In fact they'd been keeping eyes and ears open for likely prospects and what impressed John Guedel about Groucho was his ability to ad lib, or "wing it" on the spot as he'd done on the Bob Hope All Star radio special broadcast in April, 1947.
Once Guedel convinced Groucho to step on board, he got the campaign rolling to do this game show with improvisation as part of the dialog. Groucho was going to be the host. Contestants everywhere were in for a shock. You Bet Your Life debuted on ABC live October, 27,1947.
It did rather well. By 1949, the show switched over to CBS broadcasting. One more network hop happened during the wireless era. a move to NBC radio during 1950. In fact, NBC decided to run it as a television show as well that year. Big changes were in the offing, including a prominent sponsorship deal by DeSoto Automobiles.
DeSoto-Plymouth Motors joined sponsorship on January 4th, 1950. Ratings were very solid and they were entering the big league ratings wars. A rumor started by Bernie Smith who worked for Batten Barton Durstine and Osborn ad agency in Detroit claimed that one of the top executives from CBS went to see the President of DeSoto Motors and offered a million dollars if DeSoto Motors convinced the principals of You Bet Your Life show to run the television show with CBS.
At the time, the principals decided to put it up for bidding since the contract with Elgin-American had expired. DeSoto did wind up being the new sponsor for 1950 and NBC wound up being the new network with the hottest show. They needed it to because CBS had raided their talent cabinet in 1949!
As part of DeSoto's promotional tie in with the show, Groucho Marx and family were given two DeSoto vehicles per year. Groucho used this perk thoroughly and enjoyed it very much. An interesting development in this deal is the fact that one of those cool cars wound up in Europe during a tour he did in 1953. Groucho picked up his DeSoto sedan in London for driving through Europe. Groucho and friends visited Paris, toured through France and into Germany, making a special visit to Dornum, his Mother's birh place. He also visited Italy. The DeSoto remained in Europe after Groucho's tour. The DeSoto sponsorship era lasted until 1958.
The early years of television were a wonderful source of entertainment, given so much of it was live without any 2nd or 3rd takes. It was essentially an extension of vaudeville, with many of the stars coming from that tradition...Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Burns and Allen and Grouch Marx among others.
ReplyDeleteMy parents blessed us with a 10 inch Admiral in 1950 and we all watched Groucho faithfully. Marx would never get away with much of his commentary today, like asking very ample women how much they weighed. For real. By any standard his remarks were often rude, causing his guests to squirm. Then there was the issue of cigar smoke...endless cigar smoke.
Recently I watched a 1954 You Bet Your Life on YouTube, and the Desoto pitch was for the 1955 product line, unseen, to be introduced a couple of weeks later. The announcer was going on and on about the astonishing new Desoto coming, and of course it was. 55 was the first year of Exner’s new forward look, a complete departure from the grandpa cars of 1954 and earlier.
some of my favorites are the Honeymooners, Bob Hope (I've posted a lot about him here on my blog), Lucille Ball, and Jack Benny. Of course, I enjoyed all the comedy groups - 3 Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello. I liked a lot of the early stuff... damn shame none of it was recorded on color film.
DeleteI never found Milton Berle funny.