GOODMAN & JANE ACE: "WE COULDN'T BE MORE COMBATABLE."
"ISN’T THAT AWFUL?"
It was a familiar question to listeners of Easy Aces. Goodman Ace often asked it under his breath when his loquacious wife Jane lapsed into one of her frequent malapropisms, occasional spoonerism or mixed metaphors. “Explain that again in words of one cylinder. Let's begin at the beguine.” (1)
Okay... Goodman Aiskowitz and Jane Epstein were both Kansas City, Missouri, natives. He was born in 1899 but her birthdate has been reported as anywhere from 1898 to 1905. “The word birthday is tatoo around here.” They reportedly met as youngsters at school. “Familiarity breeds attempt.” Goodman, (Goody to his friends), was immediately drawn to the attractive blue eyed blonde of his faith. “He was head over tails in love with me.” After a proper courtship to please her parents the young lovers were married in 1922. “Love makes the world go round together." By that time Goodman was establishing a reputation as the clever theater critic and humor columnist for the Kansas City Journal-Post. “He was a human domino and I was his awful wedded wife.” (2)
Under his pen name as Ace Goes To The Movies, Goodman did a weekly 15 minutes of movie reviews on KMBC, the local CBS affiliate, for an additional ten dollars a week. "It was his black bottom price.” Jane accompanied Goodman to the studio on the fateful Friday night in 1930 when the program following his failed to start and he was pressed into saying something - anything - to cover the quarter hour of otherwise dead air. "He was in a real quarry." (3)
Goodman called on Jane to join him at the microphone and she didn't hesitate. "I was completely uninhabited." They chatted for the next 15 minutes about her struggles with the game of auction bridge and how an argument over a bridge game led a Kansas City housewife to murder her husband. "Would you care to shoot a game of bridge, dear?" Jane coyly asked Goody. “Is that using the old chromium or isn’t it?”
A local advertising man was listening to the impromptu conversation and saw its promise as a 15 minute comedy series. He sold the idea to a local drugstore chain for 13 weeks and offered Goodman $25 a week to write, produce, direct and appear in two shows a week and $15 for Jane to appear in the two quarter hours. “I wasn't born for nothing.” The young couple accepted and Easy Aces was born.
The son of Latvian immigrants, Goodman Ace had become a clever wordsmith and a fan of 18th Century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan who created Mrs. Malaprop in his comedy, The Rivals. Her malapropisms confused words that sounded alike but had altogether different meanings. In Goody's Easy Aces scripts, Jane became the Mrs. Malaprop of radio. “She was a godspend.” Spouting frequent "Jane-isms," Jane displayed a natural talent for reading comic dialogue, perfect for her character's frequent misadventures, while Goody was the long-suffering yet tolerant voice of reason. George Burns & Gracie Allen played similar roles in vaudeville but the Aces were the first married couple to do so on radio.
Billed as “Radio’s unique laugh novelty,” Easy Aces began on KMBC as two of their 15 minute conversations a week and attracted immediate attention for its clever writing and dry humor. “It picked up by creeps and bounds”. Easy Aces added another $40 a week to the couple's income on top of the $20 he already made in radio plus his newspaper salary which had grown to $75. The $135 weekly total was great income in 1930 - over $1,900 in today's money. “We were going like bats out of a belfry.”
Then Chicago's Blackett-Sample-Hummert called in 1931. "They said we had a lot that’s common." Word had spread about the quirky little show from Kansas City and the huge advertising agency offered them a 13 week trial on CBS for its client Lavoris mouthwash. "You could have knocked me over with a fender." The only catch was the location of the lengthy audition, CBS-owned WBBM in Chicago. It was a gamble with no guarantees that involved leaving the security of their Missouri home. "Be it ever so hovel, there’s no place like home." For insurance against the possibility of failing, they asked for $500 a week. To their surprise the agency agreed. (4)
BSH slotted Easy Aces on the CBS schedule on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights at 7:15 ET following another of its Chicago based quarter hours, Myrt & Marge, beginning on March 1, 1932. The Aces were moved up to 7:30 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights later in the month and stayed there until July 1st. Audience reaction to Easy Aces in Chicago was encouraging and Lavoris renewed for the next season beginning in the fall. "We were sitting on pretty street." Goody and Jane returned to Kansas City for the summer to see their families and friends and bid goodbye.
They opened the 1932-33 season on September 26th with a raise from Lavoris to $1,650 a week. "We had no problem making both ends neat." Easy Aces spent the next four months on a Monday,Wednesday-Friday schedule at 10:15 p.m. That changed on January 31, 1933, when Easy Aces was moved to CBS at 8:00 on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights. The three shows were moved ahead an hour to 9:00 on April 18th and stayed there until Lavoris cancelled on May 30 1933. ”You shouldn’t change horses in mid-spring.” (5)
For relative newcomers shifted around on the schedule as they were, the Aces acquitted themselves nicely in the ratings. “Numbers count, y’know.” Beginning slowly in the fall, the couple picked up steam and scored over 12.0 in both April and May finishing with a season average of 9.1. "We defied the jaws of gravity."
Nevertheless, they couldn’t find a new sponsor in Chicago. "We looked high and dry." Before giving up and retreating to Kansas City they traveled east to confer with Frank Hummert at BSH’s New York office. Hummert and his wife Anne produced over a dozen Network Radio shows for his agency’s clients and he had expressed admiration for Easy Aces in the past. “He was a big clog in the machinery”. Hummert did find a sponsor for the Aces from his long list of client products found on drugstore shelves.
The Whitehall Pharmacal division of American Home Products advertised its Jad Salts as a “dietary aid“. It was actually a compound of sodium phosphate, sodium and potassium bicarbonates which induced vomiting or diarrhea. “We didn’t indulge that information.” Hummert had to use his legendary talents as a copywriter and salesman to convince Whitehall that Jad Salts could be successfully sold to diet conscious women suffering from bulimia with a sophisticated comedy show on daytime radio. “He put the deal over single headed.”
