Barbara Eiler

The Life of Riley's weird early years

Lionel Stander

When you think of The Life of Riley radio program, I'm sure that you, like me, think of William Bendix as Riley, Paula Winslowe as Peggy and Tommy Cook and Barbara Eiler as the two kids.

The show began in April of 1941.  It was a Saturday morning program, coming on at 10 AM and then later the time was changed to 11 AM.

Lionel Stander played the part of Riley - who then was known as J. Riley Farnsworth.  You might recognize his photo (left) as that fellow on the television show, Hart to Hart.

Having written all of the above, this The Life of Riley show had almost nothing to do with the show we are all more familiar with.  Though the two are lumped together because they have the same title, the less familiar Riley show only lasted about 6 months and it was no more.

There was something very familiar about the above though which made it's way to the more familiar Riley program.  J. Riley Farnsworth's wife was named Peggy - the same name of the Winslowe character.  And her father was the richest man in town, which is pretty much on par with the Winslowe character in the more familiar Riley version.

To my knowledge, there is no available audio of this less familiar program.

Barbara Eiler on the far right

The Riley program we are familiar with began in 1944.  The early days were strange.  For one thing, Chester Riley called his wife, "Mom."  This wasn't uncommon in 1940's.  But it's uncommon for The Life of Riley.

The daughter - we know her as "Babs" (Barbara) was not named Babs but rather, "Eloise" (sometimes they called her "Ellie.")  And of course, the girl who played her wasn't the familiar Barbara Eiler but the unfamiliar Sharon Douglas.

And Junior Riley wasn't the more familiar Tommy Cook but several actors (Conrad Binyon, Scotty Beckett, Jack Grimes, Bobby Ellis.)  Beckett is easily recognizable as he was a member of Our Gang.

Also in the cast was Uncle Baxter, who was played by veteran actor Hans Conried.  By April of 1944, Uncle Baxter was (thankfully) gone.  I never thought he added much of anything to the show, except dead weight.

If you listen to the available shows in order, you can hear Digby O'Dell grow into his part; it seems to get better each episode until he finally settles in the man we know.  Meanwhile, John Brown (who played several parts on the show, including O'Dell and a neighbor, Gillis) has a son whose name changes from something weird (I forget now what it is) to something weirder, "Egbert."  You might be surprised to know that Shirley Mitchell sometimes (not always) played his wife "Honeybee."

I don't want to leave out Dink Trout, who shows up in plenty of the available episodes.  He played Waldo "Oh My Aching Back!" Binny, a neighbor in the pre-Gillis days.

Tommy Cook (Junior) talks a little Life of Riley (1972)

Tommy Cook, who played Junior (for most of the run) on the Life of Riley, spoke a little about the show in 1972 in an interview.  Unfortunately, there's not much in it...

(((HEAR))) Tommy Cook

Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown) talks about John Brown

How's this for a weird conversation?

Life of Riley's John Brown (Digby O'Dell) talks about John Brown - but no, not that John Brown! And no, not that other John Brown either!

(((HEAR)))

The 5 worst characters on radio sitcoms

As a general rule, I enjoy most radio situation comedies.  However, there were some characters that I just can't stand:

5. Waldo Binney on the Life of Riley (Dink Trout) - I guess the main reason I don't like him is that he's annoying to me rather than being funny.  The show survived fine without him so we know he wasn't crucial.

Another thing, he seemed to steal his character from the Irene Ryan character on the Jack Carson Show.  The characters could be twins (male and female.)  Besides, who wants to listen to someone complain all the time?

4. The Happy Mailman on Burns and Allen (Mel Blanc) - Mel Blanc was a man of 1000 voices and one of those voices was as the Mailman on the George Burns, Gracie Allen Show.  While Mel Blanc was a superb imitator and original voice artist, he (generally) wasn't much of a comedian.

Of course, he seemed to flourish in that role on the Jack Benny show but I digress.  As the mailman, he was one of many annoying, unneeded characters who would show up on the show in the early 1940's.

3. Margaret Davis, the landlady on Our Miss Brooks (Jane Morgan) - Jane Morgan always played the same kind of character, an elderly advice-giver; usually a maid or a landlady.  It really matters not to me on what show or what what role she was in, I thought she was annoying.  She is one of several reasons why Our Miss Brooks is low on my listening totem pole. 

Her voice is grinding, but not near as bad as Portland Hoffa, who would easily make this list, except she was on a variety show (the various Fred Allen shows) and not a situation comedy.

