Episode 349: The Bob Hope Show (November 26, 1950)
Radio's biggest name comes to TV, and I am underwhelmed
What I watched: The third Bob Hope TV special, with guests including Marilyn Maxwell. This special aired as part of NBC’s Colgate Comedy Hour, but the sponsor was swapped out for Frigidaire, causing the show to just be referred to as Comedy Hour. It aired at 8PM on November 26, 1950 on NBC, and is available to view on YouTube.
What happened: After some plugging of Frigidaire, Bob comes out to welcome us. He says he’s getting used to television, and makes fun of the idea of colour TV., New York crime, and Hopalong Cassidy. Bob has brought his whole USO troupe with him, and is performing before a largely military audience. The band plays a jazzy number, which includes a little bit of “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” They’re later joined by three female singers.
In a sketch, Bob is assigned to be the first pilot of the super-powered F-63 fighter plane. (Hopefully it doesn’t fall of an aircraft carrier.) He plays an arrogant majordomo, being delivered on a palanquin. In the end, disaster occurs because he forgets to tie his shoelaces. Following another Frigidaire commercial, we have acrobat Judy Kelly doing flips in a jungle environment.
We’re back in the war room for another sketch, with two generals talking about a group of men trapped up in the arctic. When we see the men themselves, Bob is one of them, and is clearly going stir crazy. He even threatens to kill himself before another soldier stops him.fantasizes about three beautiful dancing women. A stranger arrives, who says he’s wearing too many layers to know if he’s a man or a woman. That’s a gender. He has a letter with offers for dancing classes, which Bob tries out with a bear or some sort of cryptid. They’re eventually found by the income tax department, who shake Bob down for money.
Frigidaire tries to sell us on buying an electric range for Christmas. Bob invites out Marilyn Maxwell to sing for us, and tries to hit on her. She responds by calling him old. They do a little number about it, and Bob freaks out when she mentions having a kid. The next act that’s part of the troupe is the High-Hatters, two tap-dancers who perform in unison, one standing behind the other. Bob acknowledges that we’re rushing through the acts before introducing a country singer.
Another sketch has a group of Navy men getting six hours of shore leave in Tokyo. Bob says that he’s going fishing, but instead is meeting up with Marilyn. The woman is fairly obviously a spy, who gets very specific information out of him. There’s even a Snidely Whiplash-type guy running around with a lit bomb, plus later appearances of Hitler and Stalin. When Bob eventually cottons on, she stops him from leaving with “Miltie”, a diminutive judo champion.
Bob closes out the show, and gives us the old spiel about the Pilgrims and how the boys in Korea are protecting the American ideal.
What I thought: Bob Hope was arguably the biggest celebrity on radio, with his Pepsodent Show regularly topping the charts. He was big enough that he wouldn’t be bound by a regular TV schedule, instead appearing on seasonal specials that would continue for decades. Hope appearing on television at all was a big deal, and part of the trend of radio stars migrating to the screen as the new medium took off. (This wasn’t the first Bob Hope special, but it’s the first that’s widely available today.)
In this special, however, it’s kind of hard to tell what made Bob so big. Unlike a Sid Ceasar or Milton Berle, whose personality immediately leaps off the screen, Hope has a rather subdued profile. This can also be said of some other stars like Ed Sullivan or Jack Benny, who played straight man to their guests and supporting cast, but that’s not really how this special uses him. Instead, Hope is given starring roles in comedic sketches, as a hotshot pilot and an easily-surveilled sailor on leave, and the results are pretty forgettable. (The spy sketch is easily the best, though.)
Hope was also strongly associated with the USO, providing pep rallies around the world for the US military. While a lot of celebrities did this during World War II, Bob stuck with it for the rest of his life, and did so many shows he was made an honourary veteran. This special is essentially a home version of his USO show, with many of the same acts and routines. The military theme is also echoed in the sketches, which all have some sort of army set-up.
There’s a curious balance in these sketches. Hope’s characters are ridiculous and incompetent, but the rest of the military is portrayed with a sober seriousness. This is not Catch-22, but rather a rational world with one irrational element. While there could be some critique in the military putting Hope’s characters in a prominent position to begin with, the ending monologue shepherds the viewer back to a patriotic message.
It was a strange time for the US Army. World War II was still in recent memory, and the Korean War was escalating. This is one of the few shows we’ve looked at where Korea was even acknowledged. Americans were being drafted and dying, but pop culture was still in a triumphant post-war mood. It didn’t help that this war, between rival Korean strongmen, was harder to explain as a fight for American freedom than World War II had been. Bob Hope tries, but the whole thing still feels like it was imported from 5 years ago.
The variety acts are also fairly tame, even by the standards of the time. Marilyn Maxwell is always an enjoyable presence on these variety shows, and she helps to liven things up a bit, but otherwise there’s little that you wouldn’t find in a cheap DuMont show. None of it was bad, exactly, but Bob Hope’s popularity at this time is still a bit of a mystery to me.
What else was on: As is usual, CBS had Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town on the other side of the great variety show battle with a guest lineup including Hazel Scott, Leonard Warren, and Nancy Walker. ABC aired a re-run of Crusade in Europe, which we’ve previously looked at, while DuMont meekly offered Rhythm Rodeo and a half-hour of local programming. In the New York area, WPIX aired a Rangers vs. Maple Leafs hockey game, while WOR showed the film Call of the Jungle.
Coming up next: Kukla, Fran and Ollie are back in town, and ready to get their skates on.