

Man is not evil, they seem to say. He is simply too hilariously stupid to survive.

And this I believe.

"Too hilariously stupid" indeed!

As for Kurt's description of Bob and Ray's characters as "almost always fourth-rate or below, engaged in enterprises which, if not contemptible, are at least insane," people who "threaten to wreck themselves and their surroundings with their own stupidity," well, meet Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy.


FOR THE FINE POINTS OF SPYCRAFT
BOB AND RAY-STYLE, CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Bob and Ray Tonight: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. remembers being interviewed for a job by the fellows

[Bob and Ray's jokes] feature Americans who are almost always fourth-rate or below, engaged in enterprises which, if not contemptible, are at least insane.

And while other comedians show us persons tormented by bad luck and enemies and so on, Bob and Ray's characters threaten to wreck themselves and their surroundings with their own stupidity. There is a refreshing and beautiful innocence in Bob's and Ray's humor.

Man is not evil, they seem to say. He is simply too hilariously stupid to survive.

And this I believe.

-- from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Foreword to
Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray

by Ken

In most anybody else's book, this line on the copyright page might be the funniest thing in it, attributing copyright to a pair of dubious characters name of "Robert B. Elliott" and "Raymond W. Goulding." Coupla bankster exec types? FBI agents, maybe? (No, but they probably played them at some point on radio or TV.) This isn't anybody else's book, though, it's Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray (Random House, 1975).

And the book came rigged out with a foreword by one of the few people on the planet who might fairly be described as "Bob and Ray-worthy," the great Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Could there be a better way to kick off this siege of "Bob and Ray Tonight"? (Note: For a listing of previous "Bob and Ray Tonight" offerings, check out the series index.)


FOR KURT VONNEGUT JR.'S FOREWORD, CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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[8/26/2011] Bob and Ray Tonight: "Lucky Phone Call" (plus an encore presentation of "The Cranberry Man") (continued)

GEORGE E. PORGY: I'm a dessert man. I make mostly puddings and pies. Is this Ray?
BOB: No, this is Bob.
PORGY: I can never tell you fellows apart.

-- from "Lucky Phone Call"

from Write If You Get Work:
The Best of Bob and Ray (1975)

BOB: Here we go to dial Oakland, California, selected scientifically for our Bob and Ray Lucky Phone Call. Let's hope our lucky recipient is home to receive our award.

[Sound: Dialing phone, phone buzz, pickup of phone]

VOICE: Hello?
BOB: Hello, is this Oakland 3-2135?
VOICE: Let me check . . . yeah, this is it.
BOB Well, we have the right number, let's hope we have the right man. This is Bob and Ray calling from New York, sir. It's our lucky phone call if you are Mr. G. E. Porgy. Is that right, sir?
PORGY: That's right, I am.
BOB: Congratulations, you have received the Bob and Ray Lucky Phone Call. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Mr. Porgy. What's your first name?
PORGY: George. What I do, I'm working at the Top of the Roof restaurant in San Francisco.
BOB: I've been there many times. Are you a waiter?
PORGY: I'm a dessert man. I make mostly puddings and pies. Is this Ray?
BOB: No, this is Bob.
PORGY: I can never tell you fellows apart.
BOB: George E. Porgy, can you tell us how long you have been at the Top of the Roof, and how long you have been in the dessert business?
PORGY: I've been making pudding and pies ever since I got out of cooks and bakers school in the service in World War I.
BOB: Do you kiss the waitresses and make them cry?
PORGY: Ha-ha. They giggle, they giggle. When I come out of the kitchen to kiss one of the waitresses or one of the patrons, they all kind of giggle and laugh.
BOB: Well, it's the personal touch that has endeared you and the Top of the Roof restaurant . . .
PORGY: The whole gang here including the dishwasher and the salad man are wondering what I am going to get because of the Lucky Phone Call. They are all pretty excited.
BOB: Right.
PORGY: What time is it back there?
BOB: Three hours' difference.
PORGY: Wow!
BOB: George, nice to talk to you and congratulations again on being our Lucky Phone Call recipient. The first one of this month, in fact.
PORGY: What will I get? They are all wondering.
BOB: You are going to get a season pass to the Bob and Ray Show. You can come to any one or to all, if you would rather, here at the studio.
PORGY [pause]: If you ever come out here . . .
BOB: So long to Mr. George E. Porgy in Oakland, Calif --
PORGY: . . . I'll punch you right in your nose. I wish you would fly out at my expense.
BOB: That's about all the time we have for the phone call.
PORGY [to his co-workers]: I'm gonna get a season pass to those bums!
BOB: Now he is telling the good news to those folks out there. So long, sir, and so much for this Lucky Phone Call!

