The Big Show (NBC Radio)
Hosted by stage actress Tallulah Bankhead, The Big Show began November 5, 1950, on NBC with a stellar line-up of guests: Fred Allen, Mindy Carson, Jimmy Durante, José Ferrer, Portland Hoffa, Frankie Laine, Russell Knight, Paul Lukas, Ethel Merman, Danny Thomas, and Meredith Willson.
To make sure no one missed the launch, NBC ran in Sunday newspapers across the country an illustrated advertisement displaying headshots of Allen, Bankhead, Carson, Durante, and Merman.
The premiere opened with this introduction: As promised, the second week's program featured the guests Groucho Marx, Jane Powell, Ezio Pinza, and Fanny Brice, along with Hanley Stafford, Frank Lovejoy, David Brian and John Agar (the latter three recreating their screen roles in highlights from their current Warner Bros. picture, Breakthrough) [1].
They included film stars Ethel Barrymore, Charles Boyer, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Carmen Miranda, Bob Hope, Sam Levene, Martin and Lewis, Ginger Rogers, George Sanders, and Gloria Swanson; musical/comedy stage stars Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Judy Holliday, and Gordon MacRae; opera stars Lauritz Melchior and Robert Merrill; and jazz and popular music titans Andrews Sisters, Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, The Ink Spots, Frankie Laine, Judy Garland, Édith Piaf, Frank Sinatra, Rudy Vallée, and Sarah Vaughan.
[1] The show also featured many of the nation's most familiar radio stars, some of whom were beginning to shine on the medium the show was intended to help hold at bay: Gertrude Berg (The Goldbergs), Milton Berle, Bob Cummings, Joan Davis, Ed Gardner (Archie from Duffy's Tavern), Phil Harris, Garry Moore, Jan Murray, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), Phil Silvers, Danny Thomas, Paul Winchell, and more.
Except for special tributes (the series premiere, coinciding with the anniversary of George M. Cohan's death, was a particularly slam-bang tribute: a medley of Cohan musicals' signature songs), the show usually concluded with each guest taking a turn singing a line from music director Meredith Willson's composition "May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You," a touch that proved sentimental but not saccharine.
The writing team, led by Fred Allen, included Frank Wilson, who adapted movie scripts and short stories for the dramatic segments, as well as George Foster, Mort Greene, and Selma Diamond.
In fact, it was primarily because the program was unable to attract more advertisers than those who sustained the second half-hour segment (6:30-7:00pm) during the first season: RCA Victor, American Home Products/Whitehall Pharmacal's Anacin, and Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield cigarettes.
But The Big Show is remembered as one of the great final stands, at its best, of classic American old-time radio and—for its wit, colorful music, and dramatics—as good as broadcast variety programming got on either medium.
The television series debuted on October 11, 1952, featuring a guest lineup that included Groucho Marx, Ethel Barrymore, Ben Grauer, and Meredith Willson.
