Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The Bickersons "John Makes Out His Will" (5-18-47)

John Makes Out His Will (Aired May 18, 1947)


The Bickersons was an American radio comedy program that aired from 1946 to 1951. Born as a recurring skit on The Chase and Sanborn Hour and refined on the lesser-remembered Drene Time variety show, it stood the already-typical domestic presentation of radio and its infant offspring, television, so squarely on its head that there were those who feared the show. The show's married protagonists spent nearly all their time together in relentless verbal war, and many people believed that the show's sourly cynical take on the institution of marriage was more than merely detrimental to the nation's post-World War II health. (The same kind of charges of "detrimental" were later leveled against programs such as Married... with Children and The Simpsons.) The Bickersons was created by Philip Rapp, the one-time Eddie Cantor writer who had also created the Fanny Brice skits (for The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air and Maxwell House Coffee Time) that grew into radio's Baby Snooks. Several years after the latter established itself a long-running favourite, Rapp developed and presented John and Blanche Bickerson, first as a short sketch on The Old Gold Show and The Chase and Sanborn Hour (the show that made stars of Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy), and then as a 15-minute situational sketch as part of Drene Time. This was a variety show starring Don Ameche and singer-actress Frances Langford as co-hosts, airing on NBC and sponsored by Drene Shampoo. Announcing the show—and later familiar to television viewers as The Millionaire's presenter and executive secretary, Michael Anthony—was Marvin Miller. Drene Time typically opened with Langford singing a big band-style arrangement before Ameche and Langford would slip into routine comedy, often aided by co-star (and future Make Room for Daddy star) Danny Thomas, in routines that often hooked around Ameche's frustration that Thomas seemed more interested in modern technology and discoveries than in women. After another musical number and a commercial spot for Drene Shampoo, Miller would announce Ameche and Langford as the Bickersons, "in 'The Honeymoon's Over'," for the final 15 minutes of the show.

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