Golden Age of Radio

ON THE AIR TONIGHT: The Ask-it-Basket, with Ed East as master of ceremonies, on CBS at 8:00, rebroadcast to the West at 8:30, P.S.T.—sponsored by Colgate Dental Cream. Although it suffers from one of the worst titles ever devised by man, the Ask-It-Basket is one of radio’s most entertaining quiz programs. Its new master of ceremonies and head quizzer, Ed East, helps make it so. He’s a fat man, Ed East is, and doesn’t mind admitting it. Standing six feet one, he weighs 265 pounds, living proof that a life time in show business doesn’t always impart a lean and hungry look. Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Ed went to school with Hoagy Carmichael, who rose to fame later with his tune “Star Dust” and many other hits. Ed interrupted his own education when he was fifteen, by running away from home to join a carnival. He says he’s never regretted the act. In the carnival he started out as odd-jobs boy and finally worked his way up to being the barker for a high diver. Then the carn...

Ralph Edward __the Colorado farm boy who had got himself an education at the University of California and was on the air over NBC’s coast-to-coast network with his own Truth or Consequences program by the time he was twenty-six. He does not care what he does if it will make people laugh and plenty of people do. His listening audience is a laughing twenty-five million.