But it was a buyer’s market in 1933 and the Aces had to settle for $1,300 a week - a $350 pay cut - to deliver up to four shows a week from New York. “That’s the fly in the oatmeal”. The Tuesday through Friday afternoon CBS series for Jad began on October 10, 1933 at 1:30 p.m. ET. Whitehall was impressed with Easy Aces’ Crossley ratings in the afternoon - sometimes approaching 6.0 - and returned the couple to prime time on May 2, 1934. “We had a tuition they would.”
Their CBS quarter hour was scheduled at 8:15 ET three nights a week - opposite NBC’s Jack Pearl on Wednesday, Rudy Vallee on Thursday and Jessica Dragonette on Friday, all listener favorites. Nevertheless, Easy Aces managed a 5.0 average rating against these popular shows at a fraction of the cost. “Can’t beat those cut-throat prices.”
Following a 13 week summer vacation the Aces returned to CBS on October 3, 1934, and resumed their Wednesday, Thursday and Friday schedule for Jad Salts, only 15 minutes earlier at 8:00 p.m. This season they were pitted against NBC’s Mary Pickford dramas on Wednesday, then Vallee and Dragonette as before. The odds against them were again formidable, but Easy Aces opened the season with an October rating of 7.7 and followed that with a 7.8 in November. “We were making very good headwork.”
On top of that, they signed a contract with two-reel comedy producer Educational Pictures that resulted in the short, Dumb Luck, released in January, 1935. "Any girl would give her right name to be a movie star!"
Nevertheless, the last 8 o’clock broadcast of Easy Aces on CBS for Whitehall’s purgative, (which was about to be taken off the market), was December 13, 1934. The network had decided to convert more of the peak three hours of its nightly schedule to longer programs and there was no room for the 15 minute Easy Aces. “This was getting jerksome”. Goody and Jane returned to CBS daytime on Monday, January 7, 1935 and stayed on a Monday through Thursday schedule at 3:45 ET until the end of the month. In those six weeks Hummert had found a new home for them in prime time. "He ran around like a chicken with its hat cut off."
On February 4th Easy Aces debuted on NBC at 7:30 p.m. for Whitehall’s new patent medicine, Anacin, an analgesic touted as, “...like a doctor's prescription, a combination of medically proven, active ingredients," which were basically aspirin and caffeine. “It wasn‘t all it was jacked up to be.” The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday series stayed put until May 29th while Hummert considered their next move. "We were waiting on pins and cushions."
Easy Aces debuted on Blue - its third network in six months - at 4:15 p.m. on June 4th, beginning a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday run until September 25th. Then it was back to prime time for good on October 1, 1935. “Doesn't this sound like Gullible‘s Travels?” Whitehall pitted the sophisticated comedy of Easy Aces on Blue against the antics of NBC’s Amos & Andy and Hummert’s soapy Myrt & Marge on CBS at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
The Aces’ first season in the competitive timeslot resulted in a disappointing 4.4 rating against Amos & Andy‘s 13.1, which led the Multiple Run Top Ten in 1935-36, and Myrt & Marge‘s 8.7. But Whitehall had faith in the couple’s ability to build audience with the nightly lead-in of popular Blue network newscaster Lowell Thomas. “We just kept our nose to the ol’ tombstone.” Hummert made it easier in January, 1937, by moving Myrt & Marge out of the 7 o’clock slot and into CBS daytime. As a result, Easy Aces enjoyed a 25% increase in audience to 5.3 and placed in the 1936-37 Multiple Run Top Ten. "See? It pays to stay positive and be an optician."
Frank Hummert and Whitehall Pharmacal gave Goody and Jane Ace another assist in 1937-38 when they introduced Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons on Blue for Bisodol Antacid Tablets at 7:15 p.m. three nights a week following Easy Aces. The solid half hour resulted in an increase to a 6.2 rating for Easy Aces and another Multiple Run Top Ten season. What's more, Anacin sales had skyrocketed. (6) "This was getting to be more fun than a barrel."
Hummert was beginning to look like a genius in 1939-40 when the low cost Easy Aces’ 7.0 rating became a challenge to its much higher priced 7 o’clock competitors, Amos & Andy, who had moved to CBS, (10.8), and Fred Waring’s Chesterfield Time on NBC, (10.1). "He never went off half-crocked."
The first recorded samples of Easy Aces are from Blue on April 17, 1941 and May 13,1941. (7) They feature Mary Hunter as Jane’s longtime pal, Marge, best known for her charming laughter at the Ace’s confusing conversations. - “We were insufferable friends, always together like Simonized twins”. In contrast, Ethel Blum played Jane’s emotional niece Betty, who continually brought her marital problems to the Aces. “She was like my own flesh and bones”. (8)
The threat of World War II had an effect on the Multiple Run program ratings in 1940-41 when seven newscasts dominated the category’s Top Ten. Easy Aces' ratings fell ten percent to 6.3. The rating situation became worse in 1941-42 when America entered the war and their number dropped to 5.6. "We had to take the bitter with the badder.” Hummert decided a major change was in order. “He came right out point black and said so.”
So, on Thursday, October 23, 1942, Goody and Jane said goodbye to their audience of seven seasons on Blue. Five nights later they returned to CBS at 7:30 p.m. ET followed by Hummert's Mr. Keen at 7:45 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. “Birds of a father flock together.” The Aces enjoyed an immediate monthly ratings gain of 50% after the switch and by January, 1943, had built their Hooperating to 8.5, just half a point behind the time period leading Lone Ranger on Blue. “We were under the impersonation it was good”. Hummert thought differently. He was convinced that both of Whitehall’s two quarter hours, Easy Aces and Mr. Keen, could do better as weekly half hour programs. He was half right. (9)
Easy Aces debuted as a half-hour sitcom on December 1, 1943. The ratings hardly budged - actually they drifted down from the 5.3 that November’s quarter-hour shows registered and finished with a season average of 5.2. “Keep your chins up!" A story has long circulated that Whitehall’s cancellation of Easy Aces and the couple's split with Frank Hummert began when an Anacin executive complained about a musical bridge on the show and Goody took offense. “Just a minute, my tar-feathered friend.” Ace retorted with a complaint about Anacin’s shoddy packaging in cardboard boxes and Whitehall retaliated with a cancellation notice.