* * *

TOMORROW NIGHT: A Sunday Classics Preview of Beethoven's elegant introductions


SUNDAY NIGHT: Again with a hat tip to the Car Talk guys, we kick off a week of "Thurber Tonight" encore presentations with "The Night the Bed Fell" from My Life and Hard Times


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/25/2011] Bob and Ray Tonight: Part 2 of "Spelling Bee" -- the annual Bob and Ray Grand National Spelling Bee Contest (continued)

Be sure to avail yourself of the unique one-stop services of John's Shoelace Emporium, in the little brick building with the crooked chimney over behind the parking lot next to the five-and-ten.


"I go along with Miss Ross to a degree. It seems like she and I drew the long straws."

-- contestant Benjamin Franklin

from Write If You Get Work:
The Best of Bob & Ray (1975)

Part 2

BOB: Men! Have you looked at your shoelaces lately?
RAY: Everyone else does! Are they dirty, frayed or lacking tips?
BOB: If so, why not stop by John's Shoelace Emporium and get a cheerful free estimate?
RAY: John will personally explain how his unique, one-stop service works. You simply come in, enter one of the little booths numbered one through two. John will remove your laces and wash them in hot sudsy water . . . then pat them dry on a warm Turkish towel.
BOB: Your shoelaces are then hand-ironed by a little old lady. If you need new metal tips, John will attend to that before returning them to you.
RAY: That's John's Shoelace Emporium, in the little brick building with the crooked chimney over behind the parking lot next to the five-and-ten.
BOB: The price for all this service? Only $5.75!

[Murmuring of the three contestants in background]
BOB: Here with our three regional champions, Miss Ross, Mr. Revere and Mr. Franklin, we are ready to go round in our second, deciding go-round in our Grand National Semifinal Spelling Bee. Our contestants are still bickering among themselves about the unfortunate fact that two of them drew hard words and one of them drew an easy word in the first round. Remember, for a right spelling . . .
[Tinkle of bell]
And for a wrong spelling . . .
[Buzzer]
Here we go with our second round, and our lady, Miss Betsy Ross, is first. Will you reach into the barrel?
ROSS: Here you are.
BOB: This time, Miss Ross -- and this is the deciding word for you -- your word is "propinquity" . . . a nearness.
ROSS [exasperated]: "Propinquity"! How come he got "who" and I get words like that?
BOB: You pick the words yourself, ma'am.
ROSS [angry]: What's it mean?
BOB: It means a nearness.
ROSS: Propinquity . . . P-R-O-P-I-N-G—
[Buzzer]
BOB: No, it looks like a "G" the way some people write, but it's wrong the way you spelled it. So I'm afraid you're out, Miss Ross, but our congratulations for putting up a good fight.
ROSS: I didn't put up any good fight, I'm just trying to save my skin.
BOB: Let's move to the regional champion from the South, being represented by a proxy, Mr. Benjamin Franklin.
FRANKLIN: I go along with Miss Ross to a degree. It seems like she and I drew the long straws.
BOB: Well, you did get a difficult word as opposed to an easy one for Mr. Revere in the first round. Let's see if you can do any better this time. You have chosen the word "proximity."
ROSS: That's a pretty difficult word, too.
FRANKLIN: Proximity . . . P-R-O-X-I-M-I- --
[Buzzer]
BOB: No, no, you were going to spell it wrong, I could tell.
FRANKLIN: L? B?
BOB: P-R-O-X-I-M-I-T-Y would be your word . . .
ROSS [interrupting]: What do you mean, you thought he was going to spell it wrong? You had that buzzer going before he had two letters out. I don't know what's going on.
BOB: If our West Coast champion, Mr. Paul G. Revere, can spell his word correctly, he remains . . .
REVERE [laughing]: They are some sore losers there.
BOB [with a laugh]: That's right, they are, Mr. Revere. You have chosen your word and if you can spell it correctly, that means you are the standard bearer, the champion of our semifinals, and will go on to our final round in New York. The word you have chosen is "far," the opposite of near.
ROSS [interrupting]: Wait a minute, are you related or what?
BOB: Go ahead, Mr. Revere, and please, Miss Ross, be polite.
REVERE: Far . . . F-A-R.
[Tinkle of bell]
BOB: That is right. I want to congratulate you, and I know that Ray does too. Tell us what you do, Mr. Revere.
REVERE: I own a theater out in Elmont.
BOB: One of the most popular ones in Elmont, I understand.
REVERE: We are certainly looking forward to you two fellows when you come out there.
BOB: We certainly appreciated the booking when we heard from you. Thanks for being in our semifinal spelling bee, and you'll go along to the finals, and I think your luck will be pretty good, Mr. Revere.

