Episode 343: Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy (November 23, 1950)
A strange one-off special, featuring a man and his puppets
What I watched: A TV special starring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, with supporting performances by Diana Lynn and Ray Noble. The show aired on CBS at 4:30 PM on November 23, 1950 and is available to view on the Internet Archive.
What happened: After some advertisement for Coca-Cola (which has always seemed like the biggest corporate sponsor ever to me), Edgar introduces himself to a crowd. Edgar tells us about learning to throw his voice, and using it to answer roll call for missing classmates. A bunch of kids run up. They’re bored of this old man, and want to see Charlie McCarthy. Edgar takes the kids backstage to “Charlie’s room”, in what reads as a clear stranger danger situation now.
We’re finally introduced to Charlie McCarthy, an Irish dandy puppet. Edgar claims to be a descendant of the pioneer Miles Standish, and tells the Cyrano-esque story to the increasingly bored-looking kids. He introduces the musical guests Ray _ and Diana Lynn, the latter of whom Charlie is horny for. Edgar sends the kids away and takes a “shortcut through the kitchen”, where a young couple is preparing the Thanksgiving turkey. They all have some Cokes. Man, I wish my parents served me Coke on Thanksgiving instead of trying to get me to try champagne.
Charlie comes out on stage and introduces the newest member of the Edgar Bergen family, a life-sized doll named Priscilla. She’s from Alabama, and Ed flirts with her. The most impressive part is how Priscilla’s eyes flutter and wink, but she’s definitely in the uncanny valley. With the grainy film quality, she seems like a real woman at times. Diana Lynn performs at her piano, and it sounds pretty good.
We cut backstage, where Edgar is with an old man puppet in Native American headdress. Danger, danger! This is his other puppet Mortimer Sneed. Edgar tries to encourage Mortimer to perform like Diana, including his “sex appeal.” He’s going to recite the “Indian tale” of Hiawatha, presumably the poem by Longfellow.
Ray comes out in pioneer garb, saying that he’s going to take us back to Salem 300 years ago. Edgar and Charlie are, of course, in the stocks for witchcraft They’re sentenced to be beheaded. Ray interrupts this execution to perform a song. The instrumentalists appear out of thin air using some Melies-esque film tricks. This moves the villagers to let the “witches” go, and sing about how they have something to be thankful for. We conclude with an ode towards something we can really be thankful for: Coca-Cola.
What I thought: Edgar Bergen seems like one of the weirder stars of this era that straddled TV and radio. He was a ventriloquist, with his primary puppet being Charlie McCarthy, who had an Irish accent but doesn’t seem to fall into a lot of the lower-class Irish stereotypes that were still in the cultural ether. He was also best known for radio, which doesn’t seem like the best medium for ventriloquism. Unlike many other radio stars, he never hosted a regular TV show, instead mostly making guest appearances on variety shows. (He’s also the father of Candace Bergen!)
This special, aired on Thanksgiving afternoon, gives us a bit of a glimpse into what an Edgar McCarthy-hosted TV show would look like, if one existed. Most of the focus is on the different puppets, including the uncanny Priscilla, introduced specifically for this show.. You have Ray, who seems to be playing the sidekick/bandleader role, and a female singer who is more explicitly a special guest. Presumably an ongoing show would have to lean heavier on the guests, as the puppets’ schticks could get old quickly.
Edgar Bergen makes full use of being a filmed show, starting out with the pretense of a live variety show before inviting us behind the camera with some (kind of annoying) kids. There’s an attempt to channel the behind-the-scenes aspect of a show like The Jack Benny Program or that one episode of Four Star Revue we looked at, although on a less grand scale. The show returns to the stage for some performances later, although I’m not sure anyone was actually in the audience. We also get a little bit of classic film trickery, which is entertaining if only for its transparency.
Ultimately, this special is as odd as its star. It seems like a pilot for a show that Bergen had no interest in creating, introducing the character to a TV-only audience that may not have existed at the time. It doesn’t really have the glitz and glamour of a major special, and is only half an hour long. Perhaps it is merely a case of Edgar Bergen dipping his toes into the water of TV and deciding they didn’t really suit him.
What else was on: NBC aired a special afternoon edition of the variety show The Kate Smith Hour, while ABC aired Zeke Manner’s Variety Show. In New York, you could also watch a “Western Film” on WATV. It probably wasn’t John Ford. If you stayed tuned after Edgar Bergen, you could watch a Thanksgiving Day Festival Program with classical music on CBS.
Coming up next: There are also some shows airing in their regular slots on Thanksgiving, beginning with another adventure with The Lone Ranger and “Banker’s Choice.”
You know, if not for rock and roll, ventriloquy would have been huge.