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Bob Elliott, American humorist who was one half of the team of Bob & Ray with Ray Goulding, whose career began on radio in Boston and managed to take in network radio, TV, movies and Broadway, as well as being the father of contemporary comic Chris Elliott, is 88 today.

"I know they were big on radio, did Bob & Ray have success in any other media?"

Yes, Bob & Ray, the American comedy team consisting of Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, who got their start on radio in Boston, also appeared on TV, in some movies, and on Broadway. You know, Bob is also the father of Chris Elliott, familiar as a writer and performer on the David Letterman show, and he turns 88 today.

"88, huh? Did he have any children who followed him into show business?"

Yes, Bob Elliott, one half of the comedy team of Bob & Ray, familiar comic performers on radio, television, the movies and even on Broadway, is the father of Chris Elliott, who used to be a writer and performer on the David Letterman show. Chris' dad, Bob Elliott, turns 88 today, and you can purchase recordings of Bob & Ray's classic routines at Bobandray.com.

"Say, I'd love to hear some of those old Bob and Ray routines again, I wonder, is there anywhere that I could get my hands on those?"

Yes, at Bobandray.com, there are literally dozens of hours of classic comedy available from the team of Bob & Ray, which consisted of Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. Bob, incidentally, is turning 88 today, and besides his long career in radio, he also appeared in movies, on network TV, and even on Broadway, where their show "The Two and Only" was a great success with everyone except the critic John Simon, who they later dubbed "the worst person in the world."

"I've always wondered about that, did their style of comedy transfer well to the stage?"

Yes, the show "The Two and Only," starring the comedy team of Bob and Ray, which consisted of Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, popular radio comedians who also appeared on TV, in movies, and even on Broadway, and the surviving member of whom, Bob Elliott, turns 88 today, was highly successful with most critics, with the notable exception of John Simon, whom they later dubbed "the worst person in the world," a title which has been taken up more recently by a fan of theirs, Keith Olbermann, on his own TV shows.

"Is there anyone on today's scene who considers himself a fan of Bob and Ray?"

"......The ........Slow.......Talkers.......of...............America....."

Mike Gebert wrote:You know, Bob is also the father of Chris Elliott, familiar as a writer and performer on the David Letterman show.

Chris' daughter Abby is now a cast member on Saturday Night Live, so we're into the third generation in the comedy business.

Mike, I loved your post. And where would you take the kiddies if you wanted them to see a Komodo dragon, world's largest living lizard?

David Shepard

To a cranberry bog, of course!

Incidentally, since Google is now putting up old magazines to read, I was able to read for the first time John Simon's infamous pan of The Two and Only.

It's really strange. Simon doesn't seem to get that it's basically a greatest hits comedy show with two figures familiar to the audience, so he insists on comparing it to The Importance of Being Earnest and finding it falls short as drama (I kid you not). And he seems completely insensible as to why Bob & Ray insisted on making media their true satirical subject; he faults them for not bringing realistic characters to real life when their whole point was mocking the ironclad certitudes and cluelessness of media, puncturing the golden-voiced professional's veneer of professionalism with such absurdities as a cranberry farmer who's never heard of cranberry juice or cranberry sauce, or a man on the street interviewer trying to get his story done over the noise behind him... which is a much bigger story (a fire) he's oblivious to.

You'd think, in the age of McLuhan, Simon could have seen why the medium was their satirical message, but he's so busy insisting they're out of date that he's oblivious to how far ahead of him they are. Truly, he was the worst person in the world.

Anyway, it's here.

WOW!!!

I'm listening through some of Mary Backstayge now and the Worst Person in the World has just shown up on an airplane noisily eating his meal.

I think my favourite sketch takes place on the set of the film If Pain Persists where Barry Campbell can't get his lines right:

"I knew your father, Ferguson. You're the first Ferguson to fail to fulfill the fundamentals of a field-flank frontrunner!"

"Colonel Frisbee, that's a filthy, flagrant falsehood!"

I guess Simon would have thought the sketch stupid since Campbell could just dub his line in later.

I loved reading John Simon's Theater reviews in New York magazine, but with respect to film I sometimes had to agree with Andrew Sarris's famous one liner:"John Simon is the greatest film critic of the nineteenth century."

Simon did not "get" Bob and Ray, just as he did not "get" Talking Heads. His review, and its highly defensive followup, of Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense" makes for amusing reading.








"You said that irony was the shackles of youth."

Happy 90th, Bob.

I love their interview with "Mrs Wingate C. Bellingham the 3rd" who works as a shill in a supermarket. Her job is to wear a mink stole and fancy jewelry while shopping so the customers will buy what she's buying - "But what they don't know is what I'm putting into my cart is a lot of junk the management wants to get rid of.....and if you're in a certain market don't buy the veal cutlets. I'll be pushing them, but they're rancid."

