CHARLIE McCARTHY & MAE WEST BEFORE TNE APPLE FELL.
THE MERRY MOUTH OF MAE
When Standard Brands introduced its new Sunday evening Chase & Sanborn Hour featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his not so dumb dummy Charlie McCarthy in May, 1937, the move was considered risky by some industry insiders. Bergen had less than six months’ experience in radio since he was first introduced on Rudy Vallee’s Royal Gelatin Hour, another Standard Brands show.
But something had to be done with the Chase and Sanborn timeslot on Sunday that had fallen on hard times since Eddie Cantor and then Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour had made it NBC and Network Radio’s most popular hour for three of the first four seasons of the Golden Age.
The 1936-37 season was particularly unsettling for Standard Brands and its agency, J. Walter Thompson. After lawyers’ protests forced them to cancel their promising Goodwill Court and its free legal advice after twelve weeks, they hastily filled the hour with the mediocre Do You Want To Be An Actor? while looking another winner.
The sudden surge in Rudy Vallee’s ratings during Edgar Bergen’s 13 weeks on the Thursday night NBC show was all they needed to give Bergen a shot at the Sunday hour. It paid off in a big way.
Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953, tells the story in sections titled Bergen Throws His Voice & Millions Catch It and He Who Wood Be King. Bergen and McCarthy with strong support from Don Ameche, W.C. Fields, Nelson Eddy, Dorothy Lamour and Hollywood guest stars - hit the air running with two consecutive seasons as America’s Number One program.
It was one of those Hollywood guest stars who made an episode of the show notorious and helped push it to the top.
Mae West was the 44 year old sex symbol of the American stage and movies. In 1937 she had 20 years of sexually oriented roles on Broadway and seven profitable films to her credit. She wrote much of her own material and had a way of delivering lines like no other actress with tongue-in-cheek lasciviousness spiked with double entendres. She made a rare radio appearance on the Chase & Sanborn Hour of December 12th to promote her new movie, Every Day’s A Holiday.
Shortly after the movie’s title song was sung by Dorothy Lamour the skit began that got Mae West kicked off NBC for the next dozen years. The ban was so complete that even the mere mention of her name was prohibited.
The now infamous Adam & Eve sketch co-starring Don Ameche as Adam is Located 20 minutes into the broadcast posted below. The script was written by Arch Oboler and after two rewrites it seemed tame on paper when reviewed beforehand by the network and sponsor. Then Mae West got her hands on it. She interpreted Eve’s lines in her typical suggestive manner - common in her films but rarely heard in 1937 radio, especially two weeks before Christmas. The eight minute routine was met with only mild laughter and polite applause - but a storm of criticism.
West made her second appearance at 41:20 into the show, in a five minute parlay with Bergen and McCarthy that was definitely loaded with stronger sexual innuendo than the Adam & Eve sketch. During the routine West claimed that Charlie had left his keys on her bedroom dresser, saying, “He did come up to see me and I‘ve got marks to prove it…splinters, too!” That was followed later with, “No man walks out on me! They may have to be carried out, but they never walk out!"
As opposed to the Adam & Eve skit, NBC censors did consider cutting the show during West’s bawdy interpretation of the Charlie McCarthy routine’s script but decided against it.
The Adam & Eve sketch that became the object of indignant condemnation by preachers, politicians and newspapers. Words like "dirty", "obscene","vulgar", "insulting", "profane" and "indecent" were common in the complaints. Congressional pressure forced FCC Chairman Frank McNinch to write NBC President Lenox Lohr demanding a written transcript and a recording of the program, names and locations of the 59 stations carrying the broadcast and a copy of the contract between Standard Brands and NBC.
For its part, Standard Brands issued this statement read by announcer Wendell Niles on the December 19th Chase & Sanborn Hour: “It has been brought to the attention of the sponsors of this program that a skit on it last Sunday night offended the religious sensibilities of some of our listeners. Our hope is to make each and every hour spent with us both entertaining and edifying. We pledge ourselves to that purpose and sincerely regret any unintended offense that may have been given.”
In response, FCC Chairman NcNinch sent a lengthy, platitudinous letter of rebuke to NBC‘s Lohr on January 4th which amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist, noting that the Commission didn’t have the power of censorship and would take no further action - but NBC affiliates were responsible for broadcasting the offensive program and that the Commission would consider other complaints against these stations, if any, at the time of license renewal.
West wrote of the incident in her 1970 autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It: “The radio people had egg on their faces and their copies of the St. James version. To pacify some pious friends among the radio audience, I was persona non grata on radio until the heat was off. I must have produced a lot of heat on that broadcast; it took several years to cool off.”
Residual effects for The Chase & Sanborn Hour were far different and much more rewarding. December’s 33.2 rating swelled over 12.5% to January’s 37.4 and another 7.5% in February to Bergen’s all-time high of 40.2.
But listening to the broadcast posted below bears a surprise - Bergen & McCarthy played only a small role in The Chase & Sanborn Hour of 1937. It took another two years of increasingly enlarged Charlie McCarthy routines for Standard Brands to recognize the power of Edgar Bergen’s characterizations. Finally, on January 7, 1940, the hour-long Chase & Sanborn Hour was replaced by the 30-minute Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Show - a program that for the next nine seasons on NBC and the following four seasons on CBS never dropped out of the Annual Top Ten. (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten on this site.)
How much did Mae West have to do with this success?
Perhaps Edgar Bergen was inspired by her famous quote as he continued to shape Charlie McCarthy’s bad-boy personality: “When I’m good, I’m very, very good - but when I’m bad, I’m better.”
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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