THE BOB HOPE SHOW

May 3, 1949

“The Bob Hope Show” ~ After a dozen years as “The Pepsodent Show”, Pepsodent pulled its sponsorship in June 1948. Despite cancellation, Hope still continued on radio. Lever Brothers’ Swan soap began sponsoring the show, which premiered on September 14, 1948 on NBC. Doris Day  was the only one of Hope’s former co-stars to continued to perform on the new show. Airing Tuesdays at 9, the program was at direct competition with the new sitcom “Life with Luigi”, which aired at the same time on CBS. “Life with Luigi” proved to be the season’s new hit, crushing “The Bob Hope Show” in the ratings. Like Pepsodent before, due to the poor ratings, Swan pulled its sponsorship in 1950. The last Swan-sponsored episode of the program aired on June 13. On October 3, 1950 “The Bob Hope Show” premiered under the sponsorship of Chesterfield cigarettes. Over the next five years, it aired under various sponsors, including Jell-O and General Foods, in various timeslots until its final episode aired on April 21, 1955.

CAST  

Bob Hope made his radio debut on NBC in May 1937. He became a top-rated fixture on Tuesday nights with his theme song, “Thanks for the Memories”. His legendary broadcasts from military bases around the world helped boost American morale during the dark days of World War II. Over the years, his radio regulars included Jerry Colonna, Brenda and Cobina, Vera Vague, Wendall Niles, and orchestras led by Skinnay Ennis and Les Brown. Featured singers on the show included Judy Garland, Frances Langford, Doris Day, and Gloria Jean. Hope’s radio career lasted well into the mid-1950s. By then, he had become a major movie and television star doing four films, and numerous television programs with Lucille Ball. He died on July 29, 2003, at the age of 100.

Lucille Ball was then a film star with her own weekly radio show, “My Favorite Husband”, which had just aired “Vacation Time” on April 29, 1949.  Her new film with Bob Hope, Sorrowful Jones, would premiere in June 1949.  In February 1949 she had made her first national TV appearance on “Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall”, quickly followed by an episode of “The Milton Berle Show.”

Doris Day began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, “Sentimental Journey” and “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time” with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967. Day was one of the biggest film stars in the 1950s and ‘60s.   Surprisingly, Lucille Ball never acted opposite Doris Day in films or television, but she did interview her for her CBS radio show “Let’s Talk To Lucy” #144 on March 22, 1965. She died in 2019 at age 97.

Irene Ryan is the least remembered of Bob Hope’s female stooges. Her mousy Miss Ryan character told Hope week after week that she was, “Feeling about as well as could be expected,” before launching into a string of hypochondriac jokes. Irene Noblette and husband Tim Ryan went into radio in 1933 after a vaudeville and minor movie career.  They kept busy in radio for ten years, four of them as stars of their own shows, including 1937’s Royal Crown Revue.   After their divorce in 1943, Irene kept the Ryan name and worked in some 20 low budget movie comedies and shorts plus occasional radio roles. While with Hope’s troupe she continued her screen work and drifted into occasional television roles in the 1950’s. In 1962, at age 60 and ready to retire as a relative unknown, Irene Ryan was cast as “Granny” Daisy Mae Moses in a new television sitcom, “The Beverly Hillbillies”.  The show was an immediate hit that endured for nine seasons on CBS-TV.  In 1972, when she was 70, she co-starred on Broadway in the musical hit Pippin.  She collapsed on stage a year later and died of a stroke, leaving a million dollars to the Irene Ryan Foundation which provides scholarships to collegiate acting students. 

Bill Farrell was first spotted by Bob Hope in a night club in Buffalo, New York in 1947. Hope was impressed with Farrell’s powerful baritone voice and smooth delivery and he invited Farrell to Hollywood. Hope featured him on his weekly radio show. In 1949

Farrell enjoyed a minor hit with his recording of “Circus” which reached #26 in the Billboard charts.

 

The Four Hits and A Miss consisted of four male singers and one female (thus the word “miss” in their name has a double meaning). They were variously known as Three Hits and A Miss, and even Six Hits and a Miss, as members came and went, mainly due to wartime service. They performed musical numbers in several Hollywood films of the 1940s.

The New Les Brown Band performed with Bob Hope on radio, stage and television for almost fifty years. They did 18 USO Tours, and entertained over three million people. The first film that Brown and the band appeared in was Seven Days’ Leave (1942) starring Victor Mature and Lucille Ball. 

Hy Averback (Announcer) played Charlie Appleby on “I Love Lucy” in “Baby Pictures” (ILL S3;E5), although the character would be re-cast with George O’Hanlon in season six. He played another Charlie, Charlie Pomerantz, in “The Hedda Hopper Story” (ILL S4;E21) on March 14, 1955. Averback transitioned from acting to directing, becoming Emmy nominated for “M*A*S*H.”

EPISODE

Bob Hope’s opening monologue includes top news of the day, including: 

• Russia starting to advertise on billboards.  
• Bob Hope’s return from his whirlwind tour.

Hope and Averback promote the “Swan CARE Campaign” delivering Swan Soap to needy children in Europe.  

Doris Day sings “Havin’ a Wonderful Wish” from Sorrowful Jones.

Doris Day and Hope reminisce about a party at Bob’s house, given for the crew of the flight that shuttled Hope on his whirlwind tour.  They talk about the food and Hope’s serving small portions.  Miss Ryan interrupts their chat. She was also at the party, briefly.  She had to leave early due to her bad back.  She talks about the fundraising efforts of her club and why she has remained single for so long. 

Averback and Hope make another pitch for the “Swan CARE Campaign”.  

Bill Farrell sings “Careless Hands”. 

Hope introduces “his favorite redhead” – Lucille Ball – and they discuss their new movie, Sorrowful Jones. He admires her hair. 

BOB: “If you get together with ‘The Boy with Green Hair’ you’d make a terrific traffic signal!” 

He thanks her for not making a crack about his nose. She says she appreciated it. 

LUCY: “It was such an easy place to hang my coat every morning.”

Lucy says she loved working at Paramount and hopes that they make another picture together soon.  He asks her about “My Favorite Husband” on ‘that other network’.  She says that her show has great ratings.  She tells him the premise of the show.  

He compares her domestic situation on radio with the couples he he has seen in films, like Kentucky (1938), a Romeo and Juliet story set amidst horse racing in Kentucky. They launch into a sketch playing Ma and Pa. 

PA: “A-Okay, Ma. Get the children in the house and we’ll eat.” 
MA: “Alright, I’ll get Elam, Rufus, Walter, Albert, Effie Mae, Janie, Betty Lou,  Charles, Si, Jack, Fred, George, Ellie, Billy, Clarence, Hiram, Helen, and Jean.”
PA: “And I’ll get John, Harvey, Cletus, Zeke, Daniel Boone, Judy, Joan, Nancy, Carolyn, Birdie, Eleanor, Little Daisy, Sam, Kate, Tom, Abner, and Teddy.”
MA: “Well, that takes care of the twins. Who’ll get the single ones?”

Hope says another interesting husband and wife is a Brooklyn cab driver and his wife.  The band plays “The Sidewalks of New York”.  Hope and Ball do Brooklyn accents for their characters. 

In closing, as usual, Hope sings “Thank for the Memory” with special lyrics about the episode, including the Swan Soap CARE Campaign.