BING CROSBY AND CARY GRANT WERE AMONG ED GARDNER'S GUESTS - 0R VICTIMS - AT DUFFY'S TAVERN. .
DUFFY AIN'T HERE
Ed Poggenburg - known to millions as Ed Gardner - was a native New Yorker who loved his city. By 1940 he was a 35 year old veteran Network Radio writer and director for the J. Walter Thompson agency with nearly a decade of credentials including Rudy Vallee‘s Fleischmann Yeast Hour, Good News, Kraft Music Hall and Burns & Allen - all hit comedy-variety shows.
He had all the qualifications to create Duffy’s Tavern, a character driven sitcom set in a mythical bar and grill on New York’s lower east side, "Where The Elite Meet To Eat". (1) All he needed was a star for the program. He found his star when demonstrating a Noo Yawk accent to actors auditioning for a short-lived CBS variety program he directed in 1938-39, This Is New York. An agency friend, George Faulkner, heard his hilarious take on “New Yorkese,” declared the search over and reportedly named Gardner's character voice Archie.
As Archie The Manager, Gardner affected the thick accent and played host to his small cast of barroom regulars and a parade of guest stars who wandered into Duffy’s Tavern most every week. The only individual missing was the title character, Duffy, who was never heard in a one-way telephone conversation with Archie that opened every episode.
EFX: Telephone ring over piano playing My Wild Irish Rose.
EG: Hullo, Duffy's Tavern where the elite meet t'eat. Archie the manager speakin'... Duffy ain't here...Oh, Hi, Duffy...
And so began every program with Archie telling Duffy what guest or special event was planned for the evening.
Duffy’s Tavern was first heard on the CBS series Forecast, the 1940 summer replacement for Lux Radio Theater that was used to audition new programs for audience reaction. Other successful Forecast alumni from that season included a Danny Kaye & Joan Edwards variety show, Suspense and The Incomparable Hildegarde. (Duffy’s Tavern from the Forecast broadcast of July 29, 1940, is also posted below).
Appearing on that pilot show with Gardner were Mel Allen, singer Gertrude Niesen, harmonica soloist Larry Adler and F. Chase Taylor as Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle. Only Taylor was occasionally heard when Duffy’s Tavern debuted on CBS seven months later.
Instead, Gardner and his head writer, Abe Burrows, had decided on a supporting cast of four distinctive character voices - one of radio’s oldest tricks which allowed listeners to immediately identify the characters and form mental images of them. For his regular characters Gardner chose stereotypical voices representing a dizzy blonde, a dimwit barfly, a black employee and an Irish policeman.
Gardner’s wife at the time, Shirley Booth, originated the role of the empty headed, man-hungry Miss Duffy, daughter of the tavern’s absentee owner. After their divorce in 1943, Booth left the show to become an award winning stage and film actress, returning to comedy in 1961 as television’s Hazel. Booth was just the first of a dozen actresses who played Miss Duffy.
Popular radio character actor Charlie Cantor, who specialized in “dumb and dumber” comic stooges, brought out his dumbest voice as Clifton Finnegan, an urban version of Mortimer Snerd who couldn’t begin a sentence without the obligatory, “Duhhh…” (2) (See The Two Stooges on this site.)
Eddie Green played Archie’s right hand man, Eddie The Waiter, often the only voice of sanity and reason in the group who could translate Archie’s malapropisms, maligned metaphors and daffy definitions into reality. Rounding out the cast was Alan Reed’s Clancy The Cop, whose thick Irish brogue was a far cry from his Shakespearian Falstaff Openshaw on Fred Allen’s show.
Shick Razors gave Duffy’s Tavern a slot on the CBS’ Saturday night schedule beginning on March 1, 1941, with Colonel Stoopnagle dropping in. Within a few weeks the concept of famous guest stars, subjected to Archie’s unintended insults and get-rich-quick schemes, took hold and set the show apart from anything else on the air.