* * *

TOMORROW IN BOB AND RAY TONIGHT: "Lucky Phone Call" (plus "an encore presentation" of "The Cranberry Man"


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/24/2011] Bob and Ray Tonight: Part 1 of "Spelling Bee" -- the annual Bob and Ray Grand National Spelling Bee Contest (continued)

"What kind of a badger game is this?"

-- contestant Betsy Ross, in tonight's installment of "Spelling Bee"

from Write If You Get Work:
The Best of Bob & Ray (1975)

Part 1

RAY: Well, Bob, it's that time again, the finals of the annual Bob and Ray Grand National Spelling Bee Contest. Do you happen to have the regional winners here?
BOB: Our three regional semifinalists arrived here in New York last week. I wonder if you will step up to our microphones and identify yourselves. You are . . . ?
BETSY ROSS: I'm Betsy W. Ross from Fredericksburg, Maryland.
BOB: You're the winner from the middle Atlantic states?
BETSY ROSS: That's right.
BOB: Russell Plume, are you here?
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: Russell couldn't be here.
BOB: Well, Russell was the Southern states champion . . . Well, who are you?
FRANKLIN: I'm Benjamin Franklin from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and I'm gonna substitute for him.
BOB: Well, who do you represent?
FRANKLIN: I'll represent the Southern states, if I may.
BOB: And our last contestant from the West Coast . . .
PAUL G. REVERE: Paul G. Revere.
BOB: Paul G. Revere.
REVERE: From Elmont, Utah.
BOB: All right, you two gentlemen and the lady are the regional winners, and as you know, we are going to give you one round of words in the first go-around in our national semifinals. If you answer correctly, you will hear . . .
[Sound: Tinkle of bell]
And if you answer wrong, it's . . .
[Sound: Buzzer]
Now the words will be chosen out of this barrel which has been turned over so that they are all mixed up, and I think we will let our lady go first. Miss Ross, will you pick your first word?
ROSS: All right, here you are.
BOB: Your word, Miss Ross, is "Paleolithic."
ROSS: Paleolithic.
BOB: Pertaining to an era in the development of this earth.
ROSS: Capital P-A-L-E-O-L-I-T-H-I . . . M.
[Buzzer]
BOB: No, I'm sorry, the last letter should have been "C," Miss Ross. Better luck next time in the second round. Let's move along with Mr. Plume, or rather Mr. Plume's proxy . . .
FRANKLIN: Franklin.
BOB: Mr. Benjamin Franklin, you will have to reach in and hand me the word.
FRANKLIN:: Okay, here you are.
BOB: The word you have chosen from our barrel of words is "Interfenestration," the spacing of windows.
FRANKLIN: Interfenestration . . . I-N-T-E-R-F-E-N-E-S-T-R-A-T-I-O . . . B.
[Buzzer]
BOB: No, I'm sorry, you missed by one letter, Mr. Franklin. The last letter is "N." You'll take your seat next to Miss Ross, and our final semifinalist is Mr. Revere of Elmont, Utah. Will you hand me your word?
REVERE: Sure.
BOB: Your word is the interrogative "Who."
ROSS [interrupting]: Now, wait a minute!
BOB: Give him a chance.
ROSS: Well, I had a real tough one!
BOB: I'm sorry, but you choose your own words.
REVERE: Who . . . W-H-O.
[Tinkle of bell]
BOB: "Who" is right.
ROSS: What kind of a badger game is this? I had "Paleolithic" and he had "interfenestration."
BOB: And so that makes Paul Revere the winner of round one.
ROSS: And this big lunkhead gets "who."
BOB: And we will be back with round two after this commercial.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

TOMORROW NIGHT IN PART 2 OF BOB AND RAY'S "SPELLING BEE": Will Paul Revere continue his domination over Betsy Ross and Benjamin Franklin in round two? And what will the commercial be?


