| Bob and Ray | |
|---|---|
 Ray Goulding and Bob Elliott hostingThe Name's the Same in 1955 | |
| Native name | Ray Goulding and Bob Elliott |
| Medium | Radio |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 1946–1988 |
| Genres | Improvisation, satire |
Bob and Ray were anAmericancomedy duo whose career spanned five decades, composed of comediansBob Elliott (1923–2016[1]) andRay Goulding (1922–1990). The duo's format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conductingradio ortelevision interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generallydeadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.
Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers (Elliott a disc jockey and Goulding a newscaster) inBoston with their own separate programs on stationWHDH, and each would visit with the other while on the air. Their informal banter was so appealing that WHDH would call on them, as a team, to fill in whenRed Sox baseball broadcasts were rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise comedy routines all afternoon, and joke around with studio musicians.
Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946.Matinee with Bob and Ray was originally a 15-minute show, soon expanding to half an hour. (When explaining why Bob was billed first, Goulding claimed that it was becauseMatinee with Bob and Ray sounded better thanMatinob with Ray and Bob.) Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs."
Matinee with Bob and Ray was broadcast Monday through Saturday on WHDH. The weekday half-hours were broadcast live; the Saturday shows were usually 25 minutes long and were sometimes recorded in advance. Staff musicians Ken Wilson (organ) and Bill Green (piano) opened each show with a sprightly rendition of "Collegiate".
Fans who are familiar with Bob and Ray's later routines, which were carefully scripted and timed, might be surprised by surviving episodes ofMatinee with Bob and Ray. These shows were completely impromptu and always irreverent, demonstrating how very alert and quick-witted Bob and Ray were. They would follow any comic thread for a few minutes, and then just as suddenly abandon it to move on to another topic. If Ray happened to mention a distant city, Bob would solemnly introduce a travelogue and the pair would narrate a mock documentary. A chance remark about a labor-saving device would bring home-economics expert Mary Margaret McGoon (Ray) to the microphone, offering an unlikely recipe or promoting a useless appliance. If an idea ran out of steam, Bob and Ray's cowboy entertainer Tex Blaisdell (voiced by Bob in a laconic drawl) came out of nowhere to plug his latest personal appearance in some tenth-rate theater. Almost all of the incidental characters passing through the studio were named Sturdley, which became a buzzword of the series.
A regular feature ofMatinee with Bob and Ray was a soap opera parody, "The Life and Loves of Linda Lovely". Ray would portray Linda, using a soft, breathy falsetto, with Bob portraying her beloved David in a halting, deliberate baritone. Neither Bob nor Ray knew what each story would involve, so each would cue the other and bat the dialogue back and forth as each situation got out of hand. A 1948 broadcast had Linda suddenly interrupting the story to take an urgent phone call, only to have David counter this turn of events by taking his own call; then Linda announced someone at the door and took athird phone call, which David accepted while Linda greeted the guest at the door and took afourth phone call.
When the show took time out for a recorded commercial, the team would continue in the same vein. A testimonial by actorBasil Rathbone would be followed by Bob and Ray adopting British accents and outlining a mystery. A commercial for a toy dealer would result in Bob immediately introducing a children's story as told by "Uncle Ray". Beginning in October 1948 they satirized a regularly scheduled singing commercial for Mission Bell Wines, which called for an announcer to read the ad copy live between the opening chorus and the closing jingle. Bob and Ray took any number of liberties, singing the copy drunkenly or punctuating the written copy with sarcastic remarks.
Musicians Wilson and Green performed two selections during each show. Bob and Ray often dragged them into the action, with comments about their clothes, their vacation plans, their musicianship, or their work ethic (Ray: "I don't care if you two havePetrillo behind you, you always come in here thinking you own the place."). One episode had Bob and Ray commenting on a Wilson-Green duet and then discussing the many success stories of the Wilson and Green School of Music. These were all voiced by Bob and Ray, all awful musicians, and all named Sturdley.
AlthoughMatinee with Bob and Ray did not have a studio audience, local residents (often high-school and college students) dropped by the studio daily to watch Bob and Ray. The team's wilder flights of fancy would elicit laughter off-mike.
Matinee with Bob and Ray became a favorite with listeners in New England, which brought Elliott and Goulding to the attention ofNBC in New York. They continued on the air for over four decades on the NBC,CBS, andMutual networks, and onNew York City stationsWINS,WOR, andWHN. From 1973 to 1976, they were the afternoon drive hosts onWOR, doing a four-hour show. In their last incarnation, they were heard onNational Public Radio, ending in 1987.