It’s doubtful that Whitehall would have dumped Easy Aces over such pettiness if its ratings had been double or triple its feeble 5.2. Goody and Jane were replaced on January 24, 1945, by The Adventures of Ellery Queen which scored an 8.5 in the time period over the remaining months of the season. “There’s no use crying over spoiled milk.”
By this time the Ace’s income had grown to $4,500 a week. Living a wealthy but quiet lifestyle in a fashionable hotel suite overlooking Central Park. they still enjoyed playing bridge with friends and were devoted baseball and horse racing fans. “We were puttin’ on the rich.” Nevertheless, their modest childhood years had taught them to save regularly and invest conservatively. Jane was ready to retire and Goody was in sudden demand as a comedy writer, so cancellation was nothing but a blow to their egos. “Worried? Not by a buckshot.”
Then, just as it had years earlier in their Kansas City days, the phone rang with a surprising offer - only this time not from an agency or a network. “It came out of a clean blue sky.” Fred Ziv called from Cincinnati to inquire if the couple had saved the scripts to their 1,400 shows over the years and if they owned the rights to them. When he heard “yes” to both questions, the enthusiastic Ziv asked, “How would the Aces like to make some easy money - lots of easy money?” (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication on this site.) "This sounded like a winning preposition."
Goody and Jane signed a contract with Ziv in April, 1945, to edit, update and perform previously broadcast quarter hour episodes of Easy Aces in recording sessions of at least five shows. “The shorter the quicker”. Ziv agreed to pay all production, distribution and sales costs and they’d split the net profits. In its first year of syndication alone, gross sales of Ziv’s transcribed Easy Aces totaled over $400,000. “It was a combination gold well and oil mine.”
Eventually, 760 quarter-hours were transcribed that generated revenue from hundreds of stations and local advertisers who broadcast and rebroadcast the discs in the late 1940‘s. "We made money hand over foot!" A selection of episodes from the Ziv series is posted below beginning with its 1945 pilot. (Easy Aces’ theme, Manhattan Serenade, occupies the first 90 seconds of the pilot as the background for local announcer introductions and commercials.) The next seven shows that follows are A New Job, To Arizona, Back Home, Telling Jane, Selling A Farm and two episodes centered on the game that first brought them to radio, A Bridge Lesson and Jane's Bridge System.
With the Ziv project requiring little of his time, Ace picked up an additional $4,500 a week from Pabst Beer as head writer for the brewery’s Danny Kaye Show on CBS. The assignment lasted only four months because Kaye and his manager/wife Sylvia Fine decided to move the show to Hollywood but the Aces refused to leave New York. “They could go hire a kite.”
Before Bill Paley’s tax lawyers devised the capital gains scheme that facilitated his CBS talent raid on NBC’s top comedians, the network established The CBS School of Comedy Writers in 1947 and appointed Goodman Ace as its “dean’. The workshop included George Axelrod, Paddy Chayefsky and brothers Neal & Danny Simon among others. and produced the short lived satirical Little Show with comedian Robert Q Lewis. But Ace wasn’t happy. Quoted by historian John Dunning, “We gave CBS a good, tight 15 minute comedy show and what do they do? They expanded it to half an hour, then threw in an orchestra and an audience. Who the hell said a comedy show had to be half an hour? Marconi?” The “school” disbanded six months later. “Relapse, Dear. Remember your blood pleasure.” (10)
The Aces still weren’t in their fifties and now had the luxury of regular checks from Fred Ziv to enjoy semi-retirement in their apartment at the Ritz Tower. Goody could pick and choose his writing assignments and had lunch regularly with pals at the Friars Club - “He could strangle an egg or TV a dinner if he had to” - while Jane had her circle of Park Avenue friends and managed the household - “I kept the place spic and spat.” Meanwhile, new audiences all over the country were discovering Easy Aces through the syndicated Ziv series.
CBS noticed this resurgence in their popularity and lured the Aces back to Network Radio on Valentines Day 1948 in the half hour format Goody claimed to detest, complete with an orchestra, a supporting cast and a studio audience. The name of the show presented a problem, however. They couldn’t use the name Easy Aces - it belonged to the 15 minute show syndicated by Ziv. “We had to avoid misconstruction”. So, the new Saturday night CBS program was dubbed, mr. ace & JANE, with the unusual capitalization being Goodman Ace’s over-the-top touch of complete separation from Easy Aces. "Never take him for granite." More unusual was the sponsor that CBS found for the sophisticated comedy show, the U.S. Army and Air Force Recruiting Service. Three episodes of from the early 1948 run are posted below: March 13, (Jury Duty), April 17, (Quiz Show) and May 1, (Dream Walking).
The couple’s mismatched sponsorship lasted until June 4th when CBS sold their show to General Foods’ Jello and moved it to Friday at 8:00, replacing Fanny Brice's Baby Snooks. The sitcom stayed put until September when mr. ace & JANE was moved up the CBS schedule to 8:30.
Then, for the first time in 13 rated seasons, Goody and Jane finished in the Annual Top 50 at 45th among all prime time shows. Their 12.2 also registered sixth in Friday’s Top Ten - losing the time period to ABC’s This Is Your FBI but beating the veteran Jimmy Durante’s 10.3 on NBC. Moreover, it was the top rated Friday night show on CBS in 1948-49. “That was our clowning achievement.- our pinochle of success.” The show was cancelled at the end of the season.
