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Jimmy Durante: Radio
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Durante made himself a bigger name with his nationally-broadcast radio variety show in the 1940s. Durante received his first radio job when the creators of Eddie Cantor's popular The Chase and Sanborn Hour (which ... made stars out of Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy) contacted him to fill in for Cantor. Durante was such a hit he was offered his own show. In 1943, future television favourite Garry Moore joined Durante as his radio sidekick. Already successful as a solo, Durante's comic chemistry with the young, brushcut Moore brought Durante an even larger audience. "Dat's my boy dat said dat!"
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Durante made his television debut on November 1, 1950, though he kept a presence in radio as one of the frequent guests on Tallulah Bankhead's two-year, NBC comedy-variety show, The Big Show. Durante was one of the cast on the show's premiere November 5, 1950. The rest of the cast included humorist Fred Allen, singers Mindy Carson and Frankie Laine, stage musical performer Ethel Merman, actors Jose Ferrer and Paul Lukas, and comic-singer Danny Thomas (about to become a major television star in his own right). A highlight of the show was Durante and Thomas, whose own nose rivaled Durante's, in a routine in which Durante accused Thomas of stealing his nose. "Stay outta dis, No-Nose!" Durante barked at Bankhead to a big laugh.
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Jimmy Durante was riding the crest of popularity then and his over-loaded schedule kept him extremely busy. Jimmy informed Ed that he had just received some lucrative offers to appear on two radio shows that same day.
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Durante became a vaudeville star and radio attraction by the mid-1920s, with a music and comedy trio called Clayton, Jackson and Durante. (Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, probably Durante's closest friends, often reunited with Durante professionally.) By 1934, he had a major record hit, his own novelty composition "Inka Dinka Doo," and it became his theme song for practically the rest of his life. A year later, Durante starred in the Billy Rose stage musical, Jumbo, in which a police officer stopped him while leading a live elephant and asked him, "What are you doing with that elephant?" Durante's reply, "What elephant?", was a regular show-stopper.
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If you like Durante, you'll like his old time radio shows; it's Durante being Durante. Garry Moore simply adds a regular partner for Durante to interact with, although he holds his own on the show, and didn't seem to change style or manner when he moved from radio to television. (At another time Alan Young, the Canadian actor who later became Wilbur on the television show Mr Ed, was a radio partner for Durante). Moore is something more than a second banana or straight man for Durante and they play off each other pretty well; Durante using Moore more as a partner than a foil. The shows themselves aren't anything special, in part because there are so few episodes in existance and it doesn't enable them to stand out among other variety shows. But, the shows as a whole are worth the listening to.
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After World War II, Durante returned to the world of entertainment, starring in several motion picture comedies as well as his own variety show on radio, television, and steroids. Guests on his show were often made the target of hilarious practical jokes, such as the episode in which actress Doris Day was given amnesia-inducing drugs, told that she was a human cleavis pin, and inserted into the front torsion bar of a John Deere Farm Tractor.
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