I grew up in that magical envelope where everybody knew who Garry Moore was; for years I'd begun to wonder if he even existed, you never heard anything about him. Even with Bullwinkle reruns constantly using the pun for his less-famous sidekick. One of my earliest childhood records is Garry, telling the story of "Tommy's Tin Whistle".
As a radio guy, I always remember the story about the man who worked overnights on a radio station, and used his audience to show his bosses the power of radio, particularly fringe-time radio. He told them to call their bookstores, and ask for a copy of the book, I, Libertine...which did not actually exist. His listeners got the book onto best-seller lists, despite nobody being able to get one from distributors. It received reviews. It may or may not have gotten onto the New York Times Best Seller List. It became so ersatz-popular, eventually Theodore Sturgeon had to write a book using that title! As a guy whose grandmother's maiden name was Shepherd - with an uncle named Gene, no less - I was always curious about this little-known radio comedian I never actually encountered. As a fellow Hoosier...the neighborhoods in A Christmas Story bore a fascinating resemblance to the world I grew up in, even if he was from Hammond, and I was from Terre Haute.
(“Lonesome”) George Gobel hosted his own variety/comedy show on TV, but is probably best known now for the clip of Carson’s Tonight Show with Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Gobel, and, I think, others; pretty much a free for all.
That was another accomplishment of Shep's, the I, Libertine hoax, which he started when he was looking for a book & was told by the bookseller that it didn't exist because it wasn't on the Best Seller List.
I watched the two color seasons of The Joey Bishop Show, which are kind of neat. A lot of Bishop's contemporaries would get featured in various roles, big and small, people I had never heard of. Jack E. Leonard had an episode, and he came across like a has been even then. That and a Laugh-In, where he was awful. This was second or third season Laugh-In, when the show was still brilliant. Leonard's presence tanked the episode. It was that bad, like how was this guy even in show business.
"Your Hit Parade" was a major hit on both radio and tv for a long time and the cast included several popular recording artists of the day including Frank Sinatra,but my favorite,mainly because I was friends with his son and spent a lot of time at their house,was the great Snooky Lanson.
Garry Moore also did some returns to radio as an occasional weekend host on NBC Monitor, with the then-famous Monitor Beacon, which remains my ringtone.
Not quite a comedian. Monologist and storyteller. I listened to lots of Shep in the '60s on WOR. Jean was indeed in his element on the radio. I can recall few times of laugh out loud moments .He did lots of live performances. Some of his records came from stage appearances. He was a pretty big draw at colleges in the Northeast. One story about Shep is that he hung around WOR hours before his 9PM broadcast and if you had the fortune/misfortune of running into Shep during the day,your ear was his as he pretty much did the night's story in front of his audience of one, instead of writing or rehearsing. When some of the stories were put to print in Playboy(later book form),they lacked his storytelling skills.
Good post, now let's see...Guy Williams[Zorro-Lost In Space]- Gale Storm[My Little Margie]- Harry Lauter[Tales Of The Texas Rangers]- Doug McClure[The Virginian]- Michael Learned[The Waltons]- Duncan Renaldo[The Cisco Kid]- Jack Lord[Hawaii Five-O- Stoney Burke]- Richard Green[The Adventures Of Robin Hood]- Whitman Mayo[Sanford And Son]- George Reeves[The Adventures Of Superman]- Guy Madison[Wild Bill Hickock]- Jon Provost[Lassie]- Jerry Paris[The Dick Van Dyke Show]- The Entire Cast[Amos An Andy]- Shirley Booth[Hazel]- Tige Andrews[Mod Squad-The Detectives]- Jack Kelly[Maverick]- Connie Stevens[Hawaiian Eye]- Mike Connors[Mannix].
This is not unusual. Disney used real people as the models for their animated characters. As an example, Bela Lugosi was the model for the Devil who appeared in Fantasia. Likewise, the Fleischer Brothers studio would rotoscope live actors into their animated shorts. Some Betty Boop cartoons featured music by Cab Calloway and they rotoscoped Calloway's moves so that the walrus-like character danced just like him.
He was the master of the "slow burn". He was supposed to be the first fred mertz. he was the boss/buddy in "my favorite husband", a radio show that starred lucille ball and was a forerunner to I love lucy.
Bea Benaderete was supposed to be ethel mertz. she played gale gordon's wife on my favorite husband. She of course was on burns and allen and petticoat junction. she was the voice betty rubble and she did a lot of radio like gale gordon.
Louise Lasser (“Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”) Gil Gerard - Buck Rogers Frank Sutton - Sgt. Carter Melanie Chartoff - “Fridays”
William Conrad was another tv actor who did a lot of radio. He played over 7,000 characters. In an old radio show that I like, the announcer was introducing the actors on an episode of suspense. he names william conrad. he says that he was unbilled, "but there is no mistaking that baritone voice. "
jackson beck was a voice that I heard on a lot of old radio shows. i remember hearing his voice a lot of places. he was the narrator in take the money and run. "the man were not even allowed to faint without written permission."
Yeah, Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet are those genuine grade A best at being themselves type performers I had in mind... absolutely irreplaceable! I'll have to refresh my experience with Jackson Beck... not sure I know who that is...
I remember the name because he was married to the lovely Lois Nettleton. Who I'm sure many people would say, who? Many great guest appearances over the years and held her looks so well that she only began to be cast as a hottie when she was over 40 and went blonde.
