Tertiary characters on other shows?

[DerekVOF]

OK -- maybe this is just me being naive (or because 99% of the OTR I've listened to is Jack Benny), but I didn't realize that many of the tertiary characters would come and go on other OTR radio shows as well.

Lately I've been listening to the old Abbott & Costello shows from the early 40s, and one day I'll hear Mr. Kitzel come in (Hoo hoo HOO!) and the next day I'll hear the mumbler (I directed the Attack on Gudaldididd, and Gone with the Shamwamaa). And of course Mel Blanc doing characterizations all over the place (but that I knew about).

Was this common? I figured Jack, et al. owned those characters (Mr. Kitzel, etc.). Was that not the case?

[Gerry O.]

Often a comedian or comedienne would play a character on various programs before "settling in" on the Benny program.

Artie Aurebach played Mr. Kitzel for years before the character ever appeared on Jack's show. Kitzel didn't appear with Jack until 1946, but he was a weekly regular on Abbott & Costello's program during the WWII years....and a regular character on comedian Al Pearce's program before that (around 1940).

Even Frank Nelson's sarcastic character popped up on many other programs, including TV's "I Love Lucy"....it was part of the actor's "schtick", not necessarily exclusive to Jack Benny's program.

[Mister Kitzel]

Kitzel popped in on Eddie Cantor's show, too. The Mad Russian was another character that floated between shows although I cannot recall hearing him appear with Jack Benny.

Did Erstle Twing (Pat Patrick) ever do anything outside of the Bergen and McCarthy show?

[LLeff]

Even Frank Nelson's sarcastic character popped up on many other programs, including TV's "I Love Lucy"....it was part of the actor's "schtick", not necessarily exclusive to Jack Benny's program.

True, but remember the story Frank told (in the long unpublished interview I did with him that finally came out in the Times a year or two ago) about how he was "tricked" into doing the character on another radio show against his will, as he felt the "Yesss" character was a Benny exclusive. I'm not sure of the dates that he did it on ILL, but wonder if either Jack gave permission or it was after the character was not used as much on the Benny show.

[Yhtapmys]

Was this common? I figured Jack, et al. owned those characters (Mr. Kitzel, etc.). Was that not the case?

People came from a vaudeville background back then. As we all know, vaudeville routines were never borrowed.

Barbara Jo Allen took her Vera Vague character and made shorts. Alan Reed had his own Falstaff show. There are a number of other examples.

People weren't as picky (ie. greedy) back then. I'm sure Mel Blanc didn't have problems doing Bugs' voice on the Benny show. If the similar situation happened today, it'd get bogged down in "rights" issues - all because of a potential profit somewhere.

Yhtapmys

[Roman]

Of course, we shouldn't go too far in applauding the "less greedy" radio era. It was precisely because freelance voice actors were paid so little and were entitled to few, if any, fringe benefits that Frank Nelson and others fought to unionize and to force the sponsors and networks to improve the economic status of the non-salaried voice talent. They may have had more freedom and less bureaucracy to contend with, but there was a definite downside to that earlier time.

[Yhtapmys]

Did Erstle Twing (Pat Patrick) ever do anything outside of the Bergen and McCarthy show?

Sorry to bring back a thread that's about a year old, but I was doing some research about Pat Patrick tonight because I couldn't find anything about him. I discovered him in Chesterfield Supper Club broadcast in 1947, a Rudy Vallee show the same year and a Jack Smith show on CBS in 1948, but he seems to have been on radio exclusively for Bergen.

The other odd thing is the few newspaper stories I could find insist on calling his character "Ercil" but I've only seen the spelling as "Ersel" on the internet and in old radio books.

Here's some background about him:

Looking and Listening
By THOMAS D. COOLICAN
[Sunday, May 14, 1950]
"FREN-N-N-NS!"
That familiar greeting, drawled by Pat Patrick introduces the comedy stooge character, Ercil Twing, to listeners of the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy Show.
A fractious, easily miffed, professional man on the air, Patrick is a big, handsome Irishman, in real life, whose own infectious sense of humor captures the studio audience as much as the antics of the comedy character he portrays.
Brown-haired, blue-eyed Patrick began his career in show business at 17 as a clown in the Al G. Barnes Circus.
After two years of clowning, Pat joined a stock company on the Chautauqua Circuit and devoted several years to acting.
In 1942, Bergen caught Patrick's act in a Los Angeles night club and decided Ercil Twing was the stooge he needed for his radio show.
However, Uncle Sam also took a liking to Patrick's antics and snapped him up for Army service in January, 1943,
His service over in July, 1945, Patrick brought his popular stooge character back to Bergen's radio show and he's been there ever since.
- - -
RADIO Notes and Comments
By NADINE SUBOTNIK.
[Oct. 29, 1950]
Pat Patrick, who's Ercil Twing on the Edgar Bergen show, may turn up in a series of his own and a completely different-from-Ercil character. An audition has been made of him as Horace Blinch, a department store floorwalker.
- - -
'Ercil Twing' Takes Own Life
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Aug. 20 [1954]—Comedian Pat Patrick, 40, who originated the role of Ercil Twing on the Edgar Bergen radio show, was found dead Thursday in his parked station wagon. Police said a vacuum cleaner hose led from the exhaust pipe to the interior of the car.
He had appeared for the last eight years in a night club near here. His widow, Lani, said she knew of no reason why he should take his life. They had two sons.

