Boris was his landlord: Old-time radio listening, 18 November

November 18, 8:04 AMOld-Time Radio ExaminerJeff Kallman

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Mr. Allen. (NBC.)

The Fred Allen Show: Renting a Room (NBC, 1945)

Neither the lady who birthed him nor the parents aligned to adopt him from the crib suspect that the butterball of a newborn boy will grow up to become . . . your humble old-time radio chronicler, among other things none so great and none so simple.

He does find it humbling to share a birthday with a few music titans of whom you may have heard now and then. Paderewski. Eugene Ormandy. The first half of Gilbert and Sullivan. Johnny Mercer. Hank Ballard.

He also shares a birthday with coast-to-coast live television. Four years to the day earlier, Edward R. Murrow arched his furrowed brow as his See It Now audience viewed live imagery of the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge. Your chronicler still can’t determine whether his followers (all three of them) would prefer to have him torched or gated.

On the other hand, he'd love to know if his birthday really is the same date, 748 years previous, on which William Tell shot the Red Delicious off his son's scalp. No, forget that idea. There may be some wiseass somewhere who’d like to shoot his scalp off the Red Delicious.

But he is precisely thirty years younger than Mickey Mouse, if you accept the New York premiere of Steamboat Willie as Mickey Mouse's legitimate birth, though he's been trying to cut the Mickey Mouse out of his life for long enough.

Since your chronicler has become many things, earth-shattering not being among them, on another day mostly bereft of genuinely world-beating old-time radio doings or undoings, perhaps the best way to celebrate is to just make right for the master. With the Alley demimonde discussing a pending clothing shortage, and Mr. Allen needing a new apartment but ending up renting a temporary room . . . from Boris Karloff, of all people.

With Portland Hoffa. Sen. Claghorn: Kenny Delmar. Titus: Parker Fennelly. Mrs. Nussbaum/The Head Down the Hall: Minerva Pious. Falstaff: Alan Reed. Announcer: Kenny Delmar. Music: Al Goodman Orchestra, the Five DeMarco Sisters. Writers: Fred Allen, Bob Weiskopf, possibly Nat Hiken.

FURTHER CHANNEL SURFING . . .

The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show: Thanksgiving Show (NBC, 1940)—All things considered, you can probably wonder just how to have a Thanksgiving when the hostess (Gracie Allen) could be accused of being the turkey. Additional cast: Senor Lee, Truman Bradley. Music: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. Writers: Paul Henning, Keith Fowler, George Burns.

The Charlie McCarthy Show: Luring Margaret O’Brien (NBC, 1945)—McCarthy lures (Edgar) Bergen into the McCarthy Book Nook, Mortimer mulls hypnotism, and McCarthy lures Margaret O'Brien into his version of The Courtship of Miles Standish. Additional cast: Anita Gordon, Pat Patrick. Music: Ray Noble and His Orchestra. Writers: Possibly Roland McLane, Royal Foster, Joe Connelly, Bob Mosher.