RADIO IDOL OF AMERICA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 22, 24 November 1939, Page 48

RADIO IDOL OF AMERICA

E can’t hear; he can’t smell, he can’t see, and he can’t walk-but he’s the highest paid star in American radio to-day. We may say on the highest authority that Charlie McCarthy was originally a smart-looking pine tree, thence he became a pine log, and under the expert guidance of his creator he became the brainchild of Edgar Bergen. His arch enemy is reputed to be W. C. Fields, and a relative of his is known as Mortimer Snerd. In a recent poll conducted by American radio executives, Charlie McCarthy was placed at the top by millions of listeners. So powerful is his synthetic personality, and so complete the illusion of life in Charlie that, seeing and hearing him, one finds it hard to believe he is merely a doll. Edgar Bergen himself reported overhearing one of his fashionable guests saying, "Isn’t he the cutest little thing? I don’t know why they want that man Bergen in the picture at all!" The wise-cracks of Charlie McCarthy are becoming household words. How many of us have sometime or other repeated his famous remark "Well-mow me down!" When Charlie is around the air gets hot with snappy wise-cracks

that come thick and fast. Wherever he goes Charlie is the centre of interest, and his pert and impertinent remarks reduce his audience to ecstasies of mirth. Charlie has respect for no man, and he doesn’t hesitate to say so-with such succinct finality that the victims have no comeback. All eyes fasten on Charlie the minute he enters a scene in a film and it is with the greatest difficulty that. onlookers can persuade themselves that the quiet-voiced goodlooking young man at Charlie’s side is responsible for every word that Charlie seems to speak and every cute and expressive movement of his eyes and lips. Puppets have, of course, played a big part in the entertainment world since the first Punch and Judy Show, the first circus and the first vaudeville show, was presented to the public. Children and grownups, too, have laughed for hundreds of years at the antics of Punch and Judy, and audiences everywhere have laughed and. exclaimed at the elaborately dressed French puppets jerked by strings, who live, love and laugh in an astoundingly human manner. But until Charlie McCarthy appeared, no ventriloquist’s doll has

ever gained such universal popularity. He is a national wonder, a radio idol, and a film star of the first box-office class. Charlie is the expression of an up-to-the-minute modern mood. His remarks are always a jump ahead of the headlines, and all his reactions are distinctly 1939. And now the famous Charlie’s New Zealand counterpart has been discovered in "Jerry," a mirthprovoking ventriloquist’s doll which will make his radio debut in the feature "Chuckles With Jerry," which is coming to the ZB Stations on. December 4. "Chuckles With Jerry" will be broadcast on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 8 p.m. Jerry’s cute personality and funny remarks make him the most refreshing and original star to feature on ZB programmes in a long, long time. If you want ‘to laugh, listen to Jerry-the.puppet who really is a person-from your ZB Station, starting on December 4.