They were regulars on NBC'sMonitor, often on standby to go on the air at short notice if the program's planned segments developed problems, and they were also heard in a surprising variety of formats and time slots, from a 15-minute series in mid-afternoon to their hourlong show aired weeknights just before midnight in 1954–55. During that same period, they did an audience-participation game show,Pick and Play with Bob and Ray, which was short-lived. It came at a time when network pages filled seats for radio-TV shows by giving tickets to anyone in the street, and onPick and Play the two comics were occasionally booed by audience members unfamiliar with the Bob and Ray comedy style.
Some of their radio episodes were released on recordings, and others were adapted into graphic story form for publication inMAD magazine. Their earlier shows were mostly ad-libbed, but later programs relied more heavily on scripts. While Bob and Ray created and improvised much of their material, they did accept sketches from writers. The first was Boston broadcaster Jack Beauvais, who had performed as a singer forWEEI in Boston during the 1930s and also worked for some of the big bands in the 1940s and 1950s.[2] The pioneering radio humoristRaymond Knight was a fan, and submitted ideas and sketches. (Bob Elliott later married Knight's widow.)
The most prolific freelance author wasTom Koch (pronounced "Cook"). In 1955 he was a staff writer forMonitor, and he sent Elliott and Goulding 10 bits. "They bought eight," recalled Koch, "so I sent them 10 more and they never did reject another one." Koch always submitted his work by interoffice or postal mail, and although Elliott and Goulding spoke with him in person occasionally, the working relationship was remote: "The check would come and that would be it."[3] Koch captured the Bob and Ray style so well that the team would recite from his scripts verbatim. Koch remained with Elliott and Goulding, off and on, for three decades.
Elliott and Goulding lent their voices to a variety of recurring characters and countless one-shots, creating a multilayered world that parodied the real-life world of radio broadcasting. Elliott and Goulding played "Bob" and "Ray", the hosts of an ostensibly serious radio program. Their "staff" (all voiced by Elliott and Goulding) was a comic menagerie of reporters, book reviewers, actors, and all other manner of radio personalities, all of whom interacted with "Bob" and "Ray", as well as with each other. Almost all of these characters had picturesque names, as in one sketch where Bob introduced Ray as one Maitland Q. Montmorency. The guest replied, "My name is John W. Norvis. I haveterrible handwriting."
Recurring characters played by Bob Elliott included:
Any script calling for a child's voice usually went to Elliott.
Ray Goulding's roster of characters included:
While originally employing a falsetto, Goulding generally used the same flat voice for all of his women characters, of which perhaps the best-known was Mary Margaret McGoon (satirizing home-economics expertMary Margaret McBride), who offered bizarre recipes for such entrees as "frozen ginger ale salad" and "mock turkey". In 1949, Goulding, as Mary, recorded "I'd Like to Be a Cow inSwitzerland", which soon became a novelty hit and is still occasionally played by the likes ofDr. Demento. Later, the character was known simply as Mary McGoon. Another female character was Natalie Attired, "radio's Song Sayer" who, instead of singing songs, recited their lyrics to a drumbeat accompaniment.
Spoofs of other radio programs were another staple, including the continuing soap operas "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife", "One Fella's Family", and "Aunt Penny's Sunlit Kitchen" (which spoofedBackstage Wife,One Man's Family, andAunt Jenny's Real Life Stories, respectively). "Mary Backstayge" was serialized for such a long period of time that it became better known to many listeners than the show it lampooned. Another soap opera spoof, "Garish Summit" (which Bob and Ray performed during their stint on National Public Radio in the 1980s), recounts the petty squabbles for power among the wealthy family members who own a lead mine.
They also satirizedMr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons with the continuing parody, "Mr. Trace, Keener than Most Persons". Each Mr. Trace sketch began with a simple plot that soon degenerated into total gibberish where the dialogue was concerned ("Mister Treat, Chaser of Lost Persons", "Thanks for the vote of treedle, Pete") and gunplay ("You... You've shot me!... I'm... dead."). Juvenile adventures were given the satiric treatment:Jack Armstrong became "Jack Headstrong", andTom Corbett, Space Cadet became "Lawrence Fechtenberger, Interstellar Officer Candidate".
The quiz show "Dr. I.Q., the Mental Banker" was parodied as "Dr. O.K., the Sentimental Banker". Whereas the real Dr. I.Q. had several assistants with remote microphones, scattered through the audience to select contestants, Dr. O.K. (Bob) had to make do with a single assistant (Ed Sturdley, played by Ray), who eventually became exhausted from running around the theater. Other continuing parodies (both generic and specific) included game shows ("The 64-Cent Question"), children's shows ("Mr. Science", "Tippy the Wonder Dog", "Matt Neffer, Boy Spot-Welding King of the World"), self-help seminars ("Dr. Joyce Dunstable"), and foreign intrigue ("Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy").