On first hearing Johnny Depp's unintentionally comic Tonto accent in the trailer for THE LONE RANGER, I thought of Bob's chief to Ray's interviewer in the golden spike sketch. (from memory):

"What do you think of the iron horse, Chief?"

"Iron horse bad medicine."

"What do you consider good medicine?"

"Milk of Magnesia."

Bob Elliott is 91 today. —py Birthday, Bob!

I've been reading Bob & Ray, Keener Than Most Persons by David Pollock. Like a lot of biographies about people who lead normal lives, it's interesting if you like the milieu (vintage radio and TV) but the only drama is a succession of jobs; there's relatively little personal drama here, except maybe when they haplessly try to turn deadpan comedy into a nightclub act in the Catskills a la Martin & Lewis. The only one with that kind of life is their early inspiration Ray Knight, who had a similarly absurdist approach to radio characters; he wound up working for them as a writer while hiding from his ex-wives, then dropped dead, and Bob married his widow (Chris's mom).

Nevertheless, besides some interest in how they crossed paths with everybody (50s and 60s comedy was a small town*), I wound up giggling throughout, because by now any mention of the name of a Bob & Ray sketch provokes hilarity: mention in passing that they introduced Arthur Sturdley's No-Talent Hunt or did a pirate parody called Three Sheets Windward and I'm lost in extrapolated laughs.

If there's a Rosebud to their careers it comes early on in Boston; the ultra-tightfisted station they first worked for got permission for a higher power transmitter back in the 30s because it wanted to broadcast fish market prices to New England fishermen still at sea. After knowing they were brought to you in their early careers by the wholesale price for haddock and cod broadcast to crusty Yankee fishermen, it's not hard to see why they would announce, with a straight face, that Lawrence Fechtenberger, Interstellar Officer Candidate was brought to you by "Chocolate cookies with white stuff in them."

And I learned something that floored me: for 20 years I've owned soup bowls from Andersen's restaurant in California, famous for pea soup thanks to its characters Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee (besides the restaurant, they were a supermarket canned soup brand for a time). Yet somehow I never clued in that the voices and personas of the pair of cartoon characters at the bottom of my bowl were originally provided by... you guessed it, Bob & Ray. Brought to you by mashed green peas and ham in a lot of water.





Okay, not the greatest example of their commercial work, which was apparently an important balance to the income insecurity of radio, even in a big market.

* Though the east coast focus means Pollock misses one of the more interesting comedy connections to me, to the counterculture troop Firesign Theatre, who were big fans and "borrowed" the principal's speech from Lawrence Fechtenberger almost verbatim (a little dirtier) in "High School Madness." The irony was they worked it into a parody of vintage Hollywood, as if it was also a relic of the past, but Bob & Ray were still doing morning radio at that point for the parents, maybe on some of the same stations playing Firesign late at night for the college kids. Then The Simpsons lifted it, maybe not knowing who they were really paying homage to....

_py 91st Birthday to Bob Elliott, my favorite absurdist.

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What a nice coincidence! Last week I bought a mint condition copy of Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob and Ray for $20 and finished reading it two days ago.

Jim

Who?

Bob

Time for a ONE FELLA'S FAMILY marathon!

Many, many, MANY Happy Returns, Mr. Elliott.

Love The Boys, and always will. Real masters at what they did.

(But just an asterisk here for Tom Koch, who for years was in a spot somewhat akin to Bill Finger in the Bob Kane BATMAN universe.)

-Craig

Tom Koch, an uncredited writer for them for many years and the inventor of 43-man Squamish, has just died.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/arts/ ... -well&_r=0" target="_blank" target="_blank

Bob

Thanks for the news, Bob.

Thanks much, Tom. Rest well.

-Craig

Yes, in memoriam to The Third Bob & Ray.

I always thought it was one of the great gigs-- he knew their voices so well, so he just sent them whatever he came up with and they did nearly everything he sent them. (Live radio isn't picky.) His stuff for them is an awful lot like what he did for Mad, but their voices gave it a unique, dryer flavor than, say, Mort Drucker's illustrations did.

"Crimanentleys Mr Science!........I don't know what you're talking about!!"

"Holy cow, Mr. Science - the whole room is going up like a tinderbox!!!"

wich2 wrote:"Holy cow, Mr. Science - the whole room is going up like a tinderbox!!!"

"We'll just sprinkle a little more sand on it"

Bob Elliott, long time winner of the most beautiful face award, is reported to have died at 92.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/arts/ ... .html?_r=1" target="_blank

Mike Gebert wrote:Bob Elliott, long time winner of the most beautiful face award, is reported to have died at 92.

Already?

Jim

Sad news indeed.

Sad news. Everything I've ever heard about these two is that they were two very modest and helpful guys. And funny! I still prefer the WHDH shows from the late 1940's.

A new one that I hadn't heard -

"You wouldn't be trying to slip me the old rubber peach just because I'm a gullible child, would you, Mr. Science?”

(Found it in print; if anyone knows if the recording exists, let us know!)

Thanks, again, boys.

-Craig