by Wes Gehring
These controlling workaholic tendencies also say much about a Skelton marriage that was then unraveling. But to back up to a positive: their union was forged with the goal to put him on top. Though Stillwell was definitely the master sergeant in this game plan, man-child Skelton was a willing comedy soldier. This is best demonstrated by two statements Stillwell shared in a 1942 Silver Screen article while the Skeltons were still a couple. The first demonstrated her drive: “One of the reasons why I married him was that he was an ambitious kid—even if he was a screwball.”5 The second observation showcases Skelton’s similar motivation. The comedian had been encouraged by various people to try golf, because he worked too hard. Stillwell remembered: “But one day we were out on a course, when he paused in the middle of a swing and said, ‘Mummy, do you like this? Let’s go home and write gags!’”6
Working, performing, and traveling together as nomadic vaudevillians in the 1930s, the Skeltons were a team to reckon with, but Skelton’s success at MGM essentially retired Stillwell. Granted, she still advised her husband. In fact, Skelton never agreed to a film script without his wife reading it first and giving the story her okay. The comedian then had Stillwell read the script aloud to him, then it was all downtime for her as Skelton went off to film the movie. (True to Stillwell’s good instincts for her husband, she was the first to recognize just how effective he would be in Whistling in the Dark.)
Consequently, with the movie portion of Skelton’s career minimizing Stillwell’s involvement, it is no wonder that she strongly reasserted her control on Skelton’s new radio program. Moreover, one could argue that as the wheels came off the marital wagon, she might have become more of a martinet in their professional relationship. Furthermore, Stillwell, and Skelton’s two future wives, were each intensely protective of their “kidult” husband. What others saw as controlling, these custodial spouses saw as safeguarding, even to masochistic extremes. In a later profile of Stillwell, she was described as Skelton’s “advisor, script writer and business manager—and by her own admission sometimes acted as a ‘whipping boy’ for temperamental outbursts. ‘It’s better for him to blow off steam at me than at the sponsors,’ she explained.”7
So what happened to the Skeltons’ marriage? They succeeded. Stillwell had masterminded them to the top. But while she remained relentless, Skelton wanted to play. This does not justify the comedian’s straying eye; it merely helps to explain the phenomenon. Of course, it was also compounded by that age-old Hollywood story—the temptations available for a young film star. Skelton, however, was not stupid. He recognized, at least in the 1940s, how vital Stillwell was to his success. She continued to orchestrate his professional life for a decade after the couple’s divorce. As novelist William T. Vollman has observed, “Any decent biography is a work of drama.”8 And there was no more complex relationship in all of Skelton’s long life than the one he had with Stillwell.
The dissolution of the Skeltons’ marriage, however, was still in the future when Skelton’s new radio program was a runaway hit during the 1941–42 season. The show’s winning format underwent little change during the war years. But prior to addressing the comedian’s characters of country bumpkin Clem Kadiddlehopper and the “mean widdle kid” Junior, one should note the program’s important supporting cast. In addition to black comic Wonderful Smith, who acted as a Skelton antagonist, the comedian’s most significant assist came from Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, today famous for their long-running television sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–66), which began on radio in 1944.
