The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT Glamour Boys of the Morning: Radio and Television MCs By William E. Bohn This thing has been on my mind for a long time. Up to breakfast-time this morning, I never could see my way...
...And the approval comes in waves of applause...
...Then comes the program...
...When you look at him closely, you note a global outcropping about his middle...
...He expects applause and approval...
...There must be a few dozen of them...
...But the make-up man has done his part so well, and the prefabricated star plays his part with such energy, that you would never note such a signal of mounting middle age...
...He promised them heaven as Doug Doolittle or Maxie Million offers a trip to Hawaii or the best washing-machine that was ever invented...
...The result is inevitable: To act as if you had cracked a resounding joke is almost as good as cracking one...
...Where the television hucksters ever find so many ugly, stupid women I can't imagine...
...What I am talking about is the sort of television show that goes by the name of a bright young man...
...After the proper attention to Softy Sudsie Soap, the screen displays a theater curtain practically palpitating with consciousness of the marvels it conceals...
...But they never come...
...The shows are listed as Doug Doo-little's Show or Jimmy Jenkins' Jamboree or Sammy Sax's Show or Maxie Million's Merry-go-round...
...I remembered where I had seen all of this years ago under far different circumstances in my boyhood...
...Each of these plain-faced, awkward and ungrammatical females is treated by the bright master of the performance as if she were a queen...
...But then, while we were talking of soap opera, the whole thing straightened itself out...
...If the program is staged in the daytime, they will all be women...
...Suddenly, as we were watching such an exhibition during breakfast this morning, something clicked in my mind...
...Up to breakfast-time this morning, I never could see my way around it...
...But after a moment they part, bank themselves on either side of a path leading down from backstage and wait breathlessly for a revelation...
...The old girl is having the thrill of her life...
...I saw in a flash that the radiating young showman is the same chap as the one who did the emotional preaching in the old days...
...You figure that not to know him proves that you are not up to snuff, have fallen behind the swift-moving times...
...You "wait for the jokes...
...Their gift was—and is—something immediate and substantial, a touch of sex and of escape from dullness...
...You can picture the millions of women across the land who constitute the paying audience, the buying audience, the audience which the sponsor is after...
...So, expecting something wonderful, you turn the dial to the number...
...There is, however, the best substitute for humor...
...As he goes into his patter, you recall that advertised stars have professional humorists as writers...
...The boy himself comes bowing, gleaming, fairly bulging with consciousness of talent...
...When it parts it reveals a surging cast of boys and girls singing and dancing...
...It was in the old-time revival services of the Middle West...
...If it is a give-away show, there will be led out to this breezy showman a succession of people...
...He gets them in abundance...
...Most of these shows are staged in Hollywood...
...If she reports that she has six children and a paralytic husband, he is practically overcome with admiration...
...they must have special stables of stupidity out there...
...Their scripts are carefully and expensively prepared...
...Always the young man's name—preferably with a familiar, intimate nickname touch—is featured...
...You never heard of him...
...Down the path of light, to the plaudits of the waiting satellites, struts the hero, Doug Doolittle or Sammy Sax or Maxie Million or whatever his name is...
...The boy is not as young as his quick step and eager motions would indicate...
...If he doesn't have his arm about her, he is close enough so that she can imagine that he has...
...It is really wonderful, just too, too wonderful, that all of these fine people should be here—and that they should be so happy to see him...
...But printing his name like that gives the impression that he is famous...
...Every now and then the young performer stops expectantly, as if he had said something notable and the listeners were bursting with approval...
...Every one of them, useful but unglamorous, imagines herself that close to the virile and shining young man...
...With difficulty the bright hero subdues the adoration of the crowd to the point where he can catch his breath and speak words of appreciation...
...The young preacher, too, got close to the awkward and yearning middle-aged ladies...
...It is not delayed...
...The unseen audience is fairly gasping...
Vol. 37 • January 1954 • No. 1
