Golden Age of Radio

The Milwaukee Journal – May 18, 1941 Fred Allen —Pickle Puss With Nerves By Gladwin Hill NEW YORK, N. Y.—(AP)—If, walking down Broadway, you chanced to encounter a haggard, dejected man who looked as though he had lost his last friend, funds and scratch sheet pencil, the probabilities are the individual would be a happy, prosperous professional comedian. If, in addition to being haggard and dejected, the man looked as though he had recently been sentenced to the electric chair, but planned to beat the rap by hanging himself with his necktie, the chances are his brief case would disclose a partly consumed package of chewing tobacco and the tell tale gold lettering “F. Allen.” Fred Allen , who has been arousing mirth from coast to coast for 25 years in vaudeville, movies and radio, is probably the most morose looking person at large today. This is not a pose. Allen is just one of those people born to worry, fret, stew and suffer about their work, and the fact th...

The Milwaukee Journal-Nov 16, 1947 A Stroll Down Allen’s Alley                  By ROBERT FLEMING MEET THE CHARATERS WHO TICKLE  YOUR FUNNYBONE ON SUNDAY NIGHTS EACH Sunday night, in millions of American homes, a nasal voice suggests, “Now let’s be off to Allen’s Alley .” And during 15 seconds of music, bridge games are halted, children are hushed, papers are laid aside, and people all over the nation chuckle in anticipation. Fred Allen is off to another gay adventure in neighborliness. “Allen’s Alley” users about five minutes of each Fred Allen show. Since his program currently tops the listener surveys and has been near top for season after season, it’s almost unnecessary for him to say he’s about to visit Senator Claghorn, Titus Moody, Mrs. Nussbaum and Ajax Cassidy. Regular listeners know the four. But before the conversational Mr. Allen comes into the “alley” again, let’s visit the place, look around, ...

Alan Reed ALAN REED, who plays the role of Pasquale on Life With Luigi (CBS, Sundays, at 10 P.M., EDT), has done spots on virtually every radio program in New York and Hollywood, including a dozen or more daytime serials. His best known roles have been Falstaff Openshaw, poet, on the Fred Allen Show , Clancy the cop on Duffy’s Tavern and Mr. Weamish on the Baby Snooks Show. Today his voice is heard in twenty-twwo dialects on almost all of major shows. Alan Reed was born in New York and started his preparations for the theater during grammar school days when, as Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.”  he caught his beard in the stage door. Quick thinking made him play it that way ever since. After extracting as much humor as he could from prep school. Reed moved his 210 pounds to Columbia University, where he became the intercollegiate broad-jumping champion wrestler and writer of college plays, just to prove that a brawny arm could swing a delicate pen Reed consi...