The Happiness Boys

It featured the vocal duo of tenor Billy Jones (1889-1940) and bass/baritone Ernie Hare (1883-1939), who sang novelty songs.

One of Jones's better solos was "Mary Lou", while Hare scored with the Yuletide novelty "Santa Claus Hides in the Phonograph".

Fred Rabinstein, who worked with Edison, recalled: Jones and Hare began on radio October 18, 1921 on WJZ (Newark, New Jersey), where they were sponsored by the chain of Happiness Candy stores.

The duo sang popular tunes, mostly light fare and comic songs, and they engaged in humorous repartee between numbers.

When the song "Collegiate" swept the country and prompted a host of similar tunes, Jones and Hare countered with "We Ain't Never Been to College".

America's fascination with radio triggered the pungent parody "Twisting the Dials", probably the very first comedy sketch of its kind: Billy and Ernie simulate tuning a radio and getting snatches of random radio programs (Ernie's stentorian recitation of "Gunga Din" interrupted by Billy singing a fast Hawaiian song; Billy saccharinely introducing children's storyteller "Daddy Scarem" [Ernie], who turns out to be pretty grim; an incomprehensible boxing match, etc., punctuated by frequent time-outs for station identifications and time signals).

Jones and Hare demonstrate how talking pictures have changed a restful evening in a theater into a noisy onslaught of "sneezes, squawks, and squeals".

The lyrics also note that the actors' voices seldom matched their silent screen images: HARE: The sheik is from the ghetto.

Billy Jones and Ernie Hare's music was recently reissued on the Living Era CD (AJA 5628), How Do You Do?, which brings together two dozen of their more popular hits, including "Barney Google" (lyrics by Billy Rose), "Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?"