Radio's New Wave

12

TICK TOCK GOES THE MUSICAL CLOCK

Time Discipline and Early Morning Radio Programs

Alexander Russo

In 1947, during a famous fight with NBC, comedian and variety show host Fred Allen described a mythical vice president of “Ah! Ah! You’re running too long” who sat in a “little glass closet with a mother of pearl gong.” When programs went over time, Allen asserted that this executive would “thump the gong with a mushroom tied to the end of a xylophone stick,” taking the program off the air, saving precious minutes and seconds that the executive would then save up and use for his vacation. Allen and Portland, his wife and sidekick, concluded that this executive (and presumably all of network radio) “was living on borrowed time” and “enjoying every ...