Clark and McCullough On the Air!

I recently discovered this mind-crogglingly rare C&McC radio appearance in an episode of NBC's 30 year retrospective series Recollections at Thirty. Broadcast in 1956, the show featured excerpts from NBC's archived transcription discs and even took requests from listeners. The problem is that the vast majority of these historic clips were introduced in the vaguest possible terms. This one, from the 7/4/56 episode, is simply introduced by host Ed Herlihy as being "Clark and McCullough's first radio broadcast" without giving a date or program title. Unless this recording predates the 1926 Friars Club testimonial dinner to the team that was broadcast on WGBS, I have to doubt it. It's still a fascinating clip. Clark and McCullough perform under their own names, and Bobby refers to Paul as "Mac", a nickname I've never heard or read anywhere else. Paul is especially fun here, giving an extremely lively performance that indicates that, before Broadway, the partnership was a little more balanced.

As a bonus, here's another clip from the same episode of Recollections at Thirty that they at least pin down for us. The aforementioned Tom Howard and George Shelton were the resident comedy team of The Rudy Vallee Show in 1935, taking over that duty from the aforementioned Olsen and Johnson. Rudy clearly liked his comedy low and loud. In this excerpt from the July 4, 1935 show, Howard and Shelton do the old "I'll bet I can make you say "Oh no I haven't"" routine. They're not bad, but they're not nearly as good as they later were on It Pays to be Ignorant.