Even then, the Nelsons were well-known in their own right, Ozzie as an orchestra leader and Harriet as a singer and actress who had been appearing in films since the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers picture Follow the Fleet (1936). Eventually Harriet focused on being the main vocalist for her husband’s orchestra, billed under her maiden name Hilliard, which is how she was credited on the Skelton program, too. Ozzie had a talent for comic musical numbers, one of which still holds the record for the longest title of a charted song, adding to its humorous charm: “I’m Looking for a Guy Who Plays Alto and Baritone, Doubles on a Clarinet and Wears a Size 37 Suit” (1940). Such novelty numbers were an important part of Skelton’s radio program from the beginning. Indeed, Variety’s review of the comedian’s debut show offered its first detailed praise to one such comic duet by the Nelsons: “Especially cute was the parody on the song ‘Good-Bye Now,’ in which, first, what the departing guests really said and, second, what they would have liked to have said was sung by Ozzie Nelson and Miss Hilliard.”9
While Ozzie occasionally surfaced in a Skelton radio sketch, Harriet was a regular. She doubled as both Clem’s girlfriend, Daisy June, and as Junior’s mother. Just as Skelton had worked hard as a vaudeville emcee to “sell” each act on the stage bill, he was equally supportive of his radio performers. More than thirty years later, Ozzie could still get emotional about Skelton’s cheerleader tendencies. When the Nelsons performed one of their novelty numbers during the latter portion of each radio program, Skelton regularly stationed himself so the studio audience could see him “laughing uproariously.” To Ozzie it said, “These people are my friends. I like them and I enjoy what they do and I hope you do, too.”10
Besides being an inspired comedy complement to Skelton’s standard shtick, the Nelsons had several factors in their favor for making Skelton’s radio program. First, according to Ozzie’s autobiography, the show’s sponsor, Raleigh Cigarettes, was strongly behind their signing.11 As a relatively new brand, it made marketing sense to have one’s product associated with fresh young talent, be that Skelton or the Nelsons. Second, after frequent joint appearances at charity functions, the Skeltons and Nelsons were already friends. Third, Skelton, the perennial Hoosier booster, enjoyed the fact that Ozzie’s novelty number “I’m Looking for a Guy” told a musical story set in Indiana.
A fourth and final wild-card factor in the Nelsons making the show involved their ties with comedian Joe Penner (1904–1941). Though Penner’s star had faded by the time of his heart attack death at only thirty-six, he had been an entertainment sensation only a few years before. Like Skelton, he had first come to national prominence by way of guest appearances on Rudy Vallee’s radio program, which was a showcase for new talent. In the autumn of 1933 Penner had his own coast-to-coast program and was the top-rated comedian after Eddie Cantor on the airways. This popularity culminated in Penner being named radio’s outstanding comedian of 1934.12 Penner’s program that all-important inaugural season on the air had also featured Ozzie Nelson’s orchestra, with Harriet Hilliard. Plus, Harriet had later appeared with Penner and Milton Berle in the movie New Faces of 1937.
Why would the Nelsons’ association with Penner be important to Skelton? Early in Skelton’s career he idolized Penner. And as is often the case with heroes, a young Skelton also borrowed material from Penner. Former Great Depression-era entertainer turned Hoosier politician Paul Cooley had an entertaining story about that Penner-Skelton connection. Cooley was a close friend of Herman Lewis, the brother of Doc Lewis, Skelton’s medicine-show mentor back in the 1920s. The Lewis family enjoyed keeping tabs on the star they first knew as a fresh-faced youngster. According to Doc Lewis, as reported by Cooley, “One time [during the early 1930s] in Saint Louis Red sat in a vaudeville theatre balcony and copied all of Joe Penner’s act out in longhand.”13
Besides such youthful borrowing of Penner’s jokes, Skelton also seemed to assume certain mannerisms of this comic. For example, when Skelton had his breakout review in Variety’s “New Acts” section, the critique called him “a little Joe Penner-ish at times with [demonstrative] hands, cigar [prop], and gestures, but it doesn’t spoil his work.”14 Also like Penner, Skelton was his own best audience, leading and/or pump-priming the crowd with his laughter.
More importantly, however, a central component of Penner’s act quite possibly influenced Skelton’s most popular radio character—Junior. For reasons hard to define, Penner’s pet phr
ase, “Wanna buy a duck?” made him the proverbial overnight success. And he was a master at milking a line: “Wanna buy a duck? … Well, does your brother wanna buy a duck? … Well, if you had a brother, would he wanna buy a duck?”15 Though this was his signature line, with fans across the country sending Penner every manner of duck (including real ones), the comic had a gift for coining other popular catchphrases, such as “You nah-sty man!” and “Wo-o-oe is me!” and “Don’t ever DOOOO that!” The latter line would appear to anticipate Junior’s famous catchphrase, “I dood it!” With this variation of a Penner bit, tied to a bratty kid (Junior), Skelton had an expression that was just as much of a national sensation as the earlier “Wanna buy a duck?”