Subsequent shows in the first few months featured Deems Taylor, Orson Welles, Hildegarde, Arthur Treacher, Bill Bojangles Robinson, Elsa Maxwell, Tallulah Bankhead, Paul Lukas, Milton Berle and former New York Mayor Jimmy Walker - all getting in on the joke.
But Duffy’s chances for success were a long shot in the 8:30 timeslot opposite NBC’s Truth Or Consequences. Gardner and company could only muster a 6.5 rating - less than half of the stunt show’s numbers on NBC. Schick did Gardner no favors when it moved Duffy's Tavern to the CBS Thursday schedule in the 1941-42 season - opposite the night’s most popular program, the TopTen rated sitcom Aldrich Family.
Duffy’s Tavern ratings remained in the mid-sixes so Schick cancelled in March, 1942, and General Foods bought the show - moving it to the CBS Tuesday night slot at 9:00 for Sanka Coffee. With less competition Duffy's ratings suddenly jumped into double digits. Nevertheless, General Foods dropped it in June after only three months.
Bristol-Myers picked up the show, shortened its name to Duffy's (3) and moved it to the Blue Network for the 1942-43 season, smartly keeping it on Tuesday night where it had already established an audience. Ratings jumped over 20%, nipping at the heels of Al Jolson on CBS and Horace Heidt’s Treasure Chest game on NBC.
Finally, in 1943-44, after three full seasons, three sponsors and two networks, Duffy’s Tavern moved into Tuesday’s Top Ten with another ratings jump of 20%. It averaged an 11.5 rating against Judy Canova’s 11.7 on CBS and Horace Heidt’s 9.9 on NBC. It was the first of six consecutive Top 50 seasons for Duffy’s Tavern. (A program from the 1943-44 season with guest Bing Crosby is also posted below.)
Then, like so many other promising hits developed on Blue, sponsor Bristol-Myers moved the program to NBC at the end of the season. Duffy’s Tavern became the Blue Network’s last Top 50 variety show before it became known as ABC.
Revenge had to be sweet for Gardner during his first two seasons at NBC when Duffy’s Tavern scored better ratings than his old network and sponsor - CBS and General Foods - pitted against him. In 1944-45 his sitcom beat The Adventures of The Thin Man and in 1945-46 Duffy’s Tavern pushed Kate Smith out of both Friday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 50.
Adding frosting to Gardner’s cake, Paramount Pictures released its all-star revue, Duffy’s Tavern, on September 28, 1945. The movie starred Gardner with his radio cast plus virtually every contract star on the lot - headed by Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Alan Ladd, Paulette Goddard, Eddie Bracken, Veronica Lake and Barry Fitzgerald.
Then, just when things seemed that they couldn’t get any better, they did.
Bristol-Myers moved Duffy’s Tavern to its 9:00 Wednesday timeslot just vacated by Eddie Cantor’s highly rated show, Time To Smile. The drug company released Cantor from his $12,500 weekly contract after six Top 20 seasons when Pabst Beer offered him $20,000 a week. The immediate payoff for Ed Gardner was a five year contract at a reported $10,000 per week - although it was touted at the time to be $13,000.
Gardner responded by surrounding Archie and his pals with a parade of guest stars familiar to radio and movie audiences ranging from Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, Esther Williams and Gene Autry to Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and Boris Karloff. Occasional songs were provided by guests Dinah Shore, Helen Traubel, Sophie Tucker and Rudy Vallee. Duffy’s Tavern had become the place for them to be heard as "regular folks" who could take a joke. With such a wide range of guests, Gardner had to employ a steady stream of sharp comedy writers at a budget he claimed to be $2,000, a week.
Whatever the cost, it paid off over the next three seasons for Duffy’s Tavern in NBC’s Wednesday night hammock between The Great Gildersleeve and Mr. District Attorney. In 1946-47, its 33% jump in ratings to 16.9 beat Frank Sinatra on CBS and made it the country’s 14th most popular program. In 1947-48, Duffy’s Tavern registered a 20.0 rating, almost doubling Abbott & Costello’s 10.4 on ABC. And in 1948-49 it buried Milton Berle’s 9.6 rating on ABC with a 16.7 to become Wednesday’s top rated show and Number Eleven in the Annual Top 50. (A program from May, 1949, is also posted below.)
