One of the great scams in entertainment history was perpetrated by Edgar Bergen who took his ventriloquist act to the non-visual medium of radio. From December 17, 1937 to July 1, 1956, Bergen's weekly radio show featured the ventriloquist (as straight man), a cast of puppets (Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, and Effie Klinker), and a celebrity guest each week. The incredible irony of Edgar Bergen's radio show is that ventriloquism depends on the non-movement of the speaker's lips so that it appears that the puppet is speaking. On the radio, no one knew if Bergen's lips were moving. 'Tis a pity that Edgar Bergen never discovered Williamson County here in Texas because there are plenty of dummies living there. If this is (fair & balanced) voice projection, so be it.
[x Mother Goose & Grimm]
By Mike Peters
Charlie McCarthy, Howdy Doodie, and Pinnochio
[Mike Peters is an cartoonist who draws the popular comic strip "Mother Goose and Grimm," as well as syndicated editorial cartoons that appear in papers all over the United States. He won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1981. His home paper is the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio.
As a joke, he once stood on the building ledge outside the Daily News building for thirty minutes wearing a Superman costume so that he could make an entrance to a meeting through the window in the manner of TV actor George Reeves entering Perry White's office on "The Adventures of Superman."]
Copyright © 2008 Mike Peters
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