Over the course of the program's 17-year run, it was sponsored by Linit Bath Soaps, Hellmann's, Ipana, Sal Hepatica, Texaco and Tenderleaf Tea.
The segments would have Allen strolling through an imaginary neighborhood, knocking on the "doors" of various neighbors, including average-American John Doe (played by John Brown), Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious), pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw (Alan Reed), Titus Moody (Parker Fennelly), and boisterous Southern senator Beauregard Claghorn (announcer Kenny Delmar).
Some prominent guest stars on Allen's program over the years included Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Roy Rogers, Bela Lugosi, Ed Gardner, Norman Corwin and Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy.
[3] The first version of The Fred Allen Show premiered under the title of The Linit Bath Club Revue on the Columbia Broadcasting System Sunday night October 23, 1932.
Ken Roberts was the announcer while the music was furnished by Louis Katzman's orchestra and CBS house organist Ann Leaf, the latter of which was not actually present but actually broadcast from a small radio studio at the Paramount Theatre in Times Square, about a mile away.
[6] After the failure and conflict brought on by Linit, in 1933 Allen made the move to NBC with The Salad Bowl Revue.
[7] Not popular enough with listeners, and suffering increased tension between Allen and Hellmann's, The Salad Bowl Revue concluded on December 1, 1933.
He peppered his "Town Hall bulletins" with fictional local characters such as Hodge White the Grocer and Pop Mullen the Lunch Wagon Man, who were all described, but never given voice.
[8] Bristol-Myers also were the manufacturers of Ipana toothpaste during this time and decided to expand The Sal Hepatica Revue to the entire 9:00 hour on March 21, 1934.
The weekly newsreels gave Allen a chance to burlesque current events and people in the public eye.
A typical opening heard by listeners on Town Hall Tonight might have been as follows: A typical closing that could be heard by listeners every week on the program might have been as follows: The memorable "feud" between Fred Allen and Jack Benny of The Jell-O Program began on a 1936 episode of Town Hall Tonight.
On December 30, 1936, Allen had as one of his guests in the amateur portion of his program future professional violinist Stuart Canin.
The comedians planned to settle their fictional feud on March 21, 1937, during a broadcast of Jack Benny's show from the Hotel Pierre in New York, but the event never transpired and the trade of insults continued for years.
Calling the sketch "King for a Day", Allen played the host and Benny a contestant who sneaked onto the show using the alias Myron Proudfoot.
Benny answered the prize-winning question correctly and Allen crowned him "king" and showered him with worthless prizes.
Allen proudly announced, "Tomorrow night, in your ermine robe, you will be whisked by bicycle to Orange, New Jersey, where you will be the judge in a chicken-cleaning contest."
The sketch and the ensuing laughter ran so long that announcer Kenny Delmar was cut off by the network before he could finish his final commercial and the show's credits.
However, by late 1941, Baker had become increasingly difficult to manage, as his song choices were often slow tunes that lasted up to four minutes (which gave Allen less time to ad lib), and controversy arose in December when he performed "Ave Maria" in German, just a few weeks after the U.S. actively entered World War II, leading irate listeners to address their complaints to the network and sponsors.
By the time the show switched to Sunday evenings, Baker's role was reduced to singing his weekly numbers with little interaction with Allen whatsoever—in fact, Variety reported that both men were not on speaking terms by the end of the 1941–42 season.
More often than not on the segments, Allen could be found visiting average-American John Doe (played by John Brown), the Brooklyn tenement of Mrs. Pansy Nussbaum (Minerva Pious), pompous poets Falstaff Openshaw (Alan Reed), Humphrey Titter and Thorndyle Swinburne, the farmhouse of Titus Moody (Parker Fennelly), famous for his line "Howdy, Bub" he used when greeting Allen, the shack of Ajax Cassidy (Peter Donald), and the antebellum mansion of boisterous Southern senator Beauregard Claghorn (announcer Kenny Delmar).
Standard Brands was the original sponsor of the program, paying nearly $20,000 a week for the production of the show and to advertise their Tenderleaf Tea and Blue Bonnet margarine.
[21] Alongside Allen and Hoffa, the show featured Kenny Delmar (who doubled as announcer), Minerva Pious, Parker Fennelly, Peter Donald, Al Goodman's orchestra and songs by the DeMarco Sisters.
For the 1945–46 and 1947–48 radio seasons, both The Jack Benny Program and The Chase and Sanborn Hour preceded Allen on Sunday nights.
[21] Fred Allen was noted for his battles with network officials during his radio years which often led to the censoring of a few moments to minutes of his show.
To try to control this behavior, network officials began making Allen submit "verbatim scripts" prior to air for their approval.
[13] In addition, Allen would often ad-lib material and since most radio programs in those days were broadcast live, with the exception of the occasional delay here and there, the audience would sometimes hear a bleep in place of a word or phrase.
This was a precautionary measure as several of NBC's biggest stars, including Skelton, Benny and Bergen, were lost in William S. Paley's infamous "talent raids" and were now performing on CBS.