That’s when the trouble began.
Simply put, Ed Gardner wanted more money. With the U.S. Income Tax Rate peaking around a whopping 80%, he was attracted by Puerto Rico’s Industrial Incentives Act of 1947, designed to lure new industry to the island by offering a 12 year exemption from income, property and excise taxes. Commonly called Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap, it was intended to attract manufacturing - not necessarily the manufacture of radio programs. But all comers were welcome and the wealthier the better.
Gardner was under contract to Bristol-Myers until June, 1950. He approached his sponsor and its Young & Rubicam agency midway during the 1948-49 season and they wanted to talk about adapting Duffy's Tavern to television which he flatly rejected. Instead, Gardner demanded a three year contract, a substantial raise and the option to move to Puerto Rico and record Duffy’s Tavern for shipment back to New York. The sitcom was already near the upper tier of weekly program budgets and Bristol-Myers was no sponsor to lavish money on its hit radio shows as Eddie Cantor learned three years earlier. Pitfalls were also seen in the Puerto Rican production plan so Bristol-Myers turned Gardner down on both counts, thanked him for his service and released him a year early from his contract.
Gardner’s next stop was NBC where he wanted a five year contract providing him with a guaranteed income even if Duffy’s Tavern was cancelled Although NBC was under siege of the CBS talent raid at the time, it also turned Gardner down but told him that his recorded shows from San Juan would be welcome if he could find a sponsor.
By the time of the last Bristol-Myers broadcast on June 29, 1949, Gardner had lined up a new sponsor, Schenley Distiller’s Blatz Beer, and both CBS and NBC were bidding for the “new” recorded Duffy’s Tavern. CBS offered Wednesday night at 10:00 following its new hour with Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life and the new Bing Crosby Show. NBC offered Duffy‘s established timeslot at 9:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday or a new half hour on Thursday at 9:30.
Billboard reported that NBC President Niles Trammell claimed that RCA Chairman David Sarnoff intervened with friends at the highest levels of Schenley and persuaded them to choose the latter - a big mistake - between the fading Screen Guild Players, a former hit show that had fallen on hard times and the ratings-weak Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como and Peggy Lee. Worse yet, Duffy’s Tavern was put in direct competition with Casey, Crime Photographer, part of Thursday’s successful CBS mystery lineup that swept the first four places of the night’s Top Ten.
Nevertheless, Gardner took his cast, Gloria Erlanger, Charlie Cantor and Eddie Green, plus four writers and headed for Puerto Rico. The first show on September 29, 1949, went off without a hitch. But problems of a different sort began to appear.
The first had to do with Puerto Rico’s distance from the United States - over a thousand air miles from Miami - which prevented top name film and radio stars from interrupting their schedules to appear on Duffy’s Tavern. Further, without daily news from home, Gardner’s writers lost their source of topical humor.
Then came a public relations blow that Gardner apparently hadn’t foreseen: Illinois Congressman Noah Mason told the press in October that the Duffy’s Tavern troupe was, “…able evade all income taxes due to a ridiculous loophole in our tax statutes.“ A Revenue Bureau, (as it was known in those days), spokesman added that he was, “…afraid if there is such a loophole, a number of other programs may do the same thing.”
Gossip columnists piled on, labeling Gardner a “tax dodger” and called for an FBI investigation. Then Treasury Secretary John Snyder got in on the act on February 3, 1950, when he addressed the House Ways & Means Committee about, “…the case of a radio entertainer who recently entered into an agreement with Puerto Rico under which he agreed to produce all of his radio and television transcriptions and films on that island in return for an exemption from the Puerto Rican tax.” Snyder added, “He may also be able at the same time for exemption from the United States tax even though he may stay in Puerto Rico for only a short period.” (4)
Ten days later Life magazine did a three page story about Gardner’s move to Puerto Rico in which he responded to his critics, “People think nothing of it if a textile company moves down here, but let an actor try to act like a businessman and they holler crook.” He added that he had committed to invest $250,000 in radio and television programming produced in Puerto Rico.