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/23/2011] Bob and Ray Tonight: "Emergency Ward" (plus Bulletin No. 2) (continued)

"Nurse Rudehouse, the mere fact that we've been finding excuses to meet secretly in the intensive care unit doesn't alter our professional relationship. I'll make the decisions here, but not until this man has undergone several days of tests."

-- handsome young physician Doctor Gerhart Snutton

from Write If You Get Work:
The Best of Bob & Ray (1975)

[Dramatic theme music. Establish and under for]
ANNOUNCER: And now the United States Mint, one of the nation's leading producers of authentic new money, presents another thrilling story from the files of . . . The Emergency Ward.
[Theme music up briefly and then out]
SNUTTON: Greetings . . . and welcome. I am Doctor Gerhart Snutton, handsome young physician who has not yet established a practice of his own. Instead, I work in the emergency ward of a big city hospital. The emergency ward is a place where tense drama unfolds twenty-four hours a day. Take the other evening, for example. I was sitting in the office, anxiously scanning the report on my latest medical experiment, when my assistant, Nurse Rudehouse, turned to me and said . . .
RUDEHOUSE [falsetto]: Why do you always look so anxious when you scan the reports of your latest medical experiments, Doctor?
SNUTTON: Because carrying the burden of mankind's survival is serious business, Nurse Rudehouse. But I think I've made a major breakthrough. Yesterday, I injected germs of the common cold into sixteen charity patients. And would you believe that every one of them is sneezing and sniffling today?
RUDEHOUSE: Well, yes, I'd believe it. In fact, I don't see anything very thrilling or surprising about it at all.
SNUTTON: Nurse Rudehouse, if you want thrills and surprises, go to Disneyland. Medical science offers nothing but hard work.
[Sound: Door opens and closes]
MAN [very nasal]: Excuse me. Is this the emergency ward of a big city hospital?
SNUTTON: Yes, and I am Doctor Gerhart Snutton, handsome young physician who has not yet established a practice of his own. This charming creature at my side is Nurse Rudehouse.
MAN: Pleased to meet you. My name is --
SNUTTON: It's very hard to understand you, my good man. I wish you'd look at me when you speak.
MAN: I am looking at you, Doc. I just seem to be pointed off some other way because my nose is bent over to one side like this.
SNUTTON: Yes. I see now. And unfortunately, there are many possible causes of your illness that I'll have to check out before I can make a firm diagnosis.
MAN: Well, I know the cause. I had my nose pressed against a store window trying to read a price tag that was turned the other way. And I must have pressed too hard because I felt everything slip out of joint in there.
SNUTTON: I'm afraid that's not a very scientific explanation of what happened.
RUDEHOUSE: Well, it sounds logical enough to me. They're always turning price tags around in store windows so you can't read them.
SNUTTON: Nurse Rudehouse, the mere fact that we've been finding excuses to meet secretly in the intensive care unit doesn't alter our professional relationship. I'll make the decisions here, but not until this man has undergone several days of tests.
RUDEHOUSE: Well, that's silly. His nose is just out of joint.
SNUTTON: Stop jumping to unscientific conclusions. For all we know, his entire face could be starting to slip to one side.
MAN: Hey, while you people are fighting, do you mind if I look at the little babies through this window here?
SNUTTON: Do whatever you like. It'll take a while to fill out your admitting forms anyway . . . Nurse Rudehouse, I'll need a standard 5126 questionnaire and --
[Sound: Loud metallic boing]
MAN [natural voice]: Hey, look! I had my nose pressed up against the glass looking at the babies -- and it snapped right back to normal.
SNUTTON: Well, that's not too difficult for a doctor to understand. A dislocated nose often corrects itself when you exert pressure in the opposite direction.
MAN: Yeah. I can see that now. What do I owe you, Doc?
SNUTTON: Well, I hadn't actually begun work on your questionnaire. So I guess a dollar should do it.
MAN: Okay. Here you are -- and thanks a lot. Goodbye.
[Sound: footsteps. Then door opens and closes]
SNUTTON: Well, Nurse Rudehouse, my natural gift for healing has saved another helpless soul. So just write down in our case book: "Patient released -- cured."
[Bring theme music in under]
ANNOUNCER: And so another milestone in medicine is reached. Join us again soon when the United States Mint, makers and distributors of money, bring you more exciting drama from the files of . . . The Emergency Ward.
[Theme music up briefly and then out]

* * *

TOMORROW IN BOB AND RAY TONIGHT: Part 1 of "Spelling Bee"


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/22/2011] Bob and Ray Tonight: "Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy" (continued)

"You've just enabled me to identify [the spy] as one of those forty sailors. I'm sure when I file my daily report, this will bring me a commendation from the home office, saying: 'Foreign agent cleverly spotted by Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy.'"

