Raymond Knight (radio)
Encyclopedia
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
for network radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
.
Born in Salem, Massachusetts
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
, Knight studied law at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
and passed the Massachusetts bar, but he returned to school to study theater and writing at Harvard's
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
47 Workshop
George Pierce Baker
George Pierce Baker was an American educator in the field of drama.Baker graduated in the Harvard University class of 1887, and taught in the English Department at Harvard from 1888 until 1924. He started his "47 workshop" class in playwrighting in 1905. He was instrumental in creating the Harvard...
, followed by more studies at Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. In 1927, he performed in the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
The Manhatters.
Knight was writing continuity and commercials for NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1929, when NBC programmer Bertha Brainard
Bertha Brainard
Bertha Brainard , known to her friends as Betty, was a pioneering NBC executive responsible for setting trends in network broadcasting....
asked him to devise "something cuckoo" for the Blue Network
Blue Network
The Blue Network, and its immediate predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, were the on-air names of an American radio production and distribution service from 1927 to 1945...
. He responded with the zany The Cuckoo Hour
The Cuckoo Hour
The Cuckoo Hour, aka The KUKU Hour and The Raymond Knight Cuckoo Hour, was an NBC radio series created in 1929 by radio comedian Raymond Knight....
, aka The KUKU Hour, as a showcase for his comedy. One of his characters on the series was Professor Ambrose J. Weems, who ran a radio station where he would give his views on current events and chat with his sidekick, Mrs. Pennyfeather.
Radio historian Billy Jack Long described the unique aspects of Knight's satirical series:
- This show was the forerunner to most of what America thought was funny afterwards. Ray, unlike most of the other radio personalities at the time, didn't have a background in vaudeville. He did all of his work within a short distance from home. Consequently, Ray had a good grasp on what people did when they were at home. Nothing was safe from Ray Knight's sarcasm. It wasn't meant to be rude or upsetting. But The KUKU Hour was so different from anything that was going on at the time. He would bounce back and forth between networks. The show started on NBC and was there for a few years before moving to Mutual. The KUKU Hour did not always have the same characters but it would have the same elements in each show. One of these was a segment called "The Firing Squad". In this, Ray would make comments about a person, a group or an idea, and then have everyone in the studio shoot at it with toy guns. Paper cap guns were provided for members of the studio audience, and even the technical people got involved in this!
Knight replaced Aline and Peter Dixon when he took over the children's series, Wheatenaville Sketches, sponsored by Wheatena
Wheatena
Wheatena is an American high-fiber, toasted-wheat cereal that originated on Mulberry Street in New York City, New York, circa 1879, when a small bakery owner began roasting whole wheat, grinding it, and packaging it for sale under this brand name.-History:...
. On this program, Knight portrayed editor Billy Batchelor, running a small town newspaper founded by his uncle. Wheatenaville Sketches and The Cuckoo Hour were both important influences on comedian Bob Elliott
Bob Elliott (comedian)
Robert Brackett "Bob" Elliott is an American actor and comedian, formerly one-half of the comedy duo of Bob and Ray. He is the father of comedian/actor Chris Elliott and the grandfather of Saturday Night Live cast member Abby Elliott.-Life and career:Elliott was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the...
, who attended Knight's show with his parents and later became friends with Knight.
Broadway
In 1935 Knight contributed sketches to At Home AbroadAt Home Abroad
At Home Abroad is a revue with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Howard Dietz. It introduced the songs "Love Is a Dancing Thing", "What a Wonderful World" and "Got a Bran' New Suit", among others...
, a revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
with music by Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer.Schwartz supported his legal studies at New York University and postgraduate studies at Columbia University by playing piano before concentrating his talents on vaudeville, Broadway theatre and Hollywood.Among his Broadway musicals are The...
and lyrics by Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...
about a bored couple who flee America and go on a musical world tour. The original Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre
Winter Garden Theatre
The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown Manhattan.-History:The structure was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896 to be the American Horse Exchange....
on September 19, 1935, and ran for 198 performances. The cast included Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Gladys "Bea" Lillie was an actress and comedic performer. Following her 1920 marriage to Sir Robert Peel in England, she was known in private life as Lady Peel.-Early career:...
, Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
, Eleanor Powell
Eleanor Powell
Eleanor Torrey Powell was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.-Early life:...
, Reginald Gardiner
Reginald Gardiner
Reginald Gardiner was an English-born actor in film and television and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in Britain. His parents wanted him to be an architect and he studied at it but he wanted to be an actor and eventually got his way.He started as a super on stage and eventually...
and Eddie Foy Jr.. This was the first Broadway musical directed by Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
i.
Knight's play Run Sheep Run opened on Broadway in 1938 with a cast that included William Bendix
William Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
and Dick Van Patten
Dick Van Patten
Richard Vincent "Dick" Van Patten is an American actor, best known for his role as patriarch Tom Bradford on the television sitcom Eight is Enough. He began work as a child actor and was successful on the [New York] stage, appearing in more than a dozen plays as a teenager...
. The comedy closed after 12 days.
Knight and daytime drama
In 1941, he created and scripted the radio serialRadio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
, A House in the Country, about city couple Joan and Bruce attempting to adapt to country life. It aired on the Blue Network weekday mornings from October 6, 1941 to October 28, 1942. Knight took the role of a shopkeeper on the program.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Knight was the national production manager for ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. He was a contributor to Woman's Day
Woman's Day
Woman's Day is aimed at a female readership, covering such subjects as food, nutrition, fitness, beauty and fashion. The magazine edition is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines....
and other magazines. In the early 1950s, he wrote for Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding
Ray Goulding
Raymond Walter Goulding was an American comedian, who, together with Bob Elliott formed the comedy duo of Bob and Ray....
's Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding 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...
show. In 1953, he died on his birthday, February 12. In 1954, Bob Elliott married Knight's widow, Lee, creating a comedic lineage that spans across three centuries and four generations, from Raymond Knight and Bob Elliott to Chris Elliott
Chris Elliott
Christopher Nash "Chris" Elliott is an American actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for his comedic sketches on Late Night with David Letterman, starring in the cult comedy series Get a Life and for his recurring role as Peter MacDougall on Everybody Loves Raymond...
and his daughter, Abby Elliott
Abby Elliott
Abigail "Abby" Elliott is an American actress and comedian currently appearing as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.-Life and career:...
.
Raymond Knight's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
is located at 6130 Hollywood Boulevard.