It didn’t help his cause when the story revealed Gardner’s personal income to be $5,000 a week, ($49,700 in today's money), or pictured him driving down a palm treed Puerto Rican lane in his Cadillac convertible and lounging in the surf while most of Life’s readers were enduring winter’s freezing cold.
As a result of all these factors, Wednesday’s Number One show of 1948-49 lost over half its audience and became a Thursday also-ran in 1949-50. Duffy's Tavern plunged from eleventh to 69th place in the season's ratings with an 8.0 rating. (A program from the season is also posted below.)
Charlie Cantor left the cast in 1950 and was replaced by Sid Raymond. Eddie Green died and his spot was taken by pianist Fats Pinchon. Blatz cancelled sponsorship and NBC moved Duffy’s Tavern to Friday at 9:30 as a participating spot carrier. Unable to attract a sponsor at the bargain basement price of $3,900 a week, Duffy's Tavern left the air after eleven seasons on January 4, 1952.
Gardner’s attempts to revive the show as a syndicated television sitcom in 1954 also failed after 38 half hour episodes were produced but sales were dismal.
Ed Gardner threw a great party at Duffy's Tavern but the hangover was something else.
(1) The original slogan - “Where The Elite Meet To Eat - Today’s Special Pigs’ Pickled Feet” - was shortened during the first season.
(2) Cantor’s Clifton Finnegan was the only cast member of Duffy’s Tavern who was given a full name.
(3) Bristol-Myers dropped Tavern from the title for fear that it might offend some listeners. It was restored on the broadcast of March 7, 1944.
(4) It was ruled six months later that because Gardner was a fulltime resident of Puerto Rico, he and his program were exempt from U.S. taxes and he was free to travel to the United States whenever he wished.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Ed Poggenburg - known to millions as Ed Gardner - was a native New Yorker who loved his city. By 1940 he was a 35 year old veteran Network Radio writer and director for the J. Walter Thompson agency with nearly a decade of credentials including Rudy Vallee‘s Fleischmann Yeast Hour, Good News, Kraft Music Hall and Burns & Allen - all hit comedy-variety shows.
He had all the qualifications to create Duffy’s Tavern, a character driven sitcom set in a mythical bar and grill on New York’s lower east side, "Where The Elite Meet To Eat". (1) All he needed was a star for the program. He found his star when demonstrating a Noo Yawk accent to actors auditioning for a short-lived CBS variety program he directed in 1938-39, This Is New York. An agency friend, George Faulkner, heard his hilarious take on “New Yorkese,” declared the search over and reportedly named Gardner's character voice Archie.
As Archie The Manager, Gardner affected the thick accent and played host to his small cast of barroom regulars and a parade of guest stars who wandered into Duffy’s Tavern most every week. The only individual missing was the title character, Duffy, who was never heard in a one-way telephone conversation with Archie that opened every episode.
EFX: Telephone ring over piano playing My Wild Irish Rose.
EG: Hullo, Duffy's Tavern where the elite meet t'eat. Archie the manager speakin'... Duffy ain't here...Oh, Hi, Duffy...
And so began every program with Archie telling Duffy what guest or special event was planned for the evening.
Duffy’s Tavern was first heard on the CBS series Forecast, the 1940 summer replacement for Lux Radio Theater that was used to audition new programs for audience reaction. Other successful Forecast alumni from that season included a Danny Kaye & Joan Edwards variety show, Suspense and The Incomparable Hildegarde. (Duffy’s Tavern from the Forecast broadcast of July 29, 1940, is also posted below).
Appearing on that pilot show with Gardner were Mel Allen, singer Gertrude Niesen, harmonica soloist Larry Adler and F. Chase Taylor as Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle. Only Taylor was occasionally heard when Duffy’s Tavern debuted on CBS seven months later.