2. Gloria the housekeeper on the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (Bea Benaderet) - By far Bea Benaderet's worst role.  She seems to portrays Gloria as having some sort of speech problem, perhaps a cleft lip.  Sorry, but that's what it sounds like to me.  Ultra annoying, unfunny, unneeded character.

1. Herman the Duck on Burns and Allen (Clarence Nash) - Clarence Nash was actually the voice of Donald Duck (and Daisy) at Disney for years.  I suppose someone on the Burns and Allen show didn't think the Happy Postman was torture enough to listen to so they decided to bring in something more ridiculous and worse-sounding.

The fact is this: the show was one you could really immerse yourself in, even with the Happy Mailman but the stupid talking duck on the show simply ruins it for me.  The duck and the Mailman were on during the same years.  WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Another rare John Brown photo

Ridiculous basketball game on the Life of Riley?

Some bad writing again, this time, on the Life of Riley ("Basketball Game Bribe")...

In basketball, high schools play 16 minutes halves and 32 minute games.  I would imagine that junior high is similar.

Junior's junior high team is playing a game.  The announcer says:



The announcer clearly states that "With 10 minutes left, the score is 112-111..."

This means that the team scoring 112 points would have had to have scored 5.09 points per minute while the other team would have had to score 5.05 points a minute.

The two teams together would had to have scored an average of 10.2 points a minute.

While it's not impossible to score 10 points in a minute, it would be impossible to do that over a stretch of say, 3 minutes - probably even 2 minutes.

Scoring 112 points in 22 minutes while the other team is basically doing the same thing would be impossible, for so many different reasons, it's really not even worth going into.

PS - there was no 3 point field goal then.

Newspaper Promo Dump [#05]

Days before the debut of The Life of Riley...

Courtesy of the Cobalt Club

The LIVES of Riley

Crap shoot photo dump

Yep, another cast photo of The Life of Riley!

Very rare; Lucy, Desi on radio together

Abner and Lum and wives

Amos 'n' Andy, 1950's

Amos 'n' Andy, mid 1940's

Charles Mc with Dick Powell

hmmm

Fanny Brice

Hodge-podging around

The kid photos were fun, hope you saw them.  I get a kick out of comparing them to what they looked like in their hey-day compared to their kid photos.  Rudy Vallee looks pretty much the same, except for the hair!

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 I added a bunch of new Casts and small biographies to their proper places this morning and have a bunch more to post.  Some casts are represented by more than 1 photo and when I go and add another photo, it will not show up as "new" (if you check the OTR Photo or the OTR Photo RSS feed.)  So periodically, you should go and check your favorite casts to see if they have been updated.
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I have more fun photos to show you:

William Bendix (Riley) and Scotty Beckett (Junior)

Riley and Digby O'Dell (or is it Jim Gillis? - Either way, it's the elusive John Brown!)

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Some say this is the earliest photo of Charlie McCarthy in existance (that's up for debate.) You know it's very old though as look at the crudeness of the dummy on the left and Bergen has a TON of hair. I'm guessing it was taken in the mid to late 1920's, but that's only a guess:

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I have several shows picked out that I must listen to - but after I do, I will do a podcast for each one. Perhaps a day between podcasts would not be too unreasonable.  At any rate, I think you can probably expect another podcast from me on Sunday.
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I've never listed all my blogs at once... so I think I will do it now...


Active Blogs:
OTR Buffet
OTR Photo
OTR Biographies (Say Hello To...)
OTR Advertisements
OTR Podcast
Billboard Magazine OTR Reviews
Lum and Abner Dictionary
Silent Radio

Semi -blogs:
OTR Casts

Inactive blogs:
OTR People

Whew!
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I'm listening to 3-5 Lum and Abner shows a day and there are so few new words for the Lum and Abner Dictionary to be found lately. Hey, I'm trying, people!

I notice they'll use a word incorrectly and then the next day they will use it correctly. Or they will use a word incorrectly and then the next show they will change it something else. Go figure.

Here's a Lum and Abner photo I have never posted:

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I find stuff all the time that I save but never post. I think, now who would care about his? Well here are a few of those things I never posted but saved for some reason:

©Jimbo 2010/2011

RARE: John Brown photo with the Life of Riley (Cast)

Who's Barbara Eiler? (1949)

Living a Life of Riley

Does Paula Winslowe sing the Pabst Blue Ribbon commercial?

