Stoopnagle and Budd
The engagement was short-lived; the adverse business conditions of 1929–30 forced the orchestra to disband temporarily, and Hulick then worked for a telegraph company until his department "was wiped out".
Taylor and Hulick, known variously as either "Stoopnagle and Budd", "The Colonel and Budd", or "The Gloom Chasers",[4] generated such local interest that they moved to WMAK's sister station WKBW for a primetime evening slot, for two reasons according to Taylor: their morning show couldn't be heard by businessmen at work, and these same businessmen complained that it kept their wives from their housekeeping.
Taylor, spouting Spoonerisms, became known under the full name Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle as the partners appeared in several different formats on CBS, including some early, experimental television broadcasts, creating a variety of voices for their crazy characters, addlepated antics, and wacky interviews.
[6] NBC president Pat Weaver recalled how the two zanies "used to come into my office and, while we talked, lick my supply of stamps, one after another, and flip them up to stick on the ceiling.
The first two were filmed at the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn: Rambling 'Round Radio Row #1 (1932), and a two-reel musical comedy Sky Symphony (1933).
Director Eddie Sutherland flew from Hollywood to New York to stage the scene, which was filmed at Paramount's east coast studio at Astoria, Long Island.
[8] Stoopnagle and Budd were featured in a Screen Songs cartoon for Max Fleischer, Stoopnocracy (1933), in which they appear in a live-action segment.
Taylor and Hulick were very protective of their unique brand of whimsy, and even had a special clause written into their contracts: "Be it understood that Stoopnagle and Budd are the sole judges of what makes a script funny."
"[9] The team even called attention to their sustaining status on the air, as Budd's mean-old-man character Mr. Bopp yelled into the microphone, "Ya-a-a-a-ay!
[10] Taylor and Hulick were forced into a trial separation in November 1935, when their scripted, sponsored program for CBS failed to achieve the success of their free-wheeling, unsponsored shows.
CBS reassigned the partners temporarily: Taylor went on a California vacation while Hulick led an orchestra of studio musicians, with his wife (the former Wanda Hart) as the vocalist.
"[11] "Stoopnagle and Budd" made their last radio appearance on February 16, 1938, with the Paul Whiteman orchestra, after which they dissolved their partnership.
Taylor, retaining his "Col. Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle" stage name, was back on the air a month later, on Rudy Vallee's network program of March 24, 1938.
"[14] He then embarked on a radio comedy series with Donald Dickson on the Yankee Network in New England, and was a summer substitute for Fred Allen on Town Hall Tonight.
He became a radio game-show emcee, hosting Mutual's Music and Manners and Quizzer Baseball before relocating to Pennsylvania for a brief career in farming.
One of Stoopnagle's venerable routines (collected in book form in 1946) was reciting bedtime stories like Cinderella with Spoonerisms, so "Rindercella" went to a "bancy fall" and "slopped her dripper."
His first wife was Lois deRidder, daughter of a prominent shoe manufacturer of Rochester, New York; they had one son, Frederick Chase Taylor, Jr., born in 1923.
[17] Budd Hulick was announcing a radio broadcast from the Palais Royal nightclub in Buffalo, where band vocalist Wanda Hart (1908–1978) was appearing; they were married two weeks later.
"Col. Stoopnagle" substituted for Burns and Allen (1943), Duffy's Tavern (1944), Bob Hawk (1947), and Vaughn Monroe's Camel Caravan (1947–48).
That same year Ed Gardner invited Taylor to join his production company in Puerto Rico, to write scripts and make appearances on Duffy's Tavern.
In 1948, with "Mr. and Mrs." radio programs sweeping the country, Hulick and his second wife Helen joined WJJL in Niagara Falls, N. Y. for a two-hour-long, weekday-morning show.
