Bob Andre writing an appreciation of Bob and Ray! Coincidence? Of course not. I wasn’t going to call myself Laurel N. Hardy, or Mark Sbrothers, and I certainly couldn’t have used the pseudonyms Monty Python or Thecastof SCTV. I will admit that Monty Python is my all – time favorite comedy team, and the rest of those guys I just listed all tie for second place, so the great Bob & Ray are very important to me.
According to Wikipedia (since facts were meant to be cut and pasted);
“Bob Elliott (born 1923) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990) were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.
Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers (Elliott a disc jockey, and Goulding a news reader) in Boston with their own separate programs on station WHDH-AM, and each would visit with the other while on the air. Their informal banter was so appealing that WHDH would call on them, as a team, to fill in when Red Sox baseball broadcasts were rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise comedy routines all afternoon, and joke around with studio musicians.
Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946. Matinee with Bob and Ray was originally a 15-minute show, soon expanding to half an hour. (When explaining why Bob was billed first, Goulding claimed that it was because "Matinee with Bob and Ray" sounded better than "Matinob with Ray and Bob".) Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs".
They continued on the air for over four decades on the NBC, CBS, and Mutual networks, and on New York City stations WINS, WOR, and WHN. From 1973 to 1976 they were the afternoon drive hosts on WOR, doing a four-hour show. In their last incarnation, they were heard on National Public Radio, ending in 1987.”
Along the way, they made numerous appearances on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, “Late Night with David Letterman” and they were even allowed to commandeer an entire special episode of “Saturday Night Live”, retitled “Bob & Ray, Jane, Loraine & Gilda”. The entire show was made up of Bob & Ray skits performed by Bob & Ray and the original female cast members of the SNL – Belushi, Aykroyd, et al. had the week off – an ostentatious showcase for the older generation comedy team, provided by America’s hottest young comedy upstarts. They transformed their best comedy skits into a pair of hit Broadway two – man shows; “Bob & Ray – The Two and Only” and “Bob & Ray – A Night of Two Stars.” They played several characters, including Arthur Godfrey, David Brinkley & Walter Cronkite in Norman Lear’s dark, satirical feature film “Cold Turkey”.
They were the first proponents of a certain type of modern comedy – creating skits which were self – consciously about comedy style, or more accurately about the absence of it. They were the originators of the non-joke, the ‘skit about nothing’, and their bland, inane conversations were presented with such unquestioningly deadpan delivery, that they, somehow, entered the realm of the absurd and even the surreal.
For example, there is “Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife” an ongoing soap opera “parody” which has NO soap opera like qualities. In one classic installment, Mary & Harry Backstayge and Pop Beloved, stage doorman are visited by their buffoonish neighbor Calvin Hoogavin, and for the entire episode they discuss the potential disappointment of having your sock heel unexpectedly fall off.
What housewife would watch a soap opera called ”Matt Neffer, Boy Spot Welder”?
However, some of their parodies are a bit more conventional, like their 1980’s prime-time soap parody “Garish Summit”. In one particularly memorable episode, Rodney Merchfield discovers that his older brother Caldwell stands between him and his inheritance. He invites big brother to join him on a hunting trip. Rodney carries the only shotgun into the woods, but he does let
There is “Grand Motel” “A speck of a place, a heck of a place on Route 61”, whose chief amenity is that guests may view the wall calendar in the lobby for free.
There is “The gathering Dusk”. In one episode, the narrator’s description of a luxury cruise quickly devolves into a lengthy alphabetical listing of the ship’s passengers. The broadcast falls apart when it occurs to the producer that the writer has simply filled up script pages by copying names out of the phonebook.
Bob & Ray never suffered a lack of sponsors. They included “Einbinder Flypaper ("The brand you've gradually grown to trust over the course of three generations"), The Croftweiler Industrial Cartel ("Makers of all sorts of stuff, made out of everything"), The United States Mint ("One of the nation's leading producers of genuine
Bob and Ray were, perhaps, less successful as entrepreneurs. Their “Bob & Ray’s House of Toast” offered the breakfast item in your choice of light, medium or darkly toasted. After an air conditioner malfunction in Bob & Ray’s Overstocked Warehouse, the duo offered super low prices on Chocolate Wobblies – formerly Chocolate Bunnies. To increase advertising, The Bob & Ray satellite got off the ground, but just barely. It hovered 10 feet off the Earth’s surface. Advertisers were offered a cheap rate to display their advertising posters on the sides of the satellite.
The true brilliance of Bob & Ray’s performances was, of course, their utter understatement. I only ever heard one of them play a character broadly once. It was in a “Mary Backstayge” skit, in which Harry Backstayge found himself spending the night in a strange European castle owned by a mysterious count. The Count (played by Ray) plays demented music on a pipe organ and speaks in an outrageously over – the – top Bella Lugosi type accent. Harry awakes the next morning with mysterious bite marks on his neck. Turns out his dentures came out in his sleep and he rolled over on them.
Of course, it is their “interviews” for which they are the most famous. These routines play on a favorite theme of Bob & Ray – a simple minded lack of communication. Their most famous skit, “The Komodo Dragon” epitomizes this aspect of the Bob & Ray style. Listen to it above. Their “call – in” programs are also excellent examples of this – one of their running joke styles goes something like this;
Caller: “Hi. I’m calling from a major city in
Host: “That’s agoraphobia.”
Caller: “No, it’s
Host: “That’s kleptomania.”
Caller: “Well, you may be right, but I still say it’s
Some of these interviews are conducted by Wally Bellow, who always seems to start speaking a second before the broadcast is transferred to him, resulting in his catch phrase, “ -ly Ballew here,”. Most famously, he once interviewed a cranberry grower, remaining utterly oblivious to the fact that a bank robbery and shoot out was taking place behind him throughout the entire interview.
Otherinterviews are conducted by Biff Burns in the sports room. There are interviews by “undiscovered sports figures” who champion bringing “sports” like ring-around-the-rosy, banister sliding, or Farmer in the Dell into the Olympics.
I could go on and on. I haven’t even mentioned; Rudolph & Irma’s Dance Studios, Bob & Ray’s Hard Luck Stories, Tales Guaranteed to leave you in … “Anxiety”, Ralph Flinger (Mr. I Know Where They Are), Hobby Hut with Neil Klummer, Tippy the Wonder Dog, Elmer W. Litzinger-- Spy, Mr. Trace – Keener than most persons, The Slow Talkers of America, The McBeeBee twins, Lawrence Fechtenberger – Interstellar Officer Candidate, Squad Car 119, Bob & Ray was There, Mary McGoon, Wing-Po – Itinerant Philosopher, Mr. Science, Fred Falvy – Do – it – yourselfer, Charles the Poet, Kent Lyle Birdly, Barry Campbell (The King of Square Music), Artie Schermerhorn, Webly Webster & Groundhog meat bulletins from the Office of Fluctuation Control and Ceiling Repairs, Bureau of Edible Condiments, Soluble, Insoluble and Indigestible Fats and Glutinous Derivatives.
But now I have, so I guess I’m done.
Virtually everything they ever did is available from www.Bob&Ray.com
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