In 1959 Bob and Ray launched a successful network radio series for CBS, broadcast from New York, known colloquially by a shortening of Goulding's wry introduction:Bob & Ray Present the CBS Radio Network. The CBS programming department frequently supplied scripts promoting the network's dramatic and sports shows, but Bob and Ray never read these scripts entirely straight, and would often imitate the character voices heard on these shows.Gunsmoke andYours Truly, Johnny Dollar were frequent targets, andJohnny Dollar inspired a full-fledged parody, "Ace Willoughby, International Detective". In each installment, Willoughby (Ray, doing a letter-perfect impersonation ofJohnny Dollar starBob Bailey) traveled around the globe in pursuit of crooks, but always gave up when the crooks found him and kept beating him up. Bob and Ray revisited the Ace Willoughby format a decade later in a parody of the TV detective showMannix. Their version, called "Blimmix", featured a dimwitted detective and whatever thug served as the antagonist, with Blimmix being beaten up at the end of each segment.
In addition to parodies of specific programs and genres, many of Elliott and Goulding's sketches turned on the inherent absurdities of reportage and interviewing. One particularly enduring routine cast Elliott as an expert on theKomodo dragon, and Goulding as the dense reporter whose questions trailed behind the information given.[4] Another featured Elliott as the spokesman for theSlow Talkers of America ("headquarters" inGlens Falls, New York), whose lengthy pauses between words increasingly frustrate Goulding. The pair performed both of these sketches many times.
Their character known as "The Worst Person in the World" (a reference toNew York magazine theatre criticJohn Simon, who gave their stage show a negative review) was, many years later, appropriated by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.
Commercial parody was a popular forte with Bob and Ray. A typical show would have such "sponsors" as:
In the early 1950s, the two had their own 15-minute television series, entitled simplyBob & Ray. It began November 26, 1951 onNBC withAudrey Meadows as a cast regular. During the second season, the title changed toClub Embassy, andCloris Leachman joined the cast as a regular, replacing Audrey Meadows who left the series to join the cast ofThe Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. In the soap opera parodies, the actresses took the roles of Mary Backstayge and Linda Lovely. Expanding to a half-hour for the summer of 1952 only, the series continued until September 28, 1953. WhenThe Higgins Boys and Gruber show began onThe Comedy Channel in 1989, it occasionally included full episodes of Bob and Ray's 1951–1953 shows (along with episodes ofClutch Cargo andSupercar).
The duo did more television in the latter part of their career, beginning with key roles of Bud Williams Jr. (Elliott) and Walter Gesundheit (Goulding) inKurt Vonnegut'sHugo-nominatedBetween Time and Timbuktu: A Space Fantasy (1972), adapted from several Vonnegut novels and stories. (Vonnegut had once submitted comedy material to Bob and Ray.) Fred Barzyk directed this WGBH/PBS production, a science-fiction comedy about an astronaut-poet's journey through the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum. This teleplay was first published in an edition that featured numerous screenshots of Bob and Ray and other cast members.
Bob and Ray also hosted aGoodson-Todman game show,The Name's the Same, which was emceed originally byRobert Q. Lewis. Bob and Ray would do a brief comedy routine, and then play the normal game of having a celebrity panel try to guess the contestants' famous names. They would always end the show with their traditional closing: Ray saying, "Write if you get work..." and Bob finishing with "And hang by your thumbs." The rigid format of the game gave the team little room to indulge their humor, and their run as hosts lasted only 10 weeks. In their final broadcast, they omitted the usual "Write if you get work" closing and simply said, "So long." They were replaced the next week byClifton Fadiman, who finished out the series.
During the late 1950s, Bob and Ray were also on radio and television as the voices of Bert and Harry Piel, twoanimated characters from a very successful ad campaign forPiels Beer. Since this was a regional beer, the commercials were not seen nationally, but the popularity of the ad campaign resulted in national press coverage. Based on the success of those commercials, they launched a successful advertising voice-over company, Goulding Elliott Graybar (so called because the offices were located in New York'sGraybar Building).