Syndicated critic John Crosby wrote, “This is a black day,” when he learned that CBS had dropped mr. ace & JANE in May, 1949. Quoting Goodman Ace on the situation, “We live in an age of mediocrity. I think there’s still room on the air for an adult comedy show and we’ll probably show up again in the fall.” They did - literally - on a weekly, 15 minute DuMont television show that premiered in December. “A thousand pictures are better than one word.” But Goody wasn’t satisfied with the show and critics agreed, kindly suggesting that Easy Aces, with its clever over-lapping dialogue was better suited for radio than television. “That was their candied opinion.”
Their brief television career behind them, Goodman was persuaded to become head writer for NBC’s Big Show from 1950 to 1952. (See Tallulah’s Big Show on this site.) The 90 minute Sunday evening variety show was considered to be Network Radio's prestige project so he accepted the position for only $750 a week. “Money was no subject.” In a 1970 interview he joked, “We never attended a broadcast. We stayed at home on Sunday night and listened to Our Miss Brooks, Jack Benny and Amos & Andy on CBS, just like everybody else.”
Goody’s commitment to NBC’s “spectacular” dovetailed with a year’s contract for Jane to appear as Jane Ace, Disc Jockey on Saturday nights at 8:00 ET. “Finally, my name was up in tights!” Jane’s half hour debuted on October 27, 1951 and frequently featured "Goodman Ace, Guest Star", to keep their Easy Aces rapport going. It was recorded during the week so their Saturday nights remained free for fun and it was a spot carrier so there was no sponsor or rating pressure. “No straining the yokel chords here.”
Goody’s career came full-circle in 1952 when he became a featured humorist for the Saturday Review, contributing the weekly column Top of My Head. "Words never fooled him." Doubleday published a collection of his columns in 1971 titled, The Better of Goodman Ace.
The Aces kept active beyond the Network Radio's Golden Age when they agreed to host a segment of NBC’s new 40 hour weekend news and entertainment marathon, Monitor, in June, 1955. “We were on the Monitor bacon.” Later that year they became occasional guests of Margaret Truman and Mike Wallace on Weekday - a half-hearted, short-lived Monday through Friday copy of Monitor.
During this period Goodman became a writer in much demand for television. He wrote for comedians Milton Berle and Sid Caesar then spent most of 1955 to 1967 as Perry Como’s head writer, earning as much as $10,000 a week. "He became the family bread baker."
Jane died in November, 1974, after a three year battle with cancer. Goodman wrote of her passing shortly afterwards, “…through my mind there ran a constant rerun of a line she spoke on radio in her casual, malapropian style, ‘We‘re all cremated equal’… A wooden casket?…a metal casket?…it’s the name of their game…a tisket, a casket…then transporting it back to Kansas City…The plane ride…'smoking or non-smoking?' somebody asked…non-thinking was what I wanted…A soft sprinkle of snow as we huddled around her…the first of the season, they told me…lasted only through the short service…He had the grace to celebrate her arrival with a handful of His confetti.”
Goodman Ace joined his beloved wife of 52 years in 1982. He was 83 years old. The Easy Aces are interred side by side at Mount Carmel cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.
“And that’s our story in a nut house.”
"Isn't that awful?"
(1) This post is amplified by Mrs. Ace's comments, many of which were taken from Mr. Ace's 1970 compilation of scripts published as, Ladies & Gentlemen, Easy Aces. Sources also include the Goodman Ace profile, Words Fool Me, written by his nephew Martin Singer for New Yorker magazine; John Dunning's On The Air - The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, and Arthur Wertheim's Radio Comedy.
(2) As is often the case of childless couples with few survivors, the exact dates of Jane's birth, their marriage and their first broadcast together have been disputed by historians.
(3) Young Aiskowitz was nicknamed Ais at the newspaper which he converted to Ace. The cause of the programming interruption has been blamed by different sources on CBS network line failure, a faulty transcription or tardy performers.
(4) The couple originally agreed to return to Kansas City if the trial failed or whenever they saved $25,000. To keep the door open for his return, Goodman continued to write his daily newspaper column, Lobbying, for the Kansas City Journal-Post at no charge. With each Easy Aces renewal the number of free columns he wrote each week diminished.
(5) Goody later cited one contributing reason for the cancellation: A Lavoris executive called in early 1933 accusing him of starting the CBS program five minutes late according to the grandfather clock in his Minneapolis home, "...that hasn't been wrong in 50 years."
(6) Easy Aces and Mr. Keen remained back-to-back programs for five seasons on Blue, then Hummert and Whitehall Pharmacal moved the tandem to CBS for the 1942-43 season.
(7) Easy Aces' familiar theme song, Manhattan Serenade, is missing from these broadcasts due to the networks' boycott of ASCAP music during the first ten months of 1941. (See The 1940-41 Season on this site.)
(8) Hunter's frequent giggles, as well as the natural reactions of other cast members, were encouraged by director Goodman Ace who limited script rehearsals to one reading. The small cast gathered around a card table with a microphone hidden beneath it. Others who played recurring roles on the show at various times included Peggy Allenby, Eric Dressler, Helen Dumas, Martin Gabel, John Griggs, Cliff Hall, Leon Janney, Pert Kelton, Ken Roberts, Alfred Ryder, Everett Sloane, Ann Thomas and Evelyn Varden.
(9) Hummert's formulaic Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, enjoyed six Top 50 seasons, three in the Top 15 plus five seasons in Thursday's Top Ten, twice the night's most popular show. program.
(10) Ace delivered another show to CBS in 1947 that demonstrated the scope of his creativity. You Are There aka CBS Is There recreated famous historical events as if they were live and covered by CBS newsmen, (John Daly, Richard C, Hottelett, Don Hollenbeck, etc.), who “interviewed” the principal figures played by radio actors. The sustaining series aired from July, 1947, until March, 1950. You Are There was adapted for CBS-TV in 1953 and enjoyed a five year run with host Walter Cronkite. Ace never received broadcast credit as its creator.
