Radio Recap: Bob and Ray

I've written more than 100 of my Radio Recaps so far yet scarcely any have been about comedy programs. To be fair, as much of an old-time radio fan that I am, I was very slow to come around to radio comedy. Even today, there's just a small handful of comedy shows that I genuinely like, a much large list of shows I mostly like (with certain quantifiers) and a nearly as large list of shows that I don't like hearing at all.

It's not simply that comedy is subjective -- all art is. But comedy is also topical; even if the comedy doesn't rely on commentary on then-current events, it tends to use slang and cultural references that are very soon minor historical footnotes.

The comedy of Bob and Ray (performed by Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding) is, I think, somewhere between of-its-time and timeless. They satirized trends in entertainment - especially satirizing radio shows of the time (such as their parody of the soap opera Mary Noble, Backstage Wife in their recurring sketches "Myra Backstage, Noble Wife" or the One Man's Family as "One Feller's Family"). But a lot of their comedy comes from two men simply having a conversation and trying to surprise or one-up each other.

I really didn't get Bob and Ray the first time I heard it. My local radio station never broadcast Bob and Ray as part of "Those Old Radio Shows," so I only heard it when I began listening to Yesterday USA in my late 'teens. The first time I heard an episode the rebroadcaster made a big deal about the series. Listening to that episode, it didn't seem like much of a big deal. It was a late 40s iteration of their program and they sounded like a couple of disc jockeys (which is how they started) bantering with each other. Their voices were so casual they were nearly mumbling - it required a lot of my attention to follow what they were saying and after that, I wasn't so sure that it was worth my time listening to more of them.

What changed my mind was John Dunning's book On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Dunning's entry on Bob and Ray made the series sound very funny - I was especially interested in hearing some of the parodies Dunning described, such as the Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy juvenile adventure serial parody, "Jack Headstrong, the All-American American." I'd heard plenty of Jack Armstrong episodes on Yesterday USA and I'd never enjoyed it; I thought that program was ripe for parody and, indeed, it's some of Bob and Ray's best material. The opening of "Jack Headstrong" in which Bob and Ray yell "Jack Headstrong!" at each other, dragging it out so long that (to me) it becomes funnier and funnier always placed me in the right frame of mind.

Of course, around the same time I was learning to appreciate Bob and Ray, I was also getting into improv comedy, thanks to discovering Whose Line Is It Anyway? Dunning had explained that although the series had a script, Bob and Ray would frequently veer off-script. Sometimes they'd try to confuse each other, sometimes the producers in the studio would introduce a sudden noise and see if they could incorporate it into their act. It's probably not to every taste, but once I knew what Bob and Ray was about, I was in.

The series ran on basically every network under all kinds of names. Their earliest days were as Matinee with Bob and Ray (1946-1951); then they went to network radio as Bob and Ray Present the National Broadcasting Company (1951-1953); they appeared as a segment on NBC's news show Monitor (1955-1959); Bob and Ray on Mutual (1955-1957); Bob and Ray Present the CBS Radio Network (1959-1960); decades later they popped up on NPR as the Bob and Ray Public Radio Show (1983-1987).

They portrayed every voice on their show; this meant adopting all kinds of unusual accents and speaking patterns, as well as Ray's surprisingly good falsetto which he used to portray all the female characters.

Outside of radio, they were on NBC television in 1951; we have a few episodes available to us on YouTube and although it's primitive TV, they were gamely doing a lot of their improv and adapting their characters over from radio. My favourite TV sketch is the "Frankenstein Brothers Suit" sketch:

They enjoyed a big revival in the 1970s with their stage show Bob and Ray: The Two and Only, which revisited a lot of the characters from their radio show. That also lead to a few books of their routines, which are all right as a read, but their jokes are much funnier with the two men delivering them.

A lot of the comedy on Bob and Ray is, like that "Jack Headstrong" gag, based on repetition. Many of their recurring sketches were essentially the same gag each time, such as Ray's character Webley Webster, who would introduce a dramatization of some great book that, for some reason, would turn out to be a seagoing adventure program in which a captain assaults his first mate (for me, some of the humour comes from anticipating what imagined slight will cause the captain to assault the first mate).

The Old Time Radio Researchers have 429 different Bob and Ray episodes in their library.

This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work...

...and Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs.

What is funny? (1,000th post!)

