Bob Hope

½ hour comedy variety show

Bob Hope started and refined his comedy act on vaudeville. He was born Leslie Townes Hope in England in 1903. His family moved to the United States in 1907, and he changed his name to Bob, in part to avoid schoolyard teasing. He had a few odd jobs, including as a boxer before he decided on vaudeville. He teamed up with a performer named George Byrne, and they did okay, but he decided to make the big jump and go solo. He became a successful performer in and around Chicago, even starting his own company and hiring Edgar Bergen.

But Hope wanted something even bigger, he wanted success in New York, and that meant going into radio, despite his initial resistance to performing in this new media. His early forays into radio did not last too long. In 1935 he was in "Intimate Review", the "Atlantic Family", and in 1936 he was in the "Rippling Rhythm Revue." (Although Stan Lee would have loved the alliteration, all three series were short lived.

But in 1938 he teamed up the NBC Radio and Pepsodent, and his "Pepsodent Show". By 1940 the "Pepsodent Show" was in fourth place, behind Edgar Bergen (ungrateful scalawag), Jack Benny, and Fibber McGee and Molly. Hope’s show held high ratings until 1950. The "Pepsodent Show" was a ‘normal’ comedy show. It featured Bob Hope giving his stand up routine, some singing, some sketches with a cast of regulars, including Skinnay Ennis, Barbara Jo Allen, Blanche Stewart and a few others. Various guest stars would appear including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland.

One of his regulars, Jerry Colona, was a trumpet player with a huge walrus mustache. Hope and Colona had a great stage relationship. They would travel together giving their act and feeding off of each other, visiting military bases and other such spots around the world. At times Hope would play the straight man and Colona would become the funny guy. For a time Colona’s catch phrase of "Greetings, Gate" or his non-existent character "Yehudi" caught on in an American pop culture kind of way. No one had a clear idea what either one meant, but somehow it worked.

Bob Hope hired eight writers for the show, and his jokes were always topical, taking cues from his location and audience (he traveled constantly), and from newspapers. Hope’s monologues didn’t push the censorship envelope too much, at least not in what he said. A lot of his more risque material was in how he said it.

Bob Hope’s traveled to military bases and camps even before America entered World War II, and by the end of the war many wondered if he had visited every military base, camp, and hospital in the states. Also he made six trips overseas to Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. And when he traveled, he brought his whole 42 member show with him. Which is a good thing, it is possible that from the start of the war to the end, he had only one show in the NBC studio.

However, around 1950 his ratings started to sag. Television was taking over his market. He found sponsors other than Pepsodent, but his audience continued to decline. He stopped the show in 1954, repeats were aired until 1958. But don’t feel to badly for Bob, he had tons more success after his radio show. He starred in countless films, television specials, voice overs, and yet more countless USO tours.