Instead, Gardner and his head writer, Abe Burrows, had decided on a supporting cast of four distinctive character voices - one of radio’s oldest tricks which allowed listeners to immediately identify the characters and form mental images of them. For his regular characters Gardner chose stereotypical voices representing a dizzy blonde, a dimwit barfly, a black employee and an Irish policeman.
Gardner’s wife at the time, Shirley Booth, originated the role of the empty headed, man-hungry Miss Duffy, daughter of the tavern’s absentee owner. After their divorce in 1943, Booth left the show to become an award winning stage and film actress, returning to comedy in 1961 as television’s Hazel. Booth was just the first of a dozen actresses who played Miss Duffy.
Popular radio character actor Charlie Cantor, who specialized in “dumb and dumber” comic stooges, brought out his dumbest voice as Clifton Finnegan, an urban version of Mortimer Snerd who couldn’t begin a sentence without the obligatory, “Duhhh…” (2) (See The Two Stooges on this site.)
Eddie Green played Archie’s right hand man, Eddie The Waiter, often the only voice of sanity and reason in the group who could translate Archie’s malapropisms, maligned metaphors and daffy definitions into reality. Rounding out the cast was Alan Reed’s Clancy The Cop, whose thick Irish brogue was a far cry from his Shakespearian Falstaff Openshaw on Fred Allen’s show.
Shick Razors gave Duffy’s Tavern a slot on the CBS’ Saturday night schedule beginning on March 1, 1941, with Colonel Stoopnagle dropping in. Within a few weeks the concept of famous guest stars, subjected to Archie’s unintended insults and get-rich-quick schemes, took hold and set the show apart from anything else on the air.
Subsequent shows in the first few months featured Deems Taylor, Orson Welles, Hildegarde, Arthur Treacher, Bill Bojangles Robinson, Elsa Maxwell, Tallulah Bankhead, Paul Lukas, Milton Berle and former New York Mayor Jimmy Walker - all getting in on the joke.
But Duffy’s chances for success were a long shot in the 8:30 timeslot opposite NBC’s Truth Or Consequences. Gardner and company could only muster a 6.5 rating - less than half of the stunt show’s numbers on NBC. Schick did Gardner no favors when it moved Duffy's Tavern to the CBS Thursday schedule in the 1941-42 season - opposite the night’s most popular program, the TopTen rated sitcom Aldrich Family.
Duffy’s Tavern ratings remained in the mid-sixes so Schick cancelled in March, 1942, and General Foods bought the show - moving it to the CBS Tuesday night slot at 9:00 for Sanka Coffee. With less competition Duffy's ratings suddenly jumped into double digits. Nevertheless, General Foods dropped it in June after only three months.
Bristol-Myers picked up the show, shortened its name to Duffy's (3) and moved it to the Blue Network for the 1942-43 season, smartly keeping it on Tuesday night where it had already established an audience. Ratings jumped over 20%, nipping at the heels of Al Jolson on CBS and Horace Heidt’s Treasure Chest game on NBC.
Finally, in 1943-44, after three full seasons, three sponsors and two networks, Duffy’s Tavern moved into Tuesday’s Top Ten with another ratings jump of 20%. It averaged an 11.5 rating against Judy Canova’s 11.7 on CBS and Horace Heidt’s 9.9 on NBC. It was the first of six consecutive Top 50 seasons for Duffy’s Tavern. (A program from the 1943-44 season with guest Bing Crosby is also posted below.)
Then, like so many other promising hits developed on Blue, sponsor Bristol-Myers moved the program to NBC at the end of the season. Duffy’s Tavern became the Blue Network’s last Top 50 variety show before it became known as ABC.
Revenge had to be sweet for Gardner during his first two seasons at NBC when Duffy’s Tavern scored better ratings than his old network and sponsor - CBS and General Foods - pitted against him. In 1944-45 his sitcom beat The Adventures of The Thin Man and in 1945-46 Duffy’s Tavern pushed Kate Smith out of both Friday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 50.