For years I have thought Paula Winslowe was the singer on the Pabst Blue Ribbon sponsored Life of Riley program - especially since the commercial only appears on  the Life of Riley program (to my knowledge.)

Decide for yourself.  






©Jimbo 2010/2011

William Bendix's little girl was actually a ROBOT!

Well, maybe not - but she looks like she just had a charge-up...

It looks as if at any moment, she could short circuit and begin hunting for moon rocks

©Jimbo 2010/2011

One of the Best: The Life of Riley

William Bendix, who had made a ton of movies, agreed to work on radio (and eventually TV) as Chester A. Riley, a husband, father and riveter.  The original radio series (with a different name) was actually designed for Groucho Marx of all people but the sponsor didn't like the way things were going and canned Groucho.  Groucho's brother Gummo was one of the early backers of the show.  (I can't imagine Groucho as a Chester Riley-character but that's for another day...)

Riley worked hard for his family but he wasn't the smartest guy on radio - as matter of fact, he was one of the dumbest.  He was easily led astray by quick-money schemes, often heralded by next-door neighbor friend and co-worker Jim Gillis (John Brown.)  In so many ways, Riley and Gillis were the forerunner to TV's Honeymooners' Ralph and Norton and you could also compare them to The Flintstones, an adult cartoon series done in the 1960's.

Riley tried hard - but it seems no matter what, he would fall for a tempting scheme that was deigned to make someone else money - not him.  Even Gillis was behind some of these, himself.  If it wasn't that, he would foul things up by his own sheer buffoonery.   Every show had an implied moral that was always same - never trust Chester with anything.

Still, Riley had a heart of gold - and this karma was almost always good to him as things would always work out well in the end.

Riley's wife, Peg (radio veteran Paula Winslowe) was good to Riley but put her foot down when it came to him wasting money.  She wore the financial pants in the family and would often bust Riley down.

William Bendix

Riley's daughter was Babs, who somehow thought she should be a society girl, even though it was obvious (but never said) that the Riley's lived on the wrong side of the tracks.  Babs was in her late-teens.

Babs had a variety of young men in her life - and you wondered why she would date nerdy Simon, a show fixture early on.  Riley did not like Simon and this often ruffled Babs (and Peg's) feathers.

Junior, Riley's capable son, was a level-headed, hard-working, decently-intelligent 14-15 year old teen.  I often wondered where he picked up all of those traits.

There were other notable characters, especially Digby O'Dell, the undertaker (also played by John Brown) who was on every show, often offering advice to Riley.  Digby, (Riley called him, "Digger") was all about his work at the cemetary and all of his talk and jokes cenetered around burial.  The audience loved Digby and they were always excited when he showed up.  The fans could almost mouth his every word - but that didn't seem to matter.

Other not-so-important (or funny) characters were often heard, including Egbert Gillis, a kid who couldn't ever seem to reach puberty but was pretty smart; Waldo Binny (Dink Trout) who always complained of an aching back and Uncle Baxter (radio/TV vet Hans Conried), who was just always there and never paid for anything in the Riley household.

The show was funny at times.  It's pretty predictable (some moments are word-for-word predictable; "Oh, my aching back!", "What a revoltin' devolpment this is!", "I better be shoveling off!" but as long as you never take the show serious and treat it like a big cartoon, then you can have some fun.

Most of the episodes in the series have very good sound - with only a few being a problem.

I'd rate it 3 stars just because there are a whole lot of them and silliness can grow on you - and this show does that.

William Bendix before Riley

Are OTR enthusiasts racist?

If you are even half as enthusiastic as I am about OTR, every month you probably hear the words, "Jap" or "Kraut" or "Negro."   There are other words we hear but more rarely: "nip" being one.

During World War II it was "acceptable" to be racist - even though an anti-race message is many times being brought forward in the same program (for instance, in The Adventures of Superman, there are conflicting racial tides all over the place during the war and a little bit even after the war.)

The US Goverment itself put out "racist" messages in propaganda, in the US and over in Europe - not to mention Japan.

Is it morally wrong to listen to Amos 'n' Andy? Is this something you ever think about?  Are different races being made "fun" of in that show or is it any different that say, Duffy's Tavern, where everyone on the show is presented with a below-average intellegence?

Chester Riley (Life of Riley) is no different than the Kingfish on Amos 'n' Andy: he's always trying to get a fast buck.  Same goes for characters throughout television history: Ralph Kramden and Fred Flintstone, for examples.

I'm not presenting a case one way or another.  It's just something I often think about.