75 isn't the roundest anniversary in the world but it is nevertheless one of the raisons d'être for my upcoming book Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety. We have a significant benchmark to celebrate, and, hey, I don't know if I'll be around for the centennial! June 8, 1948 was the date on which NBC launched the tv version of Texaco Star Theater, elevating vaudeville comedian Milton Berle to the status of tv's first superstar.
The radio roots of Texaco Star Theater go back to 1935. Starting in 1928, Texaco had become the first oil company in the U.S. to sell its gasoline nationwide. A national brand needed a national voice. Popular Broadway and vaudeville comedian Ed Wynn was enlisted to play the "Fire Chief", both a variation on his clown-like "Perfect Fool" stage persona, and a mascot for Texaco at the same time. "Fire Chief" also happened to be the name of one of Texaco's fuel products. ("Sky Chief was another.) Wynn would alternate his surreal monologues with music interludes and exchanges with guests.
After Wynn left to start his own short-lived network, the show was renamed Texaco Town, then Texaco Star Theater, and hosted in turn by Eddie Cantor, Adolphe Menjou, John Barrymore, and Ken Murray. It reached the pinnacle of its popularity as a radio show, when comedian Fred Allen took the reins in 1940, remaining on the job with his Mighty Allen Art Players through 1944, when ill health caused him to take it easy for a time. Then the show was in turn guided by James Melton, Tony Martin, and Gordon MacRae (all singers), followed by Jack Carter, then finally, in 1948, by Milton Berle.
Berle was, as many readers no doubt know, one of the most influential comedians of the 20th century, so popular in fact, that many credit him with getting people to forsake their radio listening habits and begin watching television. (The show, like many of that era, was simulcast in both media for a time). Yet, in addition to Berle's popular comedy hijinks, and whatever special guests were afoot, the beginning, end, and middle of every show were graced with the singing, dancing Merry Men of Texaco, four men in gas station coveralls in elaborate service station production numbers. ("Oh, we're the men from Texaco, we come from Maine to Mexico!...) And there vaudeville and Broadway comedian Sid Stone as the Texaco pitchman, with his mock high-pressure "Tell ya what I'm gonna do" spiel leading to his actual live ad pitch. Ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson also did Texaco commercials on the show.
In an era when a lot of television was intimate and quiet, with placid hosts talking to the camera as though it were a radio microphone, Berle's show was big, brash, and boorish, more like the wrestling matches and other live sporting events that were the other major staple of the medium. Berle was a ball of fire. He had so much energy, and was given to such crazy spontaneity that it seemed as though he would jump out of the tv screen. Hilarious, kinetic and uninhibited – the sort of comedian who would run into the audience, snatch a woman's fur coat out of her hands, and put it on. There are times when he resembles Bugs Bunny, other times Jerry Lewis. He told corny jokes with the speed of a machine gun. In addition, there were recurring players like the adenoidal and bespectacled Arnold Stang, Ruth Gilbert as the love-sick secretary Max, "Fatso Marco" Marcello, chrome domed Milton Frome, singer Robert Alda and frequent Berle antagonist Martha Raye. He booked dancers like the Blackburn Twins and the Condos Brothers, and old time singers like Georgie Price and Bennie Fields. Carmen Miranda came on the show, and Berle dressed just like her, fruit hat and all.
There was nothing like this show going at the time, and in short order Berle is said to have quadrupled the sale of tv sets, and emptied out restaurants on the nights when his show was airing. Berle's success was on such a scale that he and NBC optimistically signed a 30 year contract. Unfortunately, the party only lasted until 1955. By that time, Berle – and the audience's attention span – were exhausted. Other shows starring Berle were tried in subsequent years, but he was never able to rekindle the kind of excitement he had generated at the dawn of the television era. He remained a familiar figure in the American show biz landscape until his death at age 93.
There are countless old clips of Berle and Texaco Star Theater on Youtube. I also highly recommend two very quirky movies that document Berle's TV stardom. One is the film Always Leave Them Laughing (1948), which stars Berle as a fictional version of himself, and the musical Top Banana (1954), which stars Phil Silvers as a character modeled on Berle.
Much more on the long career of Milton Berle can be found here.
For more on vaudeville and variety history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. And please stay tuned for my next book Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming November 2023.
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