-- from "Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy"

from Write If You Get Work:
The Best of Bob & Ray (1975)

[Dramatic theme music. Establish and under for]
ANNOUNCER: And now the makers of Tingle -- the long-wearing dental floss created from spun glass fiber -- invite you to join us for another exciting adventure of Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy.
[Theme music up briefly and then out]
LITZINGER: My name is Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy. I work with quiet efficiency on some of the toughest espionage assignments our government can hand out. Recently, we got word that a hostile foreign power was trying to crack the secret code that our Navy uses in the Pacific. It was my job to find out if the enemy had been successful. So I went to an island near the Philippines where foreign ships refuel -- and made my way to a tavern that I knew was a favorite hangout for visiting sailors . . .
[Sound: General crowd noise under and hold for]
BARTENDER: What'll it be, Mac? Beer?
LITZINGER: A blue moon over salmon-pink mountains.
BARTENDER: Sorry. I don't know much about making those fancy cocktails. What's in it?
LITZINGER: Oh, that's not a drink, my good man. I thought you were one of our agents, so I gave you the secret greeting. You see, I'm Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy. Here's my business card.

BARTENDER: That's very interesting. I never saw a business card laid out this way -- with the phone number in the middle. Thirteen -- ten -- twenty-one --
LITZINGER: Oh, that's not my phone number. That's my name printed in the secret code our Navy uses here in the Pacific. I had those cards made up as sort of a gag to hand out to my fellow agents. They appreciate a good laugh.
BARTENDER: Oh, me, too. Of course, I don't get the full benefit of the joke because I don't know the code. But I assume the thirteen is the first letter in your name, and ten is the second, and like that.
LITZINGER: Yes. It's really quite simple. You just number the let
ters of the alphabet from one to twenty-six -- and then add 1 
to each number so it becomes a code that's impossible to
 crack.
BARTENDER: Oh, I get it. Your name's Litzinger. And "L" is the twelfth letter in the alphabet. But you add one to make it thirteen. And then the letter "I" is --
LITZINGER: Well, you don't need to work out the whole thing. It's just a dull job once you know how the code operates.
BARTENDER: Gee, I don't think it's dull. I like working puzzles. In fact, my employer gives prizes to us for figuring out things like this.
LITZINGER: Really? Is the contest open to anyone?
BARTENDER: No, I don't think you could enter. You see, the answers all have to be put on microfilm and then sent to a secret address in the capital city of a hostile country.
LITZINGER: Hmm. That's a rather complicated way to run a prize contest. It's almost like our espionage operation.
BARTENDER: Yeah. It's almost like ours, too . . . Incidentally, what's this number 1 here on the card in the middle of your name?
LITZINGER: Oh, that's the "Z" in Litzginer. You see, "Z" is the last letter in the alphabet. So when you add one to it, that puts you back at the beginning again.
BARTENDER: Hey, that's clever. It might have taken me several minutes to figure that out if you hadn't told me.
LITZINGER: Well, of course, after you'd gotten all the other letters in my name, you'd have known that the middle one had to be a "Z."
BARTENDER: Yeah. That's the way I would have figured it out all right. But as I say, it might have taken several minutes. And I want to hurry and get this microfilmed so I can ship it out on the last submarine leaving tonight.
LITZINGER: That's strange. I didn't see any submarines anchored in the harbor.
BARTENDER: Oh, well, you wouldn't have seen this one. It's right underneath one of your battleships.
LITZINGER: I see. And I suppose the sailors in here with funny lettering on their caps are the crewmen.
BARTENDER: Yeah, all but one of them. He's assigned to keep an eye on you.
LITZINGER: Really? I suspected there might be a spy in here somewhere -- and you've just enabled me to identify him as one of those forty sailors. I'm sure when I file my daily report, this will bring me a commendation from the home office, saying: "Foreign agent cleverly spotted by Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy."
[Theme music. Establish and under for]
ANNOUNCER: Friends, we know how much you've enjoyed this fine dramatic program. So why not show your appreciation by stocking up now on our sponsor's fine product -- Tingle. And join us soon for more exciting adventures in the career of . . . Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy.
[Theme music up briefly and then out]