Copyright © 2016, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
It was a familiar question to listeners of Easy Aces. Goodman Ace often asked it under his breath when his loquacious wife Jane lapsed into one of her frequent malapropisms, occasional spoonerism or mixed metaphors. “Explain that again in words of one cylinder. Let's begin at the beguine.” (1)
Okay... Goodman Aiskowitz and Jane Epstein were both Kansas City, Missouri, natives. He was born in 1899 but her birthdate has been reported as anywhere from 1898 to 1905. “The word birthday is tatoo around here.” They reportedly met as youngsters at school. “Familiarity breeds attempt.” Goodman, (Goody to his friends), was immediately drawn to the attractive blue eyed blonde of his faith. “He was head over tails in love with me.” After a proper courtship to please her parents the young lovers were married in 1922. “Love makes the world go round together." By that time Goodman was establishing a reputation as the clever theater critic and humor columnist for the Kansas City Journal-Post. “He was a human domino and I was his awful wedded wife.” (2)
Under his pen name as Ace Goes To The Movies, Goodman did a weekly 15 minutes of movie reviews on KMBC, the local CBS affiliate, for an additional ten dollars a week. "It was his black bottom price.” Jane accompanied Goodman to the studio on the fateful Friday night in 1930 when the program following his failed to start and he was pressed into saying something - anything - to cover the quarter hour of otherwise dead air. "He was in a real quarry." (3)
Goodman called on Jane to join him at the microphone and she didn't hesitate. "I was completely uninhabited." They chatted for the next 15 minutes about her struggles with the game of auction bridge and how an argument over a bridge game led a Kansas City housewife to murder her husband. "Would you care to shoot a game of bridge, dear?" Jane coyly asked Goody. “Is that using the old chromium or isn’t it?”
A local advertising man was listening to the impromptu conversation and saw its promise as a 15 minute comedy series. He sold the idea to a local drugstore chain for 13 weeks and offered Goodman $25 a week to write, produce, direct and appear in two shows a week and $15 for Jane to appear in the two quarter hours. “I wasn't born for nothing.” The young couple accepted and Easy Aces was born.
The son of Latvian immigrants, Goodman Ace had become a clever wordsmith and a fan of 18th Century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan who created Mrs. Malaprop in his comedy, The Rivals. Her malapropisms confused words that sounded alike but had altogether different meanings. In Goody's Easy Aces scripts, Jane became the Mrs. Malaprop of radio. “She was a godspend.” Spouting frequent "Jane-isms," Jane displayed a natural talent for reading comic dialogue, perfect for her character's frequent misadventures, while Goody was the long-suffering yet tolerant voice of reason. George Burns & Gracie Allen played similar roles in vaudeville but the Aces were the first married couple to do so on radio.
Billed as “Radio’s unique laugh novelty,” Easy Aces began on KMBC as two of their 15 minute conversations a week and attracted immediate attention for its clever writing and dry humor. “It picked up by creeps and bounds”. Easy Aces added another $40 a week to the couple's income on top of the $20 he already made in radio plus his newspaper salary which had grown to $75. The $135 weekly total was great income in 1930 - over $1,900 in today's money. “We were going like bats out of a belfry.”
Then Chicago's Blackett-Sample-Hummert called in 1931. "They said we had a lot that’s common." Word had spread about the quirky little show from Kansas City and the huge advertising agency offered them a 13 week trial on CBS for its client Lavoris mouthwash. "You could have knocked me over with a fender." The only catch was the location of the lengthy audition, CBS-owned WBBM in Chicago. It was a gamble with no guarantees that involved leaving the security of their Missouri home. "Be it ever so hovel, there’s no place like home." For insurance against the possibility of failing, they asked for $500 a week. To their surprise the agency agreed. (4)
BSH slotted Easy Aces on the CBS schedule on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights at 7:15 ET following another of its Chicago based quarter hours, Myrt & Marge, beginning on March 1, 1932. The Aces were moved up to 7:30 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights later in the month and stayed there until July 1st. Audience reaction to Easy Aces in Chicago was encouraging and Lavoris renewed for the next season beginning in the fall. "We were sitting on pretty street." Goody and Jane returned to Kansas City for the summer to see their families and friends and bid goodbye.
They opened the 1932-33 season on September 26th with a raise from Lavoris to $1,650 a week. "We had no problem making both ends neat." Easy Aces spent the next four months on a Monday,Wednesday-Friday schedule at 10:15 p.m. That changed on January 31, 1933, when Easy Aces was moved to CBS at 8:00 on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights. The three shows were moved ahead an hour to 9:00 on April 18th and stayed there until Lavoris cancelled on May 30 1933. ”You shouldn’t change horses in mid-spring.” (5)
For relative newcomers shifted around on the schedule as they were, the Aces acquitted themselves nicely in the ratings. “Numbers count, y’know.” Beginning slowly in the fall, the couple picked up steam and scored over 12.0 in both April and May finishing with a season average of 9.1. "We defied the jaws of gravity."
Nevertheless, they couldn’t find a new sponsor in Chicago. "We looked high and dry." Before giving up and retreating to Kansas City they traveled east to confer with Frank Hummert at BSH’s New York office. Hummert and his wife Anne produced over a dozen Network Radio shows for his agency’s clients and he had expressed admiration for Easy Aces in the past. “He was a big clog in the machinery”. Hummert did find a sponsor for the Aces from his long list of client products found on drugstore shelves.
The Whitehall Pharmacal division of American Home Products advertised its Jad Salts as a “dietary aid“. It was actually a compound of sodium phosphate, sodium and potassium bicarbonates which induced vomiting or diarrhea. “We didn’t indulge that information.” Hummert had to use his legendary talents as a copywriter and salesman to convince Whitehall that Jad Salts could be successfully sold to diet conscious women suffering from bulimia with a sophisticated comedy show on daytime radio. “He put the deal over single headed.”
