Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-05
McNan1ee
Speaking

q program director could stay angry.
Last Summer Phil got away with
something over which members of the
studio staff are still chuckling. 1t hap
pened that his brother-in-law. Vic
Fleming, who plays the Wing of Buck
and Wing" became i'll. Cook was faced
with the problem of finding a substi-
tute but he couldn't think of any one
else who was used to working with him
Finally, since he played half dozen
other character parts in the sketch be-
sides his own portrayal of Buck, Cook
decided he might as well be Wing, too
And he was-for six weeks.
During all that time he continued to
collect the same total from the cashiers
Office. OF course, the production man
and the announcer of the program
knew Phil was working alone, but they
took 1t for granted that the program
executives had approved. But it just
happened that none of the officials had
looked in on Phil'S program, although
several had heard it at home.
1t was two months later before an
of1cial heard what Cook had done, and
Phil was called on the carpet.
well, you couldn't tell the differ
ence, could you?" he demanded.
mo"
"The programs were good, weren't
they2"
Better than ever"
Then, what's the argument"
There wasn't any. the official adj
mitted. but before he got out of that
ONCE Phil nearly had to agree to con-
tinue doing two mems work.
Test Of Voice Guessing.
Listen to his program some time and
see II you can recognize the same voice
I IlatR I'D h. Tv-Se
the Italian bootblack, the Yankee and
a couple of other fellows that Cook
often plays, all within a half hour on
the air.
Characters who have their only exist
ence in the minds of radio listeners
nevertheless enter into the daily lives
of people everywhere. John B. Ken
needy met with an example of this the
other day. When he was driving down
to his Office a traffic cop stopped the
car ahead, whose driver had attempted
to make another block by dashing
through cross traffic.
Hey! Who do you think you are
Prof. ButtS?" yelled the cop.
Kennedy grinned. He had been in
Producing Prof Butts, the nutty inven-
tor. over the air every week or so for
months, but he got a kick out of learn
ing how we'll the professor" had caught
on with the public.
Several other characters have be-
come just as well known. Use re-
gusted" has Sneaked into hundreds of
vocabularies since Amos m Andy" got
on the networks-so much so, in fact,
that they tell me at the studios that at
least half the complaints they get these
days contain the phrase somewhere or
other.
And just the other day I spotted a
new singer about to do his stuff before
q microphonc. 1 asked the announcer
handling the program who he was,
whereupon l learned that the young
man was about Ito do a Rudy" Well,
l didn't know what that meant, either,
but the announcer-it was John Young
explained that he borrowed the
phrase from his elevator man, and that
1t covers anything from singing love
songs to getting sappy over young
person of the opposite sex.
Probably Rudy Vallee wouldn't be
f1attered to hear it, but that's the way
he has affected more than one sniffish
man in these parts. Matt Thompkins,
Luke Higgins, Gus and Louis, jolly Bill,
Seth Parker and a dozen other well
known radio characters have come to
mean definite things in everyday speech.