Junior’s tag line, moreover, had “legs,” a show business term for staying power. Introduced on Skelton’s radio program in 1941, the following year various newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Herald Express, borrowed the phrase to describe Colonel James Doolittle’s surprise bombing raid on Tokyo, “Doolittle Dood it.”16 (Stillwell saved this headline in one of Skelton’s scrapbooks, as well as a follow-up photo of the comedian posing with the “Doolittle Dood It” front page.17) In 1943 Skelton starred in a hit movie titled I Dood It. Throughout the 1940s Junior and his signature line remained Skelton’s most popular radio character. Initially retired when Skelton moved to television in 1951, because it was felt seeing a middle-aged man playing a youngster would not work, the comedian soon revived Junior for the small screen.
Paradoxically, despite Skelton’s Penner connection, which probably contributed to the Nelsons joining Skelton’s radio family, Skelton was still frequently compared to Bob Hope. The Hope link was further encouraged by NBC, the network for both comedians, which scheduled them back-to-back on Tuesday night. Both comedians did an opening monologue that focused on topical events of the day, just as both later did on television. Though Skelton was not in a class here with Hope, no one else was, either. Still, Skelton was better than most monologists, as evidenced by the New York Times periodically recycling his jokes, such as the comedian’s crack about four days of Los Angeles thunder storms (1944), “The Southern California housing shortage is now relieved—houseboats are the answer, firmly anchored to keep from bumping against City Hall.”18
Following the monologue, Ozzie and Harriet performed, including comic banter between the duo and Skelton. The third and final segment of the thirty-minute program was devoted to Skelton’s comedy characters. His ensemble of zanies was still evolving in the early 1940s, but the two main stars were Junior and Clem Kadiddlehopper, both of whom resurfaced on his later television show. A distant third figure in the early days of his Red Skelton Show was Willie Lump-Lump, a comic drunk, whose pet expression was an inebriated, “Aw, sheddap!” Borrowing from his celebrated “new vaudeville” sketch, “Guzzler’s Gin,” Skelton often used Ozzie as a straight man in these radio routines.
Though most comedians depend, to a certain degree, on topical material (as best exemplified by Hope), Skelton’s material, whether character-driven or in his monologue, often had a more generic universal component to it. For example, here is a Skelton radio bit ostensibly about staying in shape: “The craziest things happen when you’re jogging. There was a guy up ahead of me running along, so I caught up to him and [nearly out-of-breath] said: ‘Jogging? Health?’ He said: ‘Prison—escape’”19
As demonstrated by the “Doolittle Dood It” headline and the I Dood It movie, Junior was the key character of Skelton’s wartime radio show. Stillwell had created this figure based upon the personality of a husband whose youth had yet to move toward its extended expiration date.20 Verna Felton, who played Junior’s radio grandma following World War II, later addressed the character’s universality. After crediting Stillwell’s modeling of Junior on Skelton, the radio actress shared an insightful Stillwell story about her husband: “She said he told me, looking sheepish, ‘that all men are little boys at heart.’”21
Skelton as Sheriff Deadeye with film star Alan Ladd, whose greatest film was the classic Western Shane (1953). Although this photo is from Skelton’s television years, both of these stars found 1940s success because of creatively driven wives. (Vincennes University Foundation, Red Skelton Collection)
The persistence of the character in Skelton’s lengthy career means Junior rivals in significance the signature routines Stillwell originated earlier—the donut-dunking sketch and “Guzzler’s Gin.” Having said that, though, Junior was certainly influenced by two then already existing and phenomenally popular child-inspired radio characters: Fanny Brice’s “Baby Snooks” and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy Charlie McCarthy. Like these precursor types, Junior’s extended tag line—“If I dood it, I get a whippin’ … I dood it!”—is grounded in a smart-aleck mentality.