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TOMORROW IN BOB AND RAY TONIGHT: "Emergency Ward"


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[8/21/2011] Bob and Ray Tonight: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. remembers being interviewed for a job by the fellows (continued)

"One of the bits, I remember, was about selling advertising space on the sides of the Bob and Ray Satellite, which was going to be orbited only twenty-eight feet off the ground."

-- from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Foreword

from Write If You Get Work:
The Best of Bob & Ray (1975)

It is the truth: Comedians and jazz musicians have been more comforting and enlightening to me than preachers or politicians or philosophers or poets or painters or novelists of my time. Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz.

And if they know what they are doing, they will have especially respectful words for Bob and Ray, whose book this is. They will say, among other things, that Bob and Ray's jokes were remarkably literary, being fun to read as well as to hear. They may note, too, that Bob and Ray had such energy and such a following that they continued to create marvelous material for radio at a time when radio creatively was otherwise dead.

I have listened to Bob and Ray for years and years now -- in New England, in New York City. We are about the same age, which means that we were inspired by roughly the same saints -- Jack Benny, Fred Allen, W. C. Fields, Stoopnagle and Bud, and on and on. And my collected works would fill Oliver Hardy's derby, whereas theirs would fill the Astrodome.

This book contains about one ten-thousandth of their output, I would imagine. And it might be exciting to say that it represents the cream of the cream of the cream of their jokes. But the truth is that there has been an amazing evenness to their performances. I recall a single broadcast of ten years ago, for example, which might have made a book nearly as pleasant as this one.

I was in the studio when I heard it -- and saw it, too. I was supposedly applying for a job as a writer for Bob and Ray. We meant to talk about the job in between comedy bits, when the microphones were dead. One of the bits, I remember, was about selling advertising space on the sides of the Bob and Ray Satellite, which was going to be orbited only twenty-eight feet off the ground.

There was an announcement, too, about the Bob and Ray Overstocked Surplus Warehouse, which was crammed with sweaters emblazoned with the letter "O." If your name didn't begin with "O," they said, they could have it legally changed for you.

And so on.

There was an episode from Mary Backstayge. Mary's actor husband, Harry, was trying to get a part in a play. His big talent, according to his supporters, was that he was wonderful at memorizing things.

There was an animal imitator who said that a pig went "oink oink," and a cow went "moo" and that a rooster went "cock-a-doodle-doo."

I very nearly popped a gut. I am pathetically vulnerable to jokes such as these. I expect to be killed by laughter sooner or later. And I told Bob and Ray that I could never write anything as funny as what I had heard on what was for them a perfectly ordinary day.

*

I was puzzled that day by Bob's and Ray's melancholy. It seemed to me that they should be the happiest people on earth, but looks of sleepy ruefulness crossed their faces like clouds from time to time. I have seen those same clouds at subsequent encounters -- and only now do I have a theory to explain them:

I surmise that Bob and Ray feel accursed sometimes -- like crewmen on the Flying Dutchman or caged squirrels on an exercise wheel. They are so twangingly attuned to their era and to each other that they can go on being extremely funny almost indefinitely.

Such an unlimited opportunity to make people happy must become profoundly pooping by and by.

*

It occurs to me, too, as I look through this marvelous book, that Bob and Ray's jokes are singularly burglar-proof. They aren't like most other comedians' jokes these days, aren't rooted in show business and the world of celebrities and news of the day. They feature Americans who are almost always fourth-rate or below, engaged in enterprises which, if not contemptible, are at least insane.

And while other comedians show us persons tormented by bad luck and enemies and so on, Bob and Ray's characters threaten to wreck themselves and their surroundings with their own stupidity. There is a refreshing and beautiful innocence in Bob's and Ray's humor.

Man is not evil, they seem to say. He is simply too hilariously stupid to survive.

And this I believe.

Cheers.

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TOMORROW IN BOB AND RAY TONIGHT: "Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy"


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