Baby Snooks Old Time Radio Program

Comedy,
episodes are 7-10 minutes long each

Baby Snooks was the brainchild of comedienne and former Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice. Brice claimed that Snooks emerged as a part of her vaudeville act in 1912 as a caricature of "Baby Peggy", a popular child star of the day, who appeared in ruffles and curls and flounces, and looked to Brice like "a strawberry ice cream soda". She based the personality of Snooks, a slyly impish infant on her own childhood.

Brice first played Snooks on the radio in Ziegfeld Follies of the Air, in a bit written by Philip Rapp and David Freeman, adapted from a sketch by Robert Jones Burdette. Rapp continued to write for her when Brice moved on to The Good News Show. Brice was given her own show in 1944, Toasties Time, which was soon renamed The Baby Snooks Show. Snooks became the primary element of Brice's repertoire, to the extent that in later years, she rarely appeared in public out of character.

The show soon became a favorite of radio listeners, and presented a style of adversarial comedy that presaged The Bickersons. "Daddy" Higgins, played by Hanley Stafford, and "Mommy" Higgins, played by Arlene Harris, were constantly bickering, the conflict invariably prompted by the manipulative, blackmailing, double-crossing Snooks, who found endless entertainment in the strife.

Series regulars included Leone Ledoux (as Snook's younger brother Robespierre), Danny Thomas, Charlie Cantor, Alan Reed, Lillian Randolph and Frank Nelson. Meredith Willson, Carmen Dragon and vocalist Bob Graham provided the music.

In 1945, when illness prevented Brice from appearing, "The Search for Baby Snooks" was included as a plot device, and guest stars searching for Snooks included
Robert Benchley, Sydney Greenstreet, Kay Kyser and Peter Lorre.

In May 1951, Brice suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died at 59, two days after the last broadcast of The Baby Snooks Show.