Adding frosting to Gardner’s cake, Paramount Pictures released its all-star revue, Duffy’s Tavern, on September 28, 1945. The movie starred Gardner with his radio cast plus virtually every contract star on the lot - headed by Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Alan Ladd, Paulette Goddard, Eddie Bracken, Veronica Lake and Barry Fitzgerald.
Then, just when things seemed that they couldn’t get any better, they did.
Bristol-Myers moved Duffy’s Tavern to its 9:00 Wednesday timeslot just vacated by Eddie Cantor’s highly rated show, Time To Smile. The drug company released Cantor from his $12,500 weekly contract after six Top 20 seasons when Pabst Beer offered him $20,000 a week. The immediate payoff for Ed Gardner was a five year contract at a reported $10,000 per week - although it was touted at the time to be $13,000.
Gardner responded by surrounding Archie and his pals with a parade of guest stars familiar to radio and movie audiences ranging from Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, Esther Williams and Gene Autry to Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and Boris Karloff. Occasional songs were provided by guests Dinah Shore, Helen Traubel, Sophie Tucker and Rudy Vallee. Duffy’s Tavern had become the place for them to be heard as "regular folks" who could take a joke. With such a wide range of guests, Gardner had to employ a steady stream of sharp comedy writers at a budget he claimed to be $2,000, a week.
Whatever the cost, it paid off over the next three seasons for Duffy’s Tavern in NBC’s Wednesday night hammock between The Great Gildersleeve and Mr. District Attorney. In 1946-47, its 33% jump in ratings to 16.9 beat Frank Sinatra on CBS and made it the country’s 14th most popular program. In 1947-48, Duffy’s Tavern registered a 20.0 rating, almost doubling Abbott & Costello’s 10.4 on ABC. And in 1948-49 it buried Milton Berle’s 9.6 rating on ABC with a 16.7 to become Wednesday’s top rated show and Number Eleven in the Annual Top 50. (A program from May, 1949, is also posted below.)
That’s when the trouble began.
Simply put, Ed Gardner wanted more money. With the U.S. Income Tax Rate peaking around a whopping 80%, he was attracted by Puerto Rico’s Industrial Incentives Act of 1947, designed to lure new industry to the island by offering a 12 year exemption from income, property and excise taxes. Commonly called Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap, it was intended to attract manufacturing - not necessarily the manufacture of radio programs. But all comers were welcome and the wealthier the better.
Gardner was under contract to Bristol-Myers until June, 1950. He approached his sponsor and its Young & Rubicam agency midway during the 1948-49 season and they wanted to talk about adapting Duffy's Tavern to television which he flatly rejected. Instead, Gardner demanded a three year contract, a substantial raise and the option to move to Puerto Rico and record Duffy’s Tavern for shipment back to New York. The sitcom was already near the upper tier of weekly program budgets and Bristol-Myers was no sponsor to lavish money on its hit radio shows as Eddie Cantor learned three years earlier. Pitfalls were also seen in the Puerto Rican production plan so Bristol-Myers turned Gardner down on both counts, thanked him for his service and released him a year early from his contract.
Gardner’s next stop was NBC where he wanted a five year contract providing him with a guaranteed income even if Duffy’s Tavern was cancelled Although NBC was under siege of the CBS talent raid at the time, it also turned Gardner down but told him that his recorded shows from San Juan would be welcome if he could find a sponsor.
By the time of the last Bristol-Myers broadcast on June 29, 1949, Gardner had lined up a new sponsor, Schenley Distiller’s Blatz Beer, and both CBS and NBC were bidding for the “new” recorded Duffy’s Tavern. CBS offered Wednesday night at 10:00 following its new hour with Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life and the new Bing Crosby Show. NBC offered Duffy‘s established timeslot at 9:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday or a new half hour on Thursday at 9:30.