But it was a buyer’s market in 1933 and the Aces had to settle for $1,300 a week - a $350 pay cut - to deliver up to four shows a week from New York. “That’s the fly in the oatmeal”. The Tuesday through Friday afternoon CBS series for Jad began on October 10, 1933 at 1:30 p.m. ET. Whitehall was impressed with Easy Aces’ Crossley ratings in the afternoon - sometimes approaching 6.0 - and returned the couple to prime time on May 2, 1934. “We had a tuition they would.”
Their CBS quarter hour was scheduled at 8:15 ET three nights a week - opposite NBC’s Jack Pearl on Wednesday, Rudy Vallee on Thursday and Jessica Dragonette on Friday, all listener favorites. Nevertheless, Easy Aces managed a 5.0 average rating against these popular shows at a fraction of the cost. “Can’t beat those cut-throat prices.”
Following a 13 week summer vacation the Aces returned to CBS on October 3, 1934, and resumed their Wednesday, Thursday and Friday schedule for Jad Salts, only 15 minutes earlier at 8:00 p.m. This season they were pitted against NBC’s Mary Pickford dramas on Wednesday, then Vallee and Dragonette as before. The odds against them were again formidable, but Easy Aces opened the season with an October rating of 7.7 and followed that with a 7.8 in November. “We were making very good headwork.”
On top of that, they signed a contract with two-reel comedy producer Educational Pictures that resulted in the short, Dumb Luck, released in January, 1935. "Any girl would give her right name to be a movie star!"
Nevertheless, the last 8 o’clock broadcast of Easy Aces on CBS for Whitehall’s purgative, (which was about to be taken off the market), was December 13, 1934. The network had decided to convert more of the peak three hours of its nightly schedule to longer programs and there was no room for the 15 minute Easy Aces. “This was getting jerksome”. Goody and Jane returned to CBS daytime on Monday, January 7, 1935 and stayed on a Monday through Thursday schedule at 3:45 ET until the end of the month. In those six weeks Hummert had found a new home for them in prime time. "He ran around like a chicken with its hat cut off."
On February 4th Easy Aces debuted on NBC at 7:30 p.m. for Whitehall’s new patent medicine, Anacin, an analgesic touted as, “...like a doctor's prescription, a combination of medically proven, active ingredients," which were basically aspirin and caffeine. “It wasn‘t all it was jacked up to be.” The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday series stayed put until May 29th while Hummert considered their next move. "We were waiting on pins and cushions."
Easy Aces debuted on Blue - its third network in six months - at 4:15 p.m. on June 4th, beginning a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday run until September 25th. Then it was back to prime time for good on October 1, 1935. “Doesn't this sound like Gullible‘s Travels?” Whitehall pitted the sophisticated comedy of Easy Aces on Blue against the antics of NBC’s Amos & Andy and Hummert’s soapy Myrt & Marge on CBS at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
The Aces’ first season in the competitive timeslot resulted in a disappointing 4.4 rating against Amos & Andy‘s 13.1, which led the Multiple Run Top Ten in 1935-36, and Myrt & Marge‘s 8.7. But Whitehall had faith in the couple’s ability to build audience with the nightly lead-in of popular Blue network newscaster Lowell Thomas. “We just kept our nose to the ol’ tombstone.” Hummert made it easier in January, 1937, by moving Myrt & Marge out of the 7 o’clock slot and into CBS daytime. As a result, Easy Aces enjoyed a 25% increase in audience to 5.3 and placed in the 1936-37 Multiple Run Top Ten. "See? It pays to stay positive and be an optician."
Frank Hummert and Whitehall Pharmacal gave Goody and Jane Ace another assist in 1937-38 when they introduced Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons on Blue for Bisodol Antacid Tablets at 7:15 p.m. three nights a week following Easy Aces. The solid half hour resulted in an increase to a 6.2 rating for Easy Aces and another Multiple Run Top Ten season. What's more, Anacin sales had skyrocketed. (6) "This was getting to be more fun than a barrel."
Hummert was beginning to look like a genius in 1939-40 when the low cost Easy Aces’ 7.0 rating became a challenge to its much higher priced 7 o’clock competitors, Amos & Andy, who had moved to CBS, (10.8), and Fred Waring’s Chesterfield Time on NBC, (10.1). "He never went off half-crocked."
The first recorded samples of Easy Aces are from Blue on April 17, 1941 and May 13,1941. (7) They feature Mary Hunter as Jane’s longtime pal, Marge, best known for her charming laughter at the Ace’s confusing conversations. - “We were insufferable friends, always together like Simonized twins”. In contrast, Ethel Blum played Jane’s emotional niece Betty, who continually brought her marital problems to the Aces. “She was like my own flesh and bones”. (8)
The threat of World War II had an effect on the Multiple Run program ratings in 1940-41 when seven newscasts dominated the category’s Top Ten. Easy Aces' ratings fell ten percent to 6.3. The rating situation became worse in 1941-42 when America entered the war and their number dropped to 5.6. "We had to take the bitter with the badder.” Hummert decided a major change was in order. “He came right out point black and said so.”
So, on Thursday, October 23, 1942, Goody and Jane said goodbye to their audience of seven seasons on Blue. Five nights later they returned to CBS at 7:30 p.m. ET followed by Hummert's Mr. Keen at 7:45 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. “Birds of a father flock together.” The Aces enjoyed an immediate monthly ratings gain of 50% after the switch and by January, 1943, had built their Hooperating to 8.5, just half a point behind the time period leading Lone Ranger on Blue. “We were under the impersonation it was good”. Hummert thought differently. He was convinced that both of Whitehall’s two quarter hours, Easy Aces and Mr. Keen, could do better as weekly half hour programs. He was half right. (9)
Easy Aces debuted as a half-hour sitcom on December 1, 1943. The ratings hardly budged - actually they drifted down from the 5.3 that November’s quarter-hour shows registered and finished with a season average of 5.2. “Keep your chins up!" A story has long circulated that Whitehall’s cancellation of Easy Aces and the couple's split with Frank Hummert began when an Anacin executive complained about a musical bridge on the show and Goody took offense. “Just a minute, my tar-feathered friend.” Ace retorted with a complaint about Anacin’s shoddy packaging in cardboard boxes and Whitehall retaliated with a cancellation notice.
