The Baby Snooks Show
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The Baby Snooks Show was an American radio show starring comedienne and Ziegfeld Follies alumna Fanny Brice as a mischievous young girl who was 40 years younger than the actress who played her when she first went on the air.
In 1904, George McManus began his comic strip, The Newlyweds, about a couple and their child, Baby Snookums. [1] Brice began doing her Baby Snooks character in vaudeville, as she recalled many years later:
- I first did Snooks in 1912 when I was in vaudeville. At the time there was a juvenile actress named Baby Peggy and she was very popular. Her hair was all curled and bleached and she was always in pink or blue. She looked like a strawberry ice cream soda. When I started to do Baby Snooks, I really was a baby, because when I think about Baby Snooks it's really the way I was when I was a kid. On stage, I made Snooks a caricature of Baby Peggy. [2]
On February 29, 1936, the producers of the Ziegfield Follies of the Air, where Brice already had a presence, asked her to fill empty airtime with a Snooks skit. Snooks' media career had begun, and the following year, she played Snooks on the Good News Show. In 1940, she became a regular character on the Maxwell House Coffee Time, sharing the spotlight with monologist Frank Morgan.
In 1944, the character was given her own show, and during the 1940s, it became one of the nation's favorite radio situation comedies, broadcast by a variety of sponsors---Post Cereals, Sanka, Spic-n-Span and Jell-O. The series began on CBS September 17, 1944, airing on Sunday evenings at 6:30pm as Toasties Time. The title soon changed to The Baby Snooks Show, and the series was sometimes called Baby Snooks and Daddy. In the fall of 1946, the show moved to Friday nights at 8pm, continuing on CBS until May 28, 1948. On November 9, 1949, the series moved to NBC where it was heard Tuesdays at 8:30pm. Sponsored by Tums, The Baby Snooks Show continued on NBC until May 22, 1951. Two days later, Fanny Brice had a cerebral hemorrhage, and the show ended with her death at age 59.
One of the last shows in the series, "Report Card Blues" (May 1, 1951), is included in the CD set, The 60 Greatest Old-time Radio Shows of the 20th Century (1999), introduced by Walter Cronkite. [3]
Radio historian Arthur Frank Wertheim wrote this description of the devilish imp's pranks: "...planting a bees' nest at her mother's club meeting, cutting her father's fishing line into little pieces, ripping the fur off her mother's coat, inserting marbles into her father's piano and smearing glue on her baby brother." [4]
Yet she was not a mean child. "The character may have seemed a noisy one-joke idea based on Snooks driving Daddy to a screaming fit," wrote Gerald Nachman in Raised on Radio. "Yet Brice was wonderfully adept at giving voice to her irritating moppet without making Snooks obnoxious." Nachman quoted Variety critic Hobe Morrison: "Snooks was not nasty or mean, spiteful or sadistic. She was at heart a nice kid. Similarly, Daddy was harried and desperate and occasionally was driven to spanking his impish daughter. But Daddy wasn't ill-tempered or unkind with the kid. He wasn't a crab." [5]
Brice herself was so meticulous and fanatical about the character---whose origin lay in Brice's own childhood, the comedienne often said---that, according to Nachman, "she dressed in a baby-doll dress for the studio audience," and she also appeared in the costume at parades and personal appearances. [6] She also insisted on her script being printed in extremely large type so she could avoid having to use reading glasses when on the air live. She was self-conscious about wearing glasses in front of an audience and didn't believe they fit the Snooks image. By her own admission, Brice was a lackadaisacal rehearser: "I can't do a show until it's on the air, kid," she was quoted as telling her writer/producer Everett Freeman. Yet she locked in tight when the show did go on---right down to Snooks-like "squirming, squinting, mugging, jumping up and down," as comedian George Burns remembered. [7]
Snooks proved so universally appealing that Brice and Hanley Stafford, who played Lancelot (Daddy) Higgins, were invited to perform in character on the second installment of The Big Show, NBC's big-budget, last-ditch bid to keep classic radio variety programming alive amidst the television onslaught. Snooks tapped on hostess Tallulah Bankhead's door to ask about a career in acting, despite Daddy's telling her she already didn't have what it took. Later in the broadcast, Snooks and Daddy appeared in a sketch with fellow guest star Groucho Marx in a spoof of Marx's popular quiz-and-comedy show, You Bet Your Life. [8]
Fanny Brice died May 29, 1951---with her memoirs unfinished and with Baby Snooks due on the air that same night. The May 29 memorial broadcast, a musical tribute to Brice, ended with a short eulogy from Hanley Stafford: "We have lost a very real, a very warm, a very wonderful woman." [9]
Contents |
[edit] Characters
- Baby Snooks' long-suffering, often-cranky father, Lancelot "Daddy" Higgins, had been played by Frank Morgan, Alan Reed and Hanley Stafford.
- Baby Snooks' mother, Mama Higgins, had been played by Lalive Brownel, Lois Corbet and Arlene Harris.
- Robespierre, Snooks' little brother, was played by Lenore Ledoux.
- Show announcers changed frequently over the show's long history, but they included Jack Benny's longtime announcer, Don Wilson.
[edit] Episodes
[edit] 1939
- 01/22/39 Daddy's An Elk
- 04/04/39 House Breaking
- 05/05/39 Life Insurance
- 05/11/39 Barking Rabbit
- 05/18/39 Golf Tea
- 05/25/39 Hugh What?
