The Milton Berle Show

Show Information based on John Dunning's book "On The Air"

Comedy (1936-1948).

The Milton Berle Show was one of half a dozen titles showcasing Berle in his star-crossed radio career. He was radio's best-known failure: never able to mount a decent rating despite numerous attempts in many formats over a 13-year span, Berle finally gave up the blind medium and went exclusively to TV in 1949. There, Berle could make full use of his goofy teeth and elaborate mugging in ridiculous costumes. He was the biggest success of early television.

He was born Milton Berlinger, July 12, 1908. His mother began pushing his talents when he was still a toddler: she would remain his most enthusiastic advocate throughout his career. He entertained in the streets as a boy, worked his way through the vaudeville ranks, and gravitated naturally into radio. But his act was slapstick, and few comics have ever found a way to make that work on radio. His style was not unlike Bob Hope's: he would fire off gags like a verbal machine gun, hitting targets in every direction but missing a lot as well. He would swap insults with announcers, mug for the studio audience, and use any joke (no matter how old) that had a potential for a laugh. At some point, said his entry in Current Biography, he came to the conclusion that jokes were public property, and over the years he collected at least 50,000 of them, committing most to memory. That many of these had been created by other comics seemed to worry him little. Walter Winchell dubbed him the "Thief of Badgags." Hope told a Time reporter that "when you see Berle, you're seeing the best of anybody who has ever been on Broadway. I want to get into television before he uses up all my material."

Perhaps the best example of what was wrong with Berle on radio is found in the 1944-45 series, Let Yourself Go. This was a half-hour of slapstick. Contestants were selected from show business and from the studio audience, invited onstage to tell Berle and announcer Ken Roberts all about their most urgent (but until now suppressed) urges and yens. Then they pushed aside all dignity and let themselves go. Some wanted to break eggs in Berle's face, or be firemen, or throw snowballs. Berle did his best to accommodate them, playing the stooge to the hysterics of the studio audience and the stony silence of people gathered around radio sets at home.

Kiss and Make Up, his 1946 show, fared no better. It was a gimmick show built around petty gripes and a mock court. Berle was the "judge"; contestants brought their "cases" before the microphones and were awarded up to $120 if they could wring favorable "verdicts" out of a "jury" drawn from the studio audience. The "stenographers" were the Murphy Sisters, a vocal trio. After much mugging, the "litigants" were required to "kiss and make up."

Then came 1947, and The Milton Berle Show for Philip Morris. Berle's lack of success in radio had been cited by his critics as evidence that he lacked broad popular appeal. He was so determined to break the radio jinx that he canceled lucrative nightclub appearances (a date at the Roxy alone, he said, would have paid him $25,000 a week, almost ten times what he was getting on the air) to focus his whole energy on radio. But the result was the same: a wimpy 11 points on his opening show and no appreciable ratings progress as time went on. Most important here was the addition of Arnold Stang, who went on to work with Berle on early TV.

There was one other attempt: The Texaco Star Theater, a veritable copy of his Philip Moms series. Berle would remember this years later as "the best radio show I ever did.. . a hell of a funny variety show." He considered this a hedge against his possible failure on television, which Texaco had also opted to sponsor. Berle and Texaco shared an unease about the new medium: no one was sure, in the summer of 1948, if television was here to stay. Texaco had scheduled its Star Theater on NBC-TV beginning in June 1948, with the star's role to rotate among Henny Youngman, Peter Donald, Money Amsterdam, and Berle.

The rest is history. Berle won the TV job on a permanent basis. His radio show bombed, and by early 1949, Time was reporting that the Berle TV Texaco series had reached an 80-point Hooper, highest ever in either medium.

BROADCAST HISTORY:

1936-42: see COMMUNITY SING; STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE;

and THREE-RING TIME.

Let Yourself Go. March 3-May 26, 1943, CBS. 30m, Wednesdays at 9:30. Campbell Soups.

March 21, 1944-June 27, 1945. 30m, Blue Network, Tuesdays at 7 until July; at 10:30 until mid-Dec.;

then CBS, Wednesdays at 10:30 as of Jan. 3, 1945. Eversharp.

Kiss and Make Up. July 1-Aug. 19, 1946, CBS. 30m, Mondays at 9.

CREATOR-PRODUCER-WRITER: Cy Howard.

The Milton Berle Show. March 11, 1947-April 13, 1948, NBC. 30m, Tuesdays at 8. Philip Morris.

CAST: Berle, Arnold Stang, Pert Kelton, Mary Shipp, Jack Albertson, Arthur Q. Bryan, and Ed Begley.

ANNOUNCER: Frank Gallop.

VOCALIST: Dick Forney.

ORCHESTRA: Ray Bloch.

WRITERS: Hal Block, Martin Ragaway.

The Texaco Star Theater. Sept. 22, 1948-June 15, 1949, ABC. 30m, Wednesdays at 9.

CAST: Berle, Stang, Kelton, Gallop, with Charles Irving, Kay Armen,

and double-talk specialist Al Kelly.

WRITERS: Nat Hiken, Aaron Ruben, brothers Danny and Neil Simon, etc.