Billboard reported that NBC President Niles Trammell claimed that RCA Chairman David Sarnoff intervened with friends at the highest levels of Schenley and persuaded them to choose the latter - a big mistake - between the fading Screen Guild Players, a former hit show that had fallen on hard times and the ratings-weak Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como and Peggy Lee. Worse yet, Duffy’s Tavern was put in direct competition with Casey, Crime Photographer, part of Thursday’s successful CBS mystery lineup that swept the first four places of the night’s Top Ten.
Nevertheless, Gardner took his cast, Gloria Erlanger, Charlie Cantor and Eddie Green, plus four writers and headed for Puerto Rico. The first show on September 29, 1949, went off without a hitch. But problems of a different sort began to appear.
The first had to do with Puerto Rico’s distance from the United States - over a thousand air miles from Miami - which prevented top name film and radio stars from interrupting their schedules to appear on Duffy’s Tavern. Further, without daily news from home, Gardner’s writers lost their source of topical humor.
Then came a public relations blow that Gardner apparently hadn’t foreseen: Illinois Congressman Noah Mason told the press in October that the Duffy’s Tavern troupe was, “…able evade all income taxes due to a ridiculous loophole in our tax statutes.“ A Revenue Bureau, (as it was known in those days), spokesman added that he was, “…afraid if there is such a loophole, a number of other programs may do the same thing.”
Gossip columnists piled on, labeling Gardner a “tax dodger” and called for an FBI investigation. Then Treasury Secretary John Snyder got in on the act on February 3, 1950, when he addressed the House Ways & Means Committee about, “…the case of a radio entertainer who recently entered into an agreement with Puerto Rico under which he agreed to produce all of his radio and television transcriptions and films on that island in return for an exemption from the Puerto Rican tax.” Snyder added, “He may also be able at the same time for exemption from the United States tax even though he may stay in Puerto Rico for only a short period.” (4)
Ten days later Life magazine did a three page story about Gardner’s move to Puerto Rico in which he responded to his critics, “People think nothing of it if a textile company moves down here, but let an actor try to act like a businessman and they holler crook.” He added that he had committed to invest $250,000 in radio and television programming produced in Puerto Rico.
It didn’t help his cause when the story revealed Gardner’s personal income to be $5,000 a week, ($49,700 in today's money), or pictured him driving down a palm treed Puerto Rican lane in his Cadillac convertible and lounging in the surf while most of Life’s readers were enduring winter’s freezing cold.
As a result of all these factors, Wednesday’s Number One show of 1948-49 lost over half its audience and became a Thursday also-ran in 1949-50. Duffy's Tavern plunged from eleventh to 69th place in the season's ratings with an 8.0 rating. (A program from the season is also posted below.)
Charlie Cantor left the cast in 1950 and was replaced by Sid Raymond. Eddie Green died and his spot was taken by pianist Fats Pinchon. Blatz cancelled sponsorship and NBC moved Duffy’s Tavern to Friday at 9:30 as a participating spot carrier. Unable to attract a sponsor at the bargain basement price of $3,900 a week, Duffy's Tavern left the air after eleven seasons on January 4, 1952.
Gardner’s attempts to revive the show as a syndicated television sitcom in 1954 also failed after 38 half hour episodes were produced but sales were dismal.
Ed Gardner threw a great party at Duffy's Tavern but the hangover was something else.
(1) The original slogan - “Where The Elite Meet To Eat - Today’s Special Pigs’ Pickled Feet” - was shortened during the first season.
(2) Cantor’s Clifton Finnegan was the only cast member of Duffy’s Tavern who was given a full name.
(3) Bristol-Myers dropped Tavern from the title for fear that it might offend some listeners. It was restored on the broadcast of March 7, 1944.
(4) It was ruled six months later that because Gardner was a fulltime resident of Puerto Rico, he and his program were exempt from U.S. taxes and he was free to travel to the United States whenever he wished.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
| duffys_tavern_07_29_40.mp3 |
| duffys_tavern_12_07_43.mp3 |
| duffys_tavern_05_04_49.mp3 |
| duffys_tavern__06_15_50.mp3 |