- 06/01/39 Gone Fishing
- 06/08/39 Violet Ray
- 06/15/39 Living By Dyeing
- 06/22/39 New Baby
- 06/29/39 Jealousy
- 09/07/39 Pulling Teeth
- 09/22/39 Heat Wave
- 09/28/39 Airport Meeting
- 10/05/39 Mudneck
- 10/26/39 Cake Writing & Abe Lincoln
- 11/16/39 Rich Uncle & Slapsie Maxie
- 11/23/39 Court Case
- 11/30/39 Insurance Exam
- 12/14/39 Psychoanalyzed
- 12/21/39 Sneaky Snooks
- 12/28/39 Hunting
[edit] 1940
- 01/04/40 Bungling Burglars
- 01/11/40 Male Secretary
- 01/18/40 Chemical Catastrophe
- 01/25/40 Shetland Pony
- 02/01/40 Family Tree
- 02/08/40 Anatomy Of A Robot
- 02/15/40 Tax Returns
- 02/22/40 Missing Dollar
- 02/29/40 Wedding Cake
- 03/07/40 Snooks Has Amnesia
- 03/14/40 Tom Thumb
- 03/21/40 Laying An Egg
- 03/28/40 Baby Brother
- 04/04/40 April Fools
- 04/11/40 Baby Fish Story
- 04/18/40 Magic
- 04/25/40 Motel
- 05/02/40 Auntie Septic
- 05/09/40 Lies
- 05/16/40 Jokes For Jack
- 06/22/40 Tonsils Operation
- 07/11/40 At The Beach
- 07/18/40 Library Visit
- 07/25/40 Port Hole Safe
- 09/05/40 Magazine Scam
- 09/12/40 New Car
- 09/19/40 Playing Hooky
- 09/26/40 Where's The Medicine?
- 10/10/40 Football Game
- 10/17/40 Where's My Change?
- 10/24/40 Raising A Loan
- 10/31/40 Ruined Suit
- 11/07/40 Oil Discovered
- 11/14/40 Measles
- 11/21/40 4 Fathers
- 11/28/40 Stolen Turkey
- 12/12/40 Haunted House
- 12/19/40 Christmas Skates
- 12/26/40 Returning Presents
[edit] 1941
- 01/02/41 Sneaking Out
- 01/09/41 Art Museum
- 01/23/41 Flat Tire
- 01/30/41 Jury Duty
- 02/06/41 Flower Gardens
- 02/13/41 Taxes Again
- 02/27/41 At The Races
- 03/20/41 Photographer
- 03/27/41 Buying Shoes
- 04/03/41 At The Zoo
- 04/10/41 Trout Fishing
- 04/17/41 Baseball Game
- 04/24/41 Fixing Supper
- 05/08/41 Riding Academy
- 05/22/41 Insomnia
- 05/29/41 Antique Auction
- 06/05/41 Calisthenics
- 06/12/41 X-Ray Machine
- 06/19/41 Dollar Day
- 06/26/41 Artist Daddy
- 07/10/41 Going To Camp
- 10/02/41 Snooks Returns
- 10/09/41 New School
- 10/23/41 Duck Hunting
- 10/31/41 Halloween
- 11/06/41 Defense Stamps
- 11/13/41 Mixed Nuts
- 11/27/41 The Opera
- 12/18/41 Air Raid Warden
[edit] 1942
- 01/01/42 Hangover
- 01/08/42 Victory Garden
- 01/15/42 House Guest
- 01/22/42 Hiccups
- 01/29/42 Report Card
- 02/05/42 Knitting Lessons
- 02/12/42 Camping In
- 02/26/42 Stealing Chickens
- 03/19/42 Fake Measles
- 03/26/42 Red Cross
- 04/02/42 Easter Suit
- 04/09/42 Daddy's Birthday
- 04/16/42 Poultice
- 04/23/42 $50.00 Raise
- 04/30/42 Quiz Kids
- 05/07/42 Fishing Rod
- 05/21/42 Sugar
- 06/04/42 10th Anniversary
- 06/11/42 The Twins
- 06/18/42 The Trade
- 07/02/42 Baby Buggy
- 09/03/42 Camp Report
- 09/24/42 Matinee
- 10/01/42 Gozinta
- 10/08/42 Charlie
- 12/03/42 Getting Gas
- 12/18/42 Cinderella
[edit] 1943
- 01/14/43 Stolen Medal
[edit] Notes
- ^ Scoop: The Newlyweds (April 9, 2004)
- ^ Fanny Brice Collection: Baby Snooks
- ^ University of California, Berkeley: Media Resources Center.
- ^ Wertheim, Arthur Frank. Radio Comedy. Oxford University Press, 1979.
- ^ Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 0520223039
- ^ Goldman, Herbert G. Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl. Oxford University Press, 1992.
- ^ Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 0520223039
- ^ The Marx Brothers Radio Shows and Guest Appearances: The Big Show (November 12, 1950)
- ^ Grossman, Barbara Wallace. Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice. Indiana University Press, 1991.
[edit] References
- Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507678-8
- Sies, Luther F. Encyclopedia of American Radio 1920-1960. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000. ISBN 0-7864-0452-3
- Terrace, Vincent (1981). The Radio's Golden Years: Encyclopedia of Radio Programs, 1930-1960. A. S. Barnes.
