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...