Charley Weaver on a Jello Show?

[helloagain]

Today I listened to a Jello show from 1-17-37. Jack introduces a character named Oscar T. Fortue in a funny bit. At first I thought it was Sam Hearn, but after listening to it again it sounded exactly like Cliff Arquette doing Charlie Weaver. Can anyone confirm this?

[Yhtapmys]

It's Cliff Nazarro.

Yhtapmys

[mrdj]

Jack's TV show was one of my favorites growing up, so when I started listening to his radio shows I had a reference in my minds eye as to what he, Mary, Rochester, Don, Dennis, and some of the others looked like. There was one character on the show however, who I had no idea as to what he looked like, and that was Mr. Kitzel. Somehow for whatever reason I pictured Cliff Arquette whenever Mr. Kitzel was talking. I know Charley Weaver and Mr. Kitzel sound nothing alike, but that's who I picture when I watch an old Jack Benny radio show in my mind. Other minor characters just appear as a disembodied voice, but Kitzel looks like Charlie Weaver. Am I the only one who imagines the face of an entirely different person when listening to a character on an old radio show?

[Maxwell]

There is at least one surviving kinescope of a live show (I think the one with Marilyn Monroe--stupid deteriorating memory!) in which Mr. Kitzel appears. So I now know what he looks like: Not Charley Weaver.

[epeterd]

That's the one. I just watched that episode recently. A few months ago we were at Books-a-Million and they had numerous DVD collections of old tv shows for about $7 or so. I got a Jack Benny collection with 39 episodes. One of those is the Marilyn Monroe episode, where he's on a ship and dreams that a large blonde woman who'd been sitting beside him on deck is MM. And you do see Mr. Kitzel in that episode. Personally I've never heard of Charley Weaver, but Mr Kitzel didn't look the way I expected him to. Not that I had any idea, but it's sort of like when you see someone from the radio for the first time. They never seem to look the way you expect.

peter

[Maxwell]

Wikipedia has a photo of Arquette as Charley Weaver: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Arquette

[Brad from Georgia]

Arquette's early shtick as Charlie Weaver was to read a "letter from Mama" telling about what had been going on in Charlie's home town of Mount Idy. So he was sort of a combination of Mary Livingstone and Garrison Keillor.

Of course later on, Charlie became more of a rounded character...but then so did Mary.

[Moose Hatrack]

In my memory Charlie Weaver was the lower left square on Hollywood Squares. Players always agreed with him because he never gave an incorrect answer. Back to the initial observation about radio faces that don't match faces drawn by the imagination... The thrill of that mismatch is a fun byproduct of the theatre of the mind. The imaginaton may draw a picture that's in the ballpark or far off the mark, but it's going to laugh and give up upon "the reveal" because the real face and the real voice belong to a real actor. (I write off my imagination's discrepancies to the performers superior ability to portray a chacter who looks NOTHING like him!) The same fun happens on a personal level when you meet a person you've only spoken with by phone. Where it gets fun is dramatized fiction where your imagination can actually claim to have done a better job painting a character's protrait than the producers and directors.
Sam Goldwyn looks like he sounds.