Beat the Band

Beat the Band is a musical quiz show heard on NBC radio from 1940 to 1944 in two distinctly different series.

The program popularized the show business catch phrase, "Give me a little traveling music", often uttered on TV a decade later by Jackie Gleason.

In the first series, broadcast on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. from Chicago, emcee Garry Moore read music-related questions submitted by listeners to band members in the 14-piece Ted Weems Orchestra.

"[4] Band members who answered questions incorrectly had to toss a fifty-cent piece on the bass drum.

Unlike most radio shows of the time, Beat the Band did not always originate in Chicago; the program was often broadcast on location from places like Denver, St. Louis, and Milwaukee.