Do you like to laugh? Sure, we all do. When people discuss what makes them laugh the word "subjective" tends to appear, as though comedy were the most subjective of all forms of entertainment. We don't all agree on what is sad, frightening or thrilling either, but comedy is the whipping boy. Perhaps this is because if you don't believe that, say, a ghost story is scary you might still be entertained by it in some other way; but when comedy is not funny it is considered less than worthless.

I have come to realize I am a particularly prickly person where comedy is concerned. I like what I like; I don't put much effort into discovering new comedies, whereas I do place some effort into exploring new horror stories, adventure stories, etc. I have seen maybe 1.5 episodes of Saturday Night Live; I've never gone to a live comedy show; I haven't watched sitcoms for a decade; I very seldom watch comedy films in the cinema.

Recently I was browsing Netflix to find something to watch - I wanted something light and enjoyable, so I browsed through comedy. I couldn't find anything that I thought I would enjoy except for those shows I had seen before. That got me thinking: what about all the things I do like? What do they have in common? Come with me and we'll see.

Self-Deprecation

I've mentioned before that when I first became interested in old-time radio I listened for the science fiction/horror shows and skipped over the comedies, believing they would be old-fashioned and unfunny. And yet, I soon found one program which made me laugh: The Jack Benny Program. Jack Benny was a comic who knew his limitations - he couldn't master snappy patter. Thus, Jack's character was the schmuck instead of the wit; Jack's program constantly featured his supporting characters puncturing his ego, frequently to observe he was not as handsome, smart, funny or likeable as he believed himself to be - and I laughed because it seemed as though it were true and Jack deserved to be humiliated.

The wonderful, intangible part of Jack's routine was that his audience knew he was putting on an act, that "Jack Benny" was a false persona, yet he didn't break character (even Jack's ad-libs were very much on-point). I have found few other comedians so willing to put themselves down; to some extent, this is also what I enjoy about Robert Benchley's articles and short films; he would project an image of a dignified, urbane gentleman, but really he was another schmuck.

The Non Sequitur

How best to describe it... I like the snappy, witty remark, particularly when it is in stark contrast to the other party's statement ("the stooge"), and especially when it's surprising, totally unexpected; "non sequitur" seems to be the term which best describes it. I enjoy how authors such as P. G. Wodehouse & Damon Runyon would subvert genre expectations through clever dialogue and situations. I see this humour in my love for Groucho Marx's retorts:

This kind of humour tends to be heavily sarcastic or sardonic. The first party has come to play chess, but the second party arrives to play tennis - with a pogo stick - and demands the first party explain why he isn't similarly prepared. I was late in discovering Mystery Science Theater 3000, but its format of witty remarks and put-downs mixed with affectionate chiding truly spoke to me.

I've since come to learn, however, that one should not abuse their "witty" humour in public as it quickly becomes intolerable to friends. I've also learned how my idol Alfred Hitchcock used such remarks to disguise his own shyness; these remarks are basically a form of self-defense.

Satire

Over time I've learned I have low tolerance for the all-encompassing statement. I am the one who picks holes in every broad remark, noting the exceptions to each and every rule. I am similarly quick to note the cliches which infuse popular culture and when a masterpiece of satire appears - say, Stan Freberg, Cerebus, Monty Python, the Tick, Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, Batton Lash - I nod in approval. The object being satirized need not be obvious; some of Bob & Ray's satire is best enjoyed when you are aware of their target (listen to at least one episode of Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy before listening to one of their "Jack Headstrong, the All-American American" skits) and yet, even in this instance, a parody of a children's science show which I'm not familiar with, I recognize they were satirizing a particular format and style of programming; the satire is specific in its target but broad in its humour:

I've never read a Nancy Drew book in my life, but Kate Beaton has had great fun writing her own comics based on the covers of Nancy Drew novels:

Edgar Wright is perhaps the best currently-working film satirist, mocking the sitcom (Spaced), zombie genre (Shaun of the Dead) and crime story (Hot Fuzz).

Returning to self-deprecation, some satirists would satirize themselves; witness Edgar Allan Poe and his connected stories "How to Write a Blackwood's Article" & "A Predicament," or Michael Kupperman sending up the entire genre of comics:

Self-deprecation works well with satire - however, I'm not confident that simply doing the opposite of the source material is sufficiently funny. "Dracula, but stupid" is not a solid basis for a film. Great satire digs deeper than the surface and exposes the tired tropes and cliches behind the entire genre; it's Poe making fun of morality tales in "Never Bet the Devil Your Head"; it's Stan Freberg making fun of lawn mower commercials while selling lawn mowers; it's Bob and Ray selling you a suit that will not only save you money, but make you money!

Laugh, won't you?