Edgar Bergen - The Chase and Sanborn Hour

The Chase and Sanborn Hour

His first performances were in vaudeville, at which point he legally changed his last name to the easier-to-pronounce "Bergen". He worked in one-reel movie shorts, but his real success was on the radio. He and Charlie were seen at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noël Coward, who recommended them for an engagement at the famous Rainbow Room. It was there that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallée's program. Their initial appearance (December 17, 1936) was so successful that the following year they were given their own show, as part of The Chase and Sanborn Hour. Under various sponsors (and two different networks), they were on the air from May 9, 1937 to July 1, 1956. The popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled many critics, then and now. Even knowing that Bergen provided the voice, listeners perceived Charlie as a genuine person, but only through artwork rather than photos could the character be seen as truly lifelike. Thus, in 1947, Sam Berman caricatured Bergen and McCarthy for the network's glossy promotional book, NBC Parade of Stars: As Heard Over Your Favorite NBC Station.

Bergen's skill as an entertainer, especially his characterization of Charlie, carried the show (many of which have survived). Bergen's success on radio was paralleled in the United Kingdom by Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews (Educating Archie).

For the radio program, Bergen developed other characters, notably the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry Effie Klinker. The star remained Charlie, who was always presented as a highly precocious child (albeit in top hat, cape, and monocle) – a debonair, girl-crazy, child-about-town. As a child and a wooden one at that, Charlie could get away with double entendres which were otherwise impossible under broadcast standards of the time.

Charlie: "May I have a kiss good-bye?"

Dale Evans: "Well, I can't see any harm in that!"

Charlie: "Oh. I wish you could. A harmless kiss doesn't sound very thrilling."

Charlie's feud with W. C. Fields was a regular feature of the show.

W.C. Fields: "Well, Charlie McCarthy, the woodpecker's pinup boy!"

Charlie: "Well, if it isn't W.C. Fields, the man who keeps Seagram's in business!"

W.C. Fields: "I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs, I toddled from room to room."

Charlie: "When was that? Last night?"

W.C. Fields: "Quiet, Wormwood, or I'll whittle you into a venetian blind."

Charlie: "Ooh, that makes me shutter!"

W.C. Fields: "Tell me, Charles, is it true that your father was a gate-leg table?"

Charlie: "If it is, your father was under it."

W.C. Fields: "Why, you stunted spruce, I'll throw a japanese beetle on you."

Charlie: "Why, you bar-fly you, I'll stick a wick in your mouth, and use you for an alcohol lamp!"

Charlie: "Pink elephants take aspirin to get rid of W. C. Fields."

W.C. Fields: "Step out of the sun Charles. You may come unglued."

Charlie: "Mind if I stand in the shade of your nose?"

Bergen was not the most technically skilled ventriloquist – Charlie McCarthy frequently twitted him for moving his lips – but Bergen's sense of comedic timing was superb, and he handled Charlie's snappy dialogue with aplomb. Bergen's wit in creating McCarthy's striking personality and that of his other characters was the making of the show. Bergen's popularity as a ventriloquist on radio, where the trick of "throwing his voice" was not visible, suggests his appeal was primarily the personality he applied to his characters.

Bergen and McCarthy are sometimes credited with "saving the world" because, on the night of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles performed his War of the Worlds radio play hoax that panicked many listeners, most of the American public had instead tuned in to Bergen and McCarthy on another station and never heard Welles' play. Conversely, it has also been theorized that Bergen inadvertently contributed to the hysteria. When the musical portion of Bergen's show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, aired approximately 12 minutes into the show, many listeners switched stations and found the War of the Worlds presentation already underway with a realistic-sounding reporter detailing terrible events.

Ray Noble was the musical director and composer, and teenage singer Anita Gordon provided the songs on his show. Gordon was said to have been discovered by Charlie, who had a crush on her.