In 1971, Bob and Ray lent their voices to the children's television programThe Electric Company in a pair of short animated films; in one, explaining opposites, Ray was the "writer of words", first for elevators, then doors, finally faucets. The other, illustrating words ending in -at, had Ray as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" who can read minds and who tries to read a word in Bob's mind, that he thinks is an -at word such as "hat", "bat", "rat", "cat", "mat", etc. (Bob's word is actually "Columbus".)
In 1973, Bob and Ray created an historic television program that was broadcast on two channels: one half of the studio was broadcast on the New York PBS affiliateWNET, and the other half of the studio was broadcast on independent stationWNEW. Four sketches were performed, including a tug of war that served as an allegory about nuclear war. The two parts of the program are available for viewing at theMuseum of Television & Radio.
In 1979, they returned to national TV for a one-shot NBC special with members of the originalSaturday Night Live cast,Bob & Ray, Jane & Laraine & Gilda. It included a skit (not written by Elliott and Goulding) in which the team sat in chairs, in business suits, facing the audience, nearly motionless, and sang a duet ofRod Stewart's major hit "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Elliott and Goulding, reviewing the script beforehand, didn't like the idea at all and tried to refuse it, but their deadpan rendition of the song became the hour's highlight. Near the beginning of the program, they announced a contest which would take suggestions for the "new capital of Pennsylvania", not specifically mentioning the very recent Three Mile Island nuclear accident that had taken place near Harrisburg.
In 1980, they taped a one-hour pilot for CBS late night with the cast ofSCTV titledFrom Cleveland, a sketch show staged on location in Cleveland. The show became a cult favorite with numerous showings at theMuseum of Television & Radio.
This was followed by a series of specials forPBS in the early 1980s. In 1982, Ray Goulding told the New York Times, "It just keeps happening to us. I suppose each new generation notices that we are there."
Bob and Ray also appeared onThe Ed Sullivan Show several times in the late 1950s and early '60s; guested on theJohnny Carson andDavid Letterman shows throughout the 1970s and '80s; provided voices for the animated 1981 specialB.C.: A Special Christmas, and made guest appearances on episodes ofTheDavid Steinberg Show,Happy Days, andTrapper John, M.D..
Elliott and Goulding starred in a pair of two-man stage shows:The Two and Only on Broadway in 1970 (featuring aPlaybill drawn byMort Drucker), andA Night of Two Stars at Carnegie Hall in 1984. They also did extensive work in radio and televisioncommercials, and enjoyed supporting roles in the feature filmsCold Turkey (1971), where they played caricatures of famous news personalities of that day, andAuthor! Author! (1982).
In 1960, Bob and Ray published a children's book based on some of their characters and routines,Linda Lovely and the Fleebus.
The duo also collaborated on three books collecting routines featuring some of their signature characters and routines:Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray (1976; the title referenced Goulding's usual sign-off line),From Approximately Coast to Coast: It's The Bob & Ray Show (1983), andThe New! Improved! Bob & Ray Book (1985). The team also recorded audiobook versions.
Along with the audio books and numerous collections of radio broadcasts, Bob and Ray recorded several albums, including recordings of their stage performancesThe Two and Only andA Night of Two Stars,Bob and Ray on a Platter, andBob and Ray Throw a Stereo Spectacular.
Ray Goulding became ill in the late 1970s, suffering from kidney disease and enduring regular dialysis treatments. He was forced to adjust his working schedule to accommodate his regimen of hospital visits and treatments. Goulding refused to consider a kidney transplant, preferring to continue leading his life as he had been. Because of the new demands on Goulding's time, the team could no longer accept daily radio jobs or extensive advertising campaigns. This reduced their workload somewhat, but the team continued to work together for another decade, as outlined above.
Ray Goulding died on March 24, 1990. Elliott continued to perform, most notably with his son (actor/comedianChris Elliott) on the TV sitcomGet a Life, on episodes ofNewhart,LateLine andLate Night with David Letterman, in the filmsCabin Boy (also with son Chris) andQuick Change, and on radio for the first season ofGarrison Keillor'sAmerican Radio Company of the Air. Chris would join the cast ofSaturday Night Live for season 20 in 1994, and his daughterAbby also joined the cast midway through season 34 in 2009, marking three generations of Elliotts appearing on the show.
Bob and Ray were inducted into theNational Radio Hall of Fame in 1995. Many of their shows are available for listening atThe Paley Center for Media inNew York andLos Angeles. The Paley Center has such a large collection of Bob and Ray tapes that many of these remained uncatalogued for years.
Bob Elliott died on February 2, 2016, a victim of throat cancer.
Bob and Ray have won threePeabody Awards over the years, in 1951, 1956, and 1982.[5]
Bob and Ray were inducted into theNational Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.[6]
