Radio Recap: The Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show

The Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show was a spin-off program from the Jack Benny Program, starring his popular bandleader Phil Harris alongside his real-life wife, movie star Alice Faye. The cast included Elliott Lewis as Frankie Remley, Phil's left-handed guitar player (more about that below), Walter Tetley as Julius Abruzzio the delivery boy, Gale Gordon as Phil's sponsor Mr. Scott (during the show's first season Gordon appeared in various small roles before becoming a regular in the 2nd year) and Robert North as Alice's nasal-toned brother Willie. Bill Forman was the show's announcer and they drew from the best of radio's supporting players (including many appearances by Sheldon Leonard as Grogan, a mobster friend of Remley's). In it's heyday, the show was written by Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat.

It began under the title of the Fitch Bandwagon, a long-running program that usually hosted musical numbers. Phil had even supplied some of the musical numbers in the show's past but as of September 29, 1946, Phil and Alice served as the stars and the same format would hold even as the show changed sponsors (Rexall 1948-1950, RCA-Victor 1950-1954). Under the formal name change to the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show the series ran from October 3, 1948 to June 18, 1954. Whatever the name, whatever the format, it was always heard on NBC.

Given Phil Harris' immense popularity throughout the 1930s (believe it or not, his 1933 short film So This Is Harris won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject!), it was only a matter of time before he became the star of his own show. A frequent recurring joke on the Jack Benny Program would be Phil boasting of a new radio show he'd supposedly be starring in under the auspices of a second-rate (fictional) sponsor. Phil had led a few musical programs (such as Hollywood Spotlight; he used his signature theme from that show on Phil Harris/Alice Faye) and he served as a guest host here and there, notably when he spent the summer of 1944 as guest host of Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge.

But of all of Phil's starring roles on radio prior to he and Alice's program, perhaps the most fateful appearance was an episode of Stars Over Hollywood titled "Southern Hospitality" (April 18, 1942). It's a gentle comedy in which Phil appeared as himself and accompanying him as his sidekick and fellow musician was one Elliott Lewis. Lewis was a pretty busy man as a radio actor and had also performed alongside Phil on many episodes of the Jack Benny Program but that episode of Stars Over Hollywood demonstrated how well Phil and Elliott played off of each other.

For the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show, Lewis assumed the identity of Frankie Remley, the real-life left-handed guitar player who had been a source of jokes for years on the Jack Benny Program; strangely, although many members of the band were used in jokes on Benny's show (Sammy the drummer, Bagby the piano player), Remley was the only one shared between the two shows - a sharing process that started out well (Lewis even made appearances as Remley on Benny's show) but ended poorly.

Lewis is a big part of what makes the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show hold up today; his off-kilter sense of humour (frequently sardonic) and jovial personality (usually entering with a "Hiya, Curly!" directed at Phil) paired with his ability to exacerbate each episode's problem (frequently he would declare "I know a guy..." to handle Phil's situation).

Phil marrying Alice Faye was, in some ways, a great joke on Jack Benny; there had been many jokes on the Jack Benny Program about how Phil was considered a great lover, much to Jack's consternation. Phil marrying a real-life glamorous movie star played right into the joke, but they proved to have an enduring love for each other; unlike so many Hollywood couples, they really did love each other and Alice gave up her acting career to raise their children (when she did try acting later she found she hadn't missed it). Phil and Alice's children were played by Jeanine Roose (who started playing Phyllis in 1945 for the Jack Benny Program) and Anne Whitfield.

In the days the show was written by Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat it had a very strong formula, similar to what many television sitcoms would adopt in the following years. Typically, Phil would try to tackle some problem (be it buying a gift for Alice or, in one instance, trying to solve a murder) and Frankie would be either forced to assist him or force Phil to accept his help. After their initial failures at the task, Frankie would declare "I know a guy," often leading to an appearance by Grogan, who started out as a counterfeiter but soon became an all-purpose criminal. As Phil and Frankie's problems mounted, Julius would appear ("Mistah Harris, I brung da groceries!") and they would attempt to solve their problem by forcing (or tricking) Julius to help them.

Again, during the Singer/Chevillat years there would be two musical numbers in each episode, one sung by Phil, the other by Alice. Usually these were songs they had recently recorded and were promoting; in the RCA Victor years, those songs were recorded for RCA Victor, thus they served as a sort of commercial. A lot of songs were repeated over the years; some had been part of Phil's act since the 1930s. In the Singer/Chevillat years, there would always be a deliberately-poor segue leading into the songs, a gentle way of mocking how on radio shows, characters seemed to burst into song even when there was no possible musical accompaniment. The best jokes would follow the songs; in an episode where Alice sang her song while the characters were supposedly in an elevator, Frankie quipped "Nice band they had in the elevator," causing Phil to crack up (February 12, 1950).

The series had a gentle fall from grace. As of the fall of 1952, Elliott Lewis couldn't use the name of Frankie Remley any longer and so his character became "Elliott Lewis" for the final 2 seasons. Although Jack had moved from NBC to CBS in 1949 without much harm (it did mean Phil had less time on the Jack Benny Program), apparently CBS television wanted to keep the Frankie Remley jokes as part of Benny's act and didn't want to share with NBC any longer; at the same time, Phil was dropped from Jack's show (replaced by Bob Crosby).

When Elliott Lewis started portraying "Elliott Lewis" on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show, his character became a lot less funny. Although the character was written as before, Frankie Remley was a legendary left-handed guitar player and butt of jokes; Elliott, despite claiming he was also a left-handed guitar player was not; the artifice of the character he was portraying became too obvious once his fictional character had the same name.

The songs had also become simply played from the RCA Victor recordings, thus lacking the fun segues the series had used. The recordings are also less spontaneous and the change in audio quality when they start likewise makes the listener too aware of the artificial nature of the program.

The series also began losing important names; Gale Gordon left, depriving the show of a great comedic foil for Phil; Robert North left and although the part of Willie was recast, Willie was written as a straight man from then on and his appearances were infrequent. Finally Singer and Chevillat left, leaving the show's final year to be written by Jack Douglas and Marvin Fisher, who wrote for comedy shows such as the Sealtest Village Show, the Martin and Lewis Show. The jokes in the last year are much more generic than the Singer/Chevillat jokes and most could have been used on Father Knows Best. There were a lot of stooges added in the final year, such as Richard LeGrand (best-known as Peavey on the Great Gildersleeve) who played Phil's dad, despite LeGrand's speciality being a New England hick and Phil being a southerner.

Despite all of this, I still find the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show to be a very funny program, especially from 1946-1952, Singer/Chevillat's peak years. Phil was an appealing wiseguy and the show had plenty of smart-aleck stooges for him to play off. Gale Gordon's Mr. Scott character barely restraining his contempt for Phil is extremely fun to listen to.

One of the joys of this series is that we still have several examples of the program's warm-up show. It appears Phil usually worked the warm-up show himself, running a stand-up comedy routine to get the audience ready for the scripted program to follow and introducing each member of his band. It's rare to have any warm-up shows in existence, so these samples are a treat.

The Old Time Radio Researchers have a YouTube playlist of 249 Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show episodes (these include Armed Forces' versions and versions that include the pre-show):