It’s doubtful that Whitehall would have dumped Easy Aces over such pettiness if its ratings had been double or triple its feeble 5.2. Goody and Jane were replaced on January 24, 1945, by The Adventures of Ellery Queen which scored an 8.5 in the time period over the remaining months of the season. “There’s no use crying over spoiled milk.”
By this time the Ace’s income had grown to $4,500 a week. Living a wealthy but quiet lifestyle in a fashionable hotel suite overlooking Central Park. they still enjoyed playing bridge with friends and were devoted baseball and horse racing fans. “We were puttin’ on the rich.” Nevertheless, their modest childhood years had taught them to save regularly and invest conservatively. Jane was ready to retire and Goody was in sudden demand as a comedy writer, so cancellation was nothing but a blow to their egos. “Worried? Not by a buckshot.”
Then, just as it had years earlier in their Kansas City days, the phone rang with a surprising offer - only this time not from an agency or a network. “It came out of a clean blue sky.” Fred Ziv called from Cincinnati to inquire if the couple had saved the scripts to their 1,400 shows over the years and if they owned the rights to them. When he heard “yes” to both questions, the enthusiastic Ziv asked, “How would the Aces like to make some easy money - lots of easy money?” (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication on this site.) "This sounded like a winning preposition."
Goody and Jane signed a contract with Ziv in April, 1945, to edit, update and perform previously broadcast quarter hour episodes of Easy Aces in recording sessions of at least five shows. “The shorter the quicker”. Ziv agreed to pay all production, distribution and sales costs and they’d split the net profits. In its first year of syndication alone, gross sales of Ziv’s transcribed Easy Aces totaled over $400,000. “It was a combination gold well and oil mine.”
Eventually, 760 quarter-hours were transcribed that generated revenue from hundreds of stations and local advertisers who broadcast and rebroadcast the discs in the late 1940‘s. "We made money hand over foot!" A selection of episodes from the Ziv series is posted below beginning with its 1945 pilot. (Easy Aces’ theme, Manhattan Serenade, occupies the first 90 seconds of the pilot as the background for local announcer introductions and commercials.) The next seven shows that follows are A New Job, To Arizona, Back Home, Telling Jane, Selling A Farm and two episodes centered on the game that first brought them to radio, A Bridge Lesson and Jane's Bridge System.
With the Ziv project requiring little of his time, Ace picked up an additional $4,500 a week from Pabst Beer as head writer for the brewery’s Danny Kaye Show on CBS. The assignment lasted only four months because Kaye and his manager/wife Sylvia Fine decided to move the show to Hollywood but the Aces refused to leave New York. “They could go hire a kite.”
Before Bill Paley’s tax lawyers devised the capital gains scheme that facilitated his CBS talent raid on NBC’s top comedians, the network established The CBS School of Comedy Writers in 1947 and appointed Goodman Ace as its “dean’. The workshop included George Axelrod, Paddy Chayefsky and brothers Neal & Danny Simon among others. and produced the short lived satirical Little Show with comedian Robert Q Lewis. But Ace wasn’t happy. Quoted by historian John Dunning, “We gave CBS a good, tight 15 minute comedy show and what do they do? They expanded it to half an hour, then threw in an orchestra and an audience. Who the hell said a comedy show had to be half an hour? Marconi?” The “school” disbanded six months later. “Relapse, Dear. Remember your blood pleasure.” (10)
The Aces still weren’t in their fifties and now had the luxury of regular checks from Fred Ziv to enjoy semi-retirement in their apartment at the Ritz Tower. Goody could pick and choose his writing assignments and had lunch regularly with pals at the Friars Club - “He could strangle an egg or TV a dinner if he had to” - while Jane had her circle of Park Avenue friends and managed the household - “I kept the place spic and spat.” Meanwhile, new audiences all over the country were discovering Easy Aces through the syndicated Ziv series.
CBS noticed this resurgence in their popularity and lured the Aces back to Network Radio on Valentines Day 1948 in the half hour format Goody claimed to detest, complete with an orchestra, a supporting cast and a studio audience. The name of the show presented a problem, however. They couldn’t use the name Easy Aces - it belonged to the 15 minute show syndicated by Ziv. “We had to avoid misconstruction”. So, the new Saturday night CBS program was dubbed, mr. ace & JANE, with the unusual capitalization being Goodman Ace’s over-the-top touch of complete separation from Easy Aces. "Never take him for granite." More unusual was the sponsor that CBS found for the sophisticated comedy show, the U.S. Army and Air Force Recruiting Service. Three episodes of from the early 1948 run are posted below: March 13, (Jury Duty), April 17, (Quiz Show) and May 1, (Dream Walking).
The couple’s mismatched sponsorship lasted until June 4th when CBS sold their show to General Foods’ Jello and moved it to Friday at 8:00, replacing Fanny Brice's Baby Snooks. The sitcom stayed put until September when mr. ace & JANE was moved up the CBS schedule to 8:30.
Then, for the first time in 13 rated seasons, Goody and Jane finished in the Annual Top 50 at 45th among all prime time shows. Their 12.2 also registered sixth in Friday’s Top Ten - losing the time period to ABC’s This Is Your FBI but beating the veteran Jimmy Durante’s 10.3 on NBC. Moreover, it was the top rated Friday night show on CBS in 1948-49. “That was our clowning achievement.- our pinochle of success.” The show was cancelled at the end of the season.
