Gower Champion became involved and went from advisor to choreographer to being credited as "Dances and Musical Numbers Staged by..." Lend an Ear premiered at the Las Palmas Theatre, Los Angeles, on June 14, 1948.

The cast featured Carol Channing, Yvonne Adair, Jennie Lou Law, Gloria Hamilton, Gene Nelson, Bob Scheerer, and William Eythe.

[10][11] The musical gave Carol Channing her break "where the wide-eyed beauty displayed her fabulous comic talents and vocal abilities".

[14] The sketch topics included psychoanalysts, gossip columnists, Santo Domingo as seen by a tourist, silent screen stars, a poor opera company that has no orchestra, and "The Gladiola Girl".

Brooks Atkinson, in his New York Times review, wrote that "Gaynor's intimate musical is a model of skill and taste in this style of fooling, and it is performed by some fresh-grown youngsters whose talents have not been corrupted yet...He is lightly satirizing some of the more palatable follies of the day, and he is so neat in his touch that he does not have to clever…At the end of the first act Mr. Gaynor offers a very funny burlesque of old-time musical comedy—'The Gladiola Girl'.

Carol Channing was an overnight success as a loony, wide-eyed blonde in such numbers as 'The Gladiola Girl' and 'Opera Without Music,' and Yvonne Adair, William Eythe, Gene Nelson, and the rest of the cast made this one of the theatre's best revues of all time.