Spoiler : The best 'Ad-Libber' & one of the all-time funny men...

Spoiler : Fred Allen was one of the hardest working men in radio and had a great gift for trying new things

Spoiler : Fred’s show was the number one ranked program of the 1947-48 season…but its star had no inkling that The Fred Allen Show’s final year in radio was lying in wait around the corner. Its downfall would come as a result of being scheduled opposite an ABC quiz program entitled Stop the Music, a popular broadcast on which people across the U.S. were offered the opportunity to win fabulous prizes simply by answering their telephones (should the program call) and providing the correct response to questions. The success of the show threatened both Fred and Edgar Bergen’s once-popular comedy programs…but while Bergen decided to suspend his series in December of 1948 and simply wait for the fad that was Stop the Music to subside, Allen took on the show with a ferocity that included offering listeners $5,000 if they had been called by Stop the Music while they were tuned into to his show. Sadly, he got no takers—and while his final season featured some of his best take-no-prisoners satire (mostly directed at giveaway programs, as in his parody “Cease the Melody”) his hypertension once again began to act up…so he rang down the curtain on The Fred Allen Show on June 26, 1949. From : http://tinyurl.com/radio-sprits

Spoiler : Love listening to Fred Allen's old radio shows and REALLY enjoy him

Spoiler : in 1932, The Fred Allen Show made its radio debut! Fred Allen specialized in literate wordplay, lacerating satire, and a squinty-eyed critique of the passing scene.

Spoiler : Happy birthday to Fred Allen, born on May 31, 1894. a great legend.

Spoiler : Happy Birthday! Fred Allen was one of my favorite panelists on "What's my Line " It's a shame he suddenly died still young. May he Rest in Peace.

Spoiler : (birth name was John Florence Sullivan) Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts 5/31/1894; died 3/17/1956 in New York City. The day before his death, his doctor had pronounced that Allen was in good health. Married to former chorus girl, Portland Hoffa (1928-1956 his death).

Spoiler : Host of the transcribed music program Chevrolet Musical Chronicles (1932). Debuted with his own radio series with The Linit Bath Club Revue (1932); in 1933 the show became known as The Salad Bowl Revue (sponsored by Hellman's Mayonnaise); in late 1933 the sponsor changed to Sal Hepatica and the program was known as The Sal Hepatica Revue; then The Hour of Smiles and after that Town Hall Tonight. In 1939 the program became The Fred Allen Show and remained on the air until 1949.

Spoiler : Screen debut in Thanks A Million (1935). Last movie was Full House (1953). Wrote autobiographical volumes, "Treadmill To Oblivion" (1955), and "Much Ado About Me" (1956).

Spoiler : Host for Colgate Comedy Hour on NBC-TV (1950). One of three rotating hosts (others were Bob Hope and Jerry Lester) for Chesterfield Sound Off Time on NBC-TV (1951-1952). Host for the game show pilot, "Two For The Money" on NBC-TV (1952). Emcee for Judge For Yourself on NBC-TV (1953-1954). Panelist on What's My Line? for CBS-TV (1954-1956). Narrator of The Jazz Age, a Project 20 documentary on NBC-TV (1956).

Spoiler : I love that Tex & Jinx episode. I remember there's a moment where Fred says something (I don't remember what) and Jinx says "Oh, that's very SAD!" and Fred matter of factly responds, "Well, life is very sad."

Spoiler : At 1PM on November 24th, 1954, Fred Allen appeared on NBC's Tex and Jinx Show out of WEAF. It was recorded on a grey, rainy Wednesday before Thanksgiving in Peacock Alley at The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York city. In Fred's first memoir, Treadmill to Oblivion, he explained that giveaway programs played a large part in killing radio.

Spoiler : Happy birthday, Fred Allen! He was a master ad-libber (often criticized by program executives) and one of the most popular comedians on radio. His longest running gag was his feud with fellow comedian Jack Benny!

Spoiler : Jack Benny will always be my favorite. But I love Fred Allen as well

Spoiler : Watched him on what’s my line...thought he was an ego maniac and really not funny at all...even his radio program stunk

Spoiler : A true comic genius.

Spoiler : Hollywood and the era of "acceptable" names... Virginia Briggs to Virginia Bruce has the ring of a slight elevation in status. Imagine the discomfit of Mary Pickford having to introduce her mother to people as Mrs Smith, Judy Garland her mother as Mrs Gumm, Tony Curtis his mother as Mrs Schwartz. Maybe the only one who felt like he went up in the world on introducing his mom was Rod La Rocque -- introducing the Countess La Rocque de la Rour! Oh, and then there was Spangler Arlington Brugh plebing down to plain Robert Taylor.

Spoiler : One of my favorite quotes from Fred. You could take all of the sincerity in Hollywood and put it into a flea's navel, and still have room for three caraway seeds and an agent's heart.

Spoiler : Along with contemporaries Jack Benny, George Burns and many others, Fred Allen influenced what comedy has become today. The entire genre of absurdist humor epitomized by Monty Python has its roots in Fred Allen. Early television pioneers like Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen were influenced to some degree by him.Yet he doesn’t come up much in conversation these days. One reason could be his early death (in 1956) and the decline of radio drama and comedy. However, Fred Allen was a staple in the diet of most Americans from the early days of radio up until 1949. His was a comedy of droll, absurdist humor – people and situations you couldn’t duplicate on screen. Because radio has always been an “imagination medium”, Fred Allen was able to pull off a lot of situations which just couldn’t happen anywhere else. Comedy today owes much to this figure whose style and delivery were unique and whose vision was unparalleled.

Spoiler : I can't listen to George Carlin without hearing the echo of Fred Allen.

Spoiler : Fred Allen was the crème de la crème of comedy in his time. He was the favorite comedian of the greats of his era.