Syndicated critic John Crosby wrote, “This is a black day,” when he learned that CBS had dropped mr. ace & JANE in May, 1949. Quoting Goodman Ace on the situation, “We live in an age of mediocrity. I think there’s still room on the air for an adult comedy show and we’ll probably show up again in the fall.” They did - literally - on a weekly, 15 minute DuMont television show that premiered in December. “A thousand pictures are better than one word.” But Goody wasn’t satisfied with the show and critics agreed, kindly suggesting that Easy Aces, with its clever over-lapping dialogue was better suited for radio than television. “That was their candied opinion.”
Their brief television career behind them, Goodman was persuaded to become head writer for NBC’s Big Show from 1950 to 1952. (See Tallulah’s Big Show on this site.) The 90 minute Sunday evening variety show was considered to be Network Radio's prestige project so he accepted the position for only $750 a week. “Money was no subject.” In a 1970 interview he joked, “We never attended a broadcast. We stayed at home on Sunday night and listened to Our Miss Brooks, Jack Benny and Amos & Andy on CBS, just like everybody else.”
Goody’s commitment to NBC’s “spectacular” dovetailed with a year’s contract for Jane to appear as Jane Ace, Disc Jockey on Saturday nights at 8:00 ET. “Finally, my name was up in tights!” Jane’s half hour debuted on October 27, 1951 and frequently featured "Goodman Ace, Guest Star", to keep their Easy Aces rapport going. It was recorded during the week so their Saturday nights remained free for fun and it was a spot carrier so there was no sponsor or rating pressure. “No straining the yokel chords here.”
Goody’s career came full-circle in 1952 when he became a featured humorist for the Saturday Review, contributing the weekly column Top of My Head. "Words never fooled him." Doubleday published a collection of his columns in 1971 titled, The Better of Goodman Ace.
The Aces kept active beyond the Network Radio's Golden Age when they agreed to host a segment of NBC’s new 40 hour weekend news and entertainment marathon, Monitor, in June, 1955. “We were on the Monitor bacon.” Later that year they became occasional guests of Margaret Truman and Mike Wallace on Weekday - a half-hearted, short-lived Monday through Friday copy of Monitor.
During this period Goodman became a writer in much demand for television. He wrote for comedians Milton Berle and Sid Caesar then spent most of 1955 to 1967 as Perry Como’s head writer, earning as much as $10,000 a week. "He became the family bread baker."
Jane died in November, 1974, after a three year battle with cancer. Goodman wrote of her passing shortly afterwards, “…through my mind there ran a constant rerun of a line she spoke on radio in her casual, malapropian style, ‘We‘re all cremated equal’… A wooden casket?…a metal casket?…it’s the name of their game…a tisket, a casket…then transporting it back to Kansas City…The plane ride…'smoking or non-smoking?' somebody asked…non-thinking was what I wanted…A soft sprinkle of snow as we huddled around her…the first of the season, they told me…lasted only through the short service…He had the grace to celebrate her arrival with a handful of His confetti.”
Goodman Ace joined his beloved wife of 52 years in 1982. He was 83 years old. The Easy Aces are interred side by side at Mount Carmel cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.
“And that’s our story in a nut house.”
"Isn't that awful?"
(1) This post is amplified by Mrs. Ace's comments, many of which were taken from Mr. Ace's 1970 compilation of scripts published as, Ladies & Gentlemen, Easy Aces. Sources also include the Goodman Ace profile, Words Fool Me, written by his nephew Martin Singer for New Yorker magazine; John Dunning's On The Air - The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, and Arthur Wertheim's Radio Comedy.
(2) As is often the case of childless couples with few survivors, the exact dates of Jane's birth, their marriage and their first broadcast together have been disputed by historians.
(3) Young Aiskowitz was nicknamed Ais at the newspaper which he converted to Ace. The cause of the programming interruption has been blamed by different sources on CBS network line failure, a faulty transcription or tardy performers.
(4) The couple originally agreed to return to Kansas City if the trial failed or whenever they saved $25,000. To keep the door open for his return, Goodman continued to write his daily newspaper column, Lobbying, for the Kansas City Journal-Post at no charge. With each Easy Aces renewal the number of free columns he wrote each week diminished.
(5) Goody later cited one contributing reason for the cancellation: A Lavoris executive called in early 1933 accusing him of starting the CBS program five minutes late according to the grandfather clock in his Minneapolis home, "...that hasn't been wrong in 50 years."
(6) Easy Aces and Mr. Keen remained back-to-back programs for five seasons on Blue, then Hummert and Whitehall Pharmacal moved the tandem to CBS for the 1942-43 season.
(7) Easy Aces' familiar theme song, Manhattan Serenade, is missing from these broadcasts due to the networks' boycott of ASCAP music during the first ten months of 1941. (See The 1940-41 Season on this site.)
(8) Hunter's frequent giggles, as well as the natural reactions of other cast members, were encouraged by director Goodman Ace who limited script rehearsals to one reading. The small cast gathered around a card table with a microphone hidden beneath it. Others who played recurring roles on the show at various times included Peggy Allenby, Eric Dressler, Helen Dumas, Martin Gabel, John Griggs, Cliff Hall, Leon Janney, Pert Kelton, Ken Roberts, Alfred Ryder, Everett Sloane, Ann Thomas and Evelyn Varden.
(9) Hummert's formulaic Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, enjoyed six Top 50 seasons, three in the Top 15 plus five seasons in Thursday's Top Ten, twice the night's most popular show. program.
(10) Ace delivered another show to CBS in 1947 that demonstrated the scope of his creativity. You Are There aka CBS Is There recreated famous historical events as if they were live and covered by CBS newsmen, (John Daly, Richard C, Hottelett, Don Hollenbeck, etc.), who “interviewed” the principal figures played by radio actors. The sustaining series aired from July, 1947, until March, 1950. You Are There was adapted for CBS-TV in 1953 and enjoyed a five year run with host Walter Cronkite. Ace never received broadcast credit as its creator.
Copyright © 2016, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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