CAN YOU TOP THIS

DECEMBER 1947

NBC RADIO

Internal evidence for broadcast date: McCosker-Hershfield Cardiac dinner was on Saturday, 29 November in 1947. Program aired Fridays.

Recording seems to be missing commercials.

Emcee: Ward Wilson

Joke teller: Peter Donald

Panel: Senator Ford, Harry Hershfield, Joe Laurie Jr.

(courtship, ailments, housekeeping, etiquette)

ANNOUNCER: “Can You Top This?” presented by the Colgate-Palmolive Peet company, makers of Colgate dental cream, to clean your breath while you clean your teeth, and Palmolive lather shave cream, for smoother,more comfortable shaves.  “Can You Top This?” Starring Senator Ford.

SENATOR FORD: Good evening.

ANC: Harry Hershfield.

HARRY HERSHFIELD: Howdy.

ANC: And Joe Laurie, Jr.

JOE LAURIE JR: Hellooo.

ANC: And now, here’s Palmolive shave cream’s master of ceremonies, Ward Wilson.

WARD WILSON: Good evening, friends. Welcome to “Can You Top This” our unrehearsed fun fest. Our three wits do not know what jokes have been chosen until the people’s representative Peter Donald tells them on the air. Our three gagsters have no scripts. They rely on memory, and ability to switch jokes and make them fit the subject. If Peter Donald tells your submitted story, you get ten dollars, plus a phonograph record personally autographed by our wits of Peter Donald telling your story on the air. Laughs are registered on the big Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter in full view of the studio audience. Each time the wits fail to top your score, you win an additional five dollars, which means you may win twenty-five dollars. So let’s get on with the laughs. Are you all set, men?

JL: Ready!

SF: Ready.

WW: Alright. So is the first joke of the evening, and this one comes from Mrs. Robert Curry of Elwood City, Pennsylvania, and it’s on the subject of something I know you’ve all been through at one time or another: courtship.

HH: What do you mean, been through?

JL: The senator’s…

WW: Harry scratching and scraping his sides.

JL: The senator just finished his thirty-ninth anniversary. You know that?

WW: Oh, yeah. That’s right. Yes.

SF: And that recalls a courtship. Thirty-nine years.

JL: I think it was a courtship all the way through.

WW: I think the congratulations should go to Mrs. Ford. I don’t know. That’s only one man’s opinion.

JL: I just didn’t let you work through.

WW: Well, since it’s on the subject of courtship, Pete, we expect you to be very engaging.

PETER DONALD: Well, one evening, Ben Jones gone down to the lodge meeting. He got in a little earlier than usual, and he looked in the living room, and there’s his daughter seated on the love seat with her boyfriend, and he’s got his arm around her and of course it’s a just fine old American custom, but this is a little late. So the father walks in. He says, “Young man, do you know what time it is?” And this fine, clear-eyed boy says, “Uhhh, yes, sir. I do.” He says, “It’s, uh… it’s, uh…nearly half past.” He said, “Half past what?” He says, “I don’t know. The other half broke off my watch.” Well, he says, “Young man, I’ll tell you what it is. It’s after two o’clock. Now, I don’t know what this younger generation is coming to. When I was calling on Mary’s mother in the old days, I had to leave the house promptly at nine o’clock. Nine at the latest! And also, when I courted her, I’ll have you know that she sat on one side of the room, and I sat on the other side of the room.” The kid says, “Well, gee. If I’d been courting that wife of yours, that’s what I would have done too.”

WW: That seemed to be the solution, Peter. A zooming 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter, an automatic twenty-five dollars to Mrs. Curry, and sort of a tough job for our three wits to start off the evening. However, they’re all willing to plunge in and, eeny, meeny, miney, moe, it looks like we’re going to hear from little Joe.

JL: Well, a dummy brings his girl to his father’s house, and he brings her in the house. He says, “Papa, here’s the girl I’ve been courting,” he says, “for three years. And we’re going to get married.” So the father looks at the girl, looks at her, and says, “Montgomery, never speak to me.” So he takes him aside. He says, he starts whispering, he says, “What’s the matter with you? You crazy? Look at that girl. She’s got bowlegs. She’s almost bald. She’s got crossed eyes. Ain’t got no teeth.” He said, “What’s the matter with you?” “Talk louder, Papa! She’s deaf too!”

WW: That’s it, Joe. I’d have to be blind if I didn’t see 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter. That ties it up, but doesn’t surpass Mrs. Curry’s original 1000. Harry, how about you?