Though Snooks and McCarthy came into their own on radio in the late 1930s, the addition of Skelton’s Junior in 1941 helped make the war years the airway heyday of the child impersonator. While this trio of radio rascals were known for their precocious lips, Junior did seem to build upon Snooks and McCarthy. Snooks’s mischief often resulted in a spanking, with her comic crying just as frequently putting a close on Brice’s radio routines. Along related lines, Junior invariably signaled a near conclusion to his routine by acknowledging the “whippin” that would soon be forthcoming. And while McCarthy had more of an acid tongue than Snooks, radio historian Arthur Frank Wertheim suggests, “[Junior] was much more rude and mischievous … [:] ‘Oh, I wish I had left you at home,’ his Mummie scolded. ‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Junior replied. ‘Because by now I coulda had three rooms completely wrecked!’”22
Skelton was also able to occasionally apply a semblance of his antiheroic/smart-aleck screen character from Whistling in the Dark to Junior. For example, here is a radio routine where Skelton’s “little brat,” lost in a department store, segues into an example of this comic dichotomy:
“Mommie, Oh Mommie! Where’s my Mommie?”
The store’s floorwalker replies, “There, there, my little boy, are you lost?”
“Whatja think … I sprouted from a crack in da floor?”23
Ironically, when Stillwell filed for a divorce at the end of 1942, the two artists were so synonymous with Junior and the little brat’s “Mummy” that period publications sometimes bemoaned the split as if the duo really were these characters. Screenland author John R. Franchey wondered if “‘Junior’ [had] lost for keeps the good offices of the second-best ‘Mummy’ he ever knew, a ‘Mummy’ who had gotten him out of a jillion jams, out of the depths and doom into which great comedians have a habit of sinking.”24 Though Franchey ultimately put a positive spin on the divorce, titling the article, “Ex’s Can Be Friends,” the piece must have hit a nerve, because Stillwell included the essay in a Skelton scrapbook.25
Skelton’s other primary comic alter ego during his radio war years was Clem Kadiddlehopper. Kadiddlehopper was Skelton’s oldest character, seemingly based, in part, on a childhood friend. This figure had even greater visibility than Junior during the course of Skelton’s long career, given later questions about seeing (on television) a middle-aged Skelton play a bratty kid. (Radio and the need for imagination also enhanced Junior’s often surreally silly quality, such as the sketch where he is tempted to throw a bottle of ink into an electric fan.)
Clem’s character on radio was initially employed as a singing cab driver. While this might sound like an odd occupation for a rural rustic, ultimately it is an imaginative choice. The stereotypical cabbie is nothing short of the proverbial magpie—gabby. So one has a ready excuse for Clem’s nonstop verbal riffs and singing, especially when one could argue that Kadiddlehopper’s definitive line is his humming simpleton anthem, “Du-du-du du-du-du.” Even more importantly, driving a cab ties directly into a basic component of personality comedy—a picturesque (on the road) nature produces a potential nonstop comedy catalyst of various locations and/or new characters (represented by the various cab fares).
While many o
f Skelton’s later comedy characters are inherently fools, such as his punch-drunk boxer Cauliflower McPugg and the antiheroic cowboy Sheriff Deadeye, Clem is the closest to humor history’s classic fool. Like the traditional court jester of medieval Europe, Kadiddlehopper occasionally segues into the “wise fool” mode, when an insightful observation pops out in the midst of all his comic idiocy. And this simpleton norm acts as a safety valve—such a fool cannot be held responsible for the seemingly random biting insight. That is, they would not seem bright enough to devise it on their own.
Skelton’s radio studio audience received an added bonus after the broadcast. The comedian gifted them with a postprogram, where he “put on a wilder, more abandoned, and possibly more hilarious show during the half hour that follows his regular show.”26 Early in Skelton’s radio career he had done a preprogram warm-up act, but the always full-tilt funnyman had only succeeded in “knocking out both himself and his audience by the time the scripted broadcast got started.”27 This bonus performance also allowed Skelton to do some of his patented pantomime that could never be used on radio. “Guzzler’s Gin,” part verbal, part visual, was a special favorite. (Skelton invented his own term for this type of routine—“verba-mimes,” where “I’m [Red] talking while I’m doing all the miming. But you’re doing two things at once.”28)
At some point in the after-show Skelton introduced Stillwell, often bringing her out to jointly perform one of their old vaudeville routines. The following description of a Skelton and Stillwell sketch dates from shortly after their divorce: “Then and there they began a routine which brought down the house, Edna playing straight man, catching dialogue, rigging up laughs for Red, sparring verbally, and in the end, [Edna literally] carrying Red off the stage on her back to the delight of all hands.’”29