And just to stay on topic, in Nadine's column above was this little squib:

MONDAY noon Jack Benny was given a key to New York—the first "Key to the Television Capital."
Said Acting Mayor Vincent Impellitteri:
"The fact that you have chosen to make your television debut from our city instead of from Hollywood is further proof that New York City will continue to retain its leadership as the television capital."
They're talking big while they can.

AND while we're still on topic, came this note about Frank Nelson and Pat Patrick:

RADIO in REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
[from column of Feb. 5, 1948]
One of the stock characters in radio comedy is what might charitably be described as the male spinster. He is the man who says, 'Mr. Berle, we are not amused!" in mincing, hollow tones.
He's the postal inspector on the Dennis Day show who says, "Mr. Day, I LOVE you!" He's the man who sells Jack Benny the tickets to Cukamonga (or however that name is spelled) and, in somewhat modified form, he's Ercil Twing on the Edgar Bergen show. The same character, though not necessarily the same actor, is on a lot of other shows which I can't remember off-hand.
In fact, it seems to me this creaure has provided about a third of the comedy relief in all comedy shows for the last couple of years, though that may be an exaggeration.
He's been wandering around radio so freely that you can identify him immediately. He is waspish supercilious, sarcastic, vaguely effeminate, and he lives in a state of perpetual irritation. He usually occupies a position of minor authority and uses it tyrannically. Invariably he appears when the comedian wants something badly and is in a hurry.
He gets a sure-fire laugh from the studio audience not for what he says but for how he says it and, in spite of their affection, I'm darn tired of him and I'm sure a great many others are too.

Yhtapmys

[kirk1480]

Ersel Twing, as many of the stories spell the character played by Pat Patrick, should be correctly spelled Ercil. In fact, Pat Patrick's real name was Ercil Kirkpatrick. Someone had asked if he had done anything that wasn't associated with Bergen and McCarthy. He did a Looney Tunes cartoon called "Corn Plasterer" where he played a crow alongside a farmer voiced by Mel Blanc. You can find it on YouTube, or can do a search for the name of the cartoon. He was my uncle, but I never really knew much about him until recently, and that was just researching on the internet.

[scottp]

I just realized I should be offended by the John Crosby article, considering my icon-quote is "Still trying to find Pomona!" based on "one of those" characters on a Benny show circa 1937. I have no idea who the actor was.
On Burns & Allen's final show for Hinds, 6/26/40, the supposed replacement for singer Frank Parker is a guitar-strumming loser called Felix, who makes a rambling attempt at "You Go To My Head..." Any chance this was Pat Patrick?

[Gumlegs]

Even Frank Nelson's sarcastic character popped up on many other programs, including TV's "I Love Lucy"....it was part of the actor's "schtick", not necessarily exclusive to Jack Benny's program.

True, but remember the story Frank told (in the long unpublished interview I did with him that finally came out in the Times a year or two ago) about how he was "tricked" into doing the character on another radio show against his will, as he felt the "Yesss" character was a Benny exclusive. I'm not sure of the dates that he did it on ILL, but wonder if either Jack gave permission or it was after the character was not used as much on the Benny show.

Frank told me that it was the writers on the Benny show who noticed he'd stretched out a "yes" and asked him to do it again. He hadn't been aware that he'd done it. The character grew from there.

Frank came out of retirement to do a few commercials before he died, usually using the character he did on Jack's show.

[LLeff]

Frank told me that it was the writers on the Benny show who noticed he'd stretched out a "yes" and asked him to do it again. He hadn't been aware that he'd done it. The character grew from there.

Yes, that's exactly right. The character appeared many times before developing the "yesss", and I think I even noted that show where it first gets a big laugh (and the rest is history).