HH: Yeah, there’s a kind of I think of a newie kind of a gag that’s going around. Ten girls are discussing what type of  man they’d like to be kissed by, what techniques they’d like. One says, “You know what kind I like? I like the Hirohito style. The sneak attack.” And the other one said, “No, I like the secret kind. The Stalin kind. Behind the Iron Curtain.” And the other one said, “No, I like the Roosevelt style. Again and again and again!”

WW: Once again it’s the same report, Harry. 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter, with a perfect round in prospect now. Senator Ford starts fumbling in his left hip pocket. I don’t know whether it’s a gag or not. Senator?

SF: No, it was just my handkerchief. Well, I… Talking about courtship, I was dreaming about a nearsighted snake who eloped with a rope. Well, talking about… Harry said he told a gag that was a little bit new. I’d never heard it before, anyway. But Al Garry the radio writer told me a gag a few days ago that I think will fit in here, although it’s not courtship between humans. It seems that this fellow he was talking about had a duck pond and he raised prize ducks. He also owned a parrot, and one day he walked down toward the duck pond and he saw the parrot walking along the shore with one of the ducks, and they were laughing and hollering. Having a fine time. So he walked over and he said to the parrot, he said, “Say, I don’t want you running around with any of these prize ducks.” He said, “What’s the idea, anyway?” So the parrot said, “Well, I like her company. She makes wise-quacks and she’s a lot of fun.” She said, “We get to have fun.” He said, “Now, look. I’m going to tell you something. The next time I catch you with one of those ducks I’m going to pull all the feathers out of your head, and there’s nothing worse than a bald-headed parrot” So the next day he walked out, and sure enough, there’s the parrot with the duck again. So they’re holding wings that they’re running up and down the… And he says, “Now, I told you what I was going to do.” And he pulls all the feathers out of the parrot’s head, and he said, “You remember. There’s nothing worse than a bald-headed parrot.” But he said, “I tell you what I’m going to do. If you do a little job for me tonight, I’ll let the feathers grow back in again.” He said, “Tonight I’m having a big party and I want you to sit in the chandelier and direct the people as to where to put their wraps. You say, ‘Gentlemen right. Ladies left. Gentlemen right. Ladies left.’” So that night, the parrot gets up in the chandelier, and as the guests come in, it says, “Gentlemen right. Ladies left. Gentlemen right. Ladies left.” All of a sudden in come two bald-headed guys. The parrot squints at them with one eye and says, “You two duck lovers come up here with me.”

WW: That was a very timely quack too, Senator. Another 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter, giving us a perfect round to start off the evening, but despite your very valiant efforts top Mrs. Curry, you all three succeeded just in tying her, so we send her twenty-five dollars with the compliments of Palmolive shave cream, a new joke book, Cream of the Crop, and in addition, we’re sending her a phonograph record of Peter Donald telling her story on the air. On your mark, get set, and ready to go. We continue our contest of wit and humor with a joke which was sent in by Miss Caroline King of Torrance, California, and the subject of this joke is something I hope you have few or none of: ailments. Ailments. So, Peter, you got off to an auspicious start. Suppose you make our three wits yell “doctor.”

PD: Well, this is about a doctor. This is about Dr. Rudolf Sigmund Kronkite. Dr. Kronkite, M.D. That means mid-dialect. And one day he’s in his office. He’s clipping pinup girls out of the medical journal. He’s killing a little time, and all of a sudden the door bursts open and in comes a woman. She said, “Oh, doctor, do you have a moment to spare? Now, you see, I’ve just come here in time. I’m not feeling well at all. I’m a very sick woman. I’ve never been very healthy since they took out my tonsils. I nearly died at the time, you know. And then when my adenoids were removed, the doctor barely saved me then. And then my appendix had to be taken out and I was still recovering from the operation when they removed the gallstones, and ever since then I just haven’t been feeling well at all. And now I’ve got a coat on my tongue and I don’t know what it is. Can you diagnose it for me?” So the doctor looks at her. He says, “Ja. I got a moment. Step right in.” He says, “In the first place,” he says, “Lady, you couldn’t have a coat on your tongue because grass never grows on a racetrack. Don’t worry about this.” He says, “In the second place, you didn’t need to tell me about all the stuffs they took out of you, they put out like a jackpot there. You didn’t need to tell me this. This I could tell right away.” Said, “You could? Why, what a wonderful medical man you must be. You mean you could actually tell that my gallstones and my adenoids and my tonsils and appendix had been all removed? How?” He says, “Because, madam, as soon as I looked at you I could see that you’re not all there.”

WW: Well, you’re all there and on the nose, too, Pete. Another 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter. For the second time tonight our wits are frustrated. However, they’re venturing into deep water once again. I see three hands upraised, or two and a half, anyway. I don’t know what Laurie’s doing there.

JL: You know, I’m thinking.

WW: Senator, suppose we cut you in first this time?

SF: Well, this is a kind of a new thing. It would have to be under the conditions, but I don’t know whether it fits in here very well, but I’ll tell it anyway. Dopey Dildock and Ocky Bopp were walking down the street, and Dopey is singing, “Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest, you all, you all. Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest.” Ocky says, “Wait a minute. What’s that ‘you all’ in them ‘sixteen men on a dead man’s chest?’ There was only fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, and what’s the ‘you all’ business?” He said, “Didn’t you hear that Dixie Walker joined the Pirates?” That’s not the joke! It’s plus! Well, I know a lot of gags on ailments or sickness or doctors or something like that. I could tell one…

WW: Well, try one.

SF: Mr. Wilson. You’re supposed to be the straight man. I realize that I am for the moment, but get all the laughs you can. Well, anyway, this one is about a lung specialist who said to a patient, he said, “Now, you know, if you would get up every morning very early and sing for an hour at the top of your voice, you’d never be bothered by any chest complaints in your old age.” So the guy said, “Just a minute, doc. Where I live, if I got up every morning early and sang at the top of my voice for an hour, I wouldn’t even be bothered with old age.” Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest. Yo…

WW: You told those two just backwards, Senator. The first one got Dixie’s batting average, 350, and the second one…

SF: Oh, you’re hot tonight, Mr. Wilson. Good news tonight.

WW: The second one got a doozy 1000 on the Colgate Palmolive laugh meter, so either one of them couldn’t have topped the original 1000 of Miss King’s, so we’ll just carry that on, and, Harry, how about you?

HH: Well, there are a lot of them on ailments. I want to toss one in first about there was going to be a school picnic and a mother was boasting. She says, “My little son Sammy at the picnic will win all the races. They’re going to have, you know, running races. He’ll win every one.” So the neighbor says, “How are you positive he’s going to win every race?” Said, “The doctor said he’s positively got athlete’s foot.” But I heard a goofy story. There’s a husband. He’s ill. But they still didn’t pay no attention to him. They’re rather play with their bubble gum, you know. They don’t want to bother with him at all. So his wife goes out playing gin rummy all the time. She doesn’t care. She says he’s only complaining. So every day he’s getting worse and worse and finally the day comes where he’s going to die, and he’s just breathing his last and he calls his wife over. Said, “Josie, I’m really dying now and I want to tell you something that’s on my heart. The minute I die, I want you to meet another man and get married.” Says, “You really mean it? That’s your wish for me? As soon as you die I should met another man and get married?” He said, “Yes. I want at least one person to be sorry that I died!”

WW: Well, you didn’t die with either of those, Harry. Two 1000s on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter, and, while it’s as much as you can get, it isn’t enough to top Miss King, so we’ll bounce merrily over to Joe Laurie Jr.

JL: Well, this woman, Mrs. Jones, she was very deaf, and with it she had a terrible cold. Oh, a terrible cold. And the man next door, one of the neighbors, rang the bell, and when she opened the door, he says, “Mrs. Jones, I want to congratulate you on your new baby.” She thought he was talking about the cold, and she says, “Oh, I get one every year, but this is the worst one I’ve ever had.” Just then he sneezes and she says, “Look out. I think you’re getting one too.”

WW: Well, I know you got one, Joe. By that I mean 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter. So that makes another perfect round. Two in a row. You fellows are really doing great tonight. However, in spite of all your efforts, we send Miss King twenty-five dollars with the compliments of Palmolive shave creams, and, in addition, we’re sending her a copy of a phonograph record of Peter Donald telling her story on the air. Well, let’s take a look around, see if we can’t find another one. Here’s a joke that comes from Alexander Katz of Boston, Massachusetts, or Bahston, should I say? And it’s on the subject of something I don’t think any of you know anything about: housekeeping. Housekeeping.

SF: Why?

WW: Peter, put on your cap and dust this one off.

PD: This happened over in Brooklyn, and Sadie DeKalb -- she’d been doing her spring cleaning, but she hadn’t been able to get anybody to come and clean the windows, so she met her girlfriend Gertrude Gowanas and said, “Listen, Gertrude, I got my house all clean, but the windows.” She says, “You see, I was going to wash them on the inside so I could see out and I was going to leave them dirty on the outside so people couldn’t see in. But somehow it don’t work. I got to wash the windows and I can’t get anybody to do it. Will you help me?” So her friend says, “Well, certainly I’ll help you any way I can.” Says, “What can I do?” She said, “Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll take an ironing board then we’ll balance it on the window sill because I live on the third floor. We’ll balance it on the windowsill and you sit on the outside of the window, and then I’ll sit on the other end of the board inside. Then we can both wash the windows and we’ll balance each other on the board.” So they do this and they’re doing fine and they’re balancing on the board and washing the different sides of the windows and all of a sudden the bell rings. Sadie jumps off her end of the board. She runs down to answer it. Of course, her friend Gertrude falls with a crash three stories down to the doorstep just as Sadie opens the door, and she looks down and she says, “Oh, Gertrude. You didn’t have to ring the bell. I would have given you a key!”

WW: Well, I’ll give you 1000, or rather the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter will, Pete. Three in a row for you and for the third time tonight our wits really are up against that stone wall. However, here they are again, and we’ll start with little Joe.

JL: Well, Ephram Rabinowitz took his wife Chuchu and they went to a furniture store, one of those antique places and she says to the man, she says, “We’re starting housekeeping. We’d like to get some nice things for the house.” He says, “Madam, I have a wonderful thing for you. Just came in. It’s a beautiful antique.” She says, “What is it?” He says, “A Chinese mirror. Just came from China. .Wait, I’ll show it to you.” So he shows her the beautiful Chinese mirror.” He says, “Here’s a thing that’s absolutely authentic. It just came from China. It’s a wonderful thing. Isn’t that beautiful?” Just them, Ephram looks in. He says, “Don’t buy it, Chuchu. It’s a fake. It’s a fake!” So the man says, “What? Did I hear you say that’s a fake? This wonderful establishment? Do you think we would fake anything?” He says, “I don’t care what you say. It’s a fake.” Says, “What makes you say it’s a fake?” He says, “I looked in it three times and I didn’t see one Chinaman!”

WW: Well, Joe, if you had looked at the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter you would have seen 1000, which is as far as you can go.

JL: In a rut, kid.

WW: Huh? Fellows are really hot tonight. Senator, is that your hand up, or…?

SF: Yeah, I have two. I’ll probably pick the wrong one. But, you know, we run our household like the United States government. My wife is Secretary of the Treasury. Our cook is Secretary of our Interiors. My mother-in-law is Secretary of War. And I’m the sap that pays the taxes. Well, a husband was talking to his wife. This is another one of those Dixie Walker things that I told, you know. A husband was talking to his wife. He said, “You know, you can’t cook at all.” She said, “Is that so? Well, I cook by poetry. When I cook breakfast I read Bacon. And when I come to the coffee, I make coffee, I read Cuppy and Chaucer. And when I make turkey I read Browning.” He said, “Yes, and when you make toast, you read Burns.” I hadn’t told that for so long that I almost gummed it up, you see.

WW: You almost burnt the toast, eh? Well, you picked them in the right order, Senator. 950 and 1000, in that order, on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter. So once again we have a perfect round going, and it drops…

SF: It’s looking too good. Something’s bound to happen, you know.

WW: Well, let’s see if it happens in the lap of Harry Hershfield.

HH: Well, Monsignor Fulton Sheen, one of the great minds of America with a grand sense of humor at the McCosker-Hershfield Cardiac Home Dinner last Saturday night, he told this story and he gave me permission to tell it. It’s a story about, you know, in the Garden of Eden when Eve was tempted and she ate the apple. Soon as she ate the apple, you know, they were expelled, Adam and Eve. They were evicted. So many years later Adam with his sons, sons Cain and Abel were walking down the road. They were walking around the road, and finally they came to this beautiful spot, the Garden of Eden. So one of his sons said, “What is that?” He said, “That’s the place where your mother ate us out of house and home!”

WW: Yes, when she ate the apple that broke up housekeeping. I guess that’s where we get this…

HH: Housekeeping. She didn’t have the house anymore. She couldn’t keep it.

WW: I see. Well, I interpolated it anyway, Harry, so…

SF: You know that Adam and Eve are still looking for a place to live?

WW: Who isn’t? Well, that was another 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter

HH: That was a swell story and Fulton Sheen is a great storyteller.

JL: I heard him tell it and he told it very good.

HH: Better than this.

WW: Better than Harry did it. Alright. Well, it was good enough to get another 1000. Another perfect round, as a matter of fact. So we send Mr. Katz twenty-five dollars with the compliments of Colgate dental cream, and also a phonograph record of Pete Donald telling his story on the air. Back to the business of jokes, once again, fellows, and here’s one sent in by Ida Walken of Albany, New York, and it’s on the subject, this time, of etiquette.  Etiquette. Manners, Joe.

JL: Yeah, yeah.

WW: Etiquette. Pete, be careful and don’t spill the beans.

PD: Well, it seems that Mr. and Mrs. O’Houlihan had been invited to a dinner party, and the wife was tipping off the husband. She said, “Now, Michael, I want you to watch your manners tonight now. You know, I want you to act like a gentleman. You’re a fine fellow. You’re a nice man until you’ve had a few of them drops, and I don’t know what happens to you then.” Well, he said, “Maggie, me darling, what did I ever do wrong?” Oh, she said, “Drinking at Mr. Gilhooly’s. I seen you. You were drinking your tea out of your saucer, you know. That’s not… you’re not supposed to drink out of the saucer.” Well, he said, “I got to drink out of the saucer. When I drink out of the cup, me spoon gets in me eye all the time. I’ll watch meself tonight. Don’t worry about a thing. I know me etiquette.” So they go there and everything’s fine  until he hits the martinis again and he has a couple too many, and he starts singing, and they go into dinner, and he’s going great, and he makes a golf course out of the mashed potatoes, and with a piece of celery he’s cutting the meatballs and singing songs he shouldn’t sing and he drops the gravy and he’s slurping the soup and, oh, it’s awful, and when it’s all over they go in the library and he takes off his shoes and he lies down. He goes right off to sleep. And they’re trying not to notice him and now he’s snoring and it sounds like running a vacuum cleaner over a tin roof, and this thing is going on and everybody is so appalled, and finally the host and hostess go out to the kitchen to make some more coffee, and his wife comes over to him. She said, “Wake up. Michael O’Houlihan, wake yourself.” She said, “We’re going home. Put on your shoes.” He says, “Home? Home? What time is it?” She says, “It’s nearly ten forty-five.” He says, “Ten forty-five? We can’t go now.” She says, “Why not?” He says, “Because don’t you know if you leave a party this early it’s bad manners?”

WW: That was not a bad manner, Pete. It was 800, as a matter of fact, on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter. For the first time tonight you let our three wits up and gave them a little ground to frolic in. Harry, frolic.

HH: Well, etiquette consists also of doing things as well as not doing things in the proper thing. So Popnikov… Yes. So Popnikov -- he was told that somebody had something nice to praise it. So he meets Serge, and he says, “Serge, I see that your wife has a beautiful mink coat. A gorgeous mink coat and jewellery. Who gave it to her?” So he says, “You dirty dog. How can you say a thing like that?” He says, “Don’t get excited. I thought you knew who.”  

WW: Harry, I liked the joke but I didn’t like the explanation. It got 1000 on the Colgate-Palmolive laugh meter. That will make you happy, but I’m going to allow Mrs., er, Miss Walken’s…

HH: Wait a minute. Wait, I’ll give you an argument on it.

WW: No you won’t. I haven’t got time for an argument. So as we look at the scores we find that we send Miss Walken fifteen dollars, with the compliments of Colgate Dental cream, plus a copy of the laughter-packed and brand-new joke book Cream of the Crop, and in addition we’re sending Miss Walken a phonograph record of Peter Donald telling her story on the air. So, chaps, just about one minute or a little less for any clown-table discussion. Any subjects you’d like to bring up?

SF: I want to talk about that two-thousand-year-old tomb that they unearthed. You know they found that beautiful woman in there, and she was preserved. You know, she looked just as good two-thousand years later as she did then. She was all bedecked with jewellery. So I guess the moral to the whole thing is if you want to preserve your wife, freeze her.

WW: You know, could be a good commercial in there somewhere, Senator.

HH: You know, they found food in there absolutely preserved though these people were dead. They probably starved to death trying to get the cellophane off a drugstore sandwich.

JL: You know, the woman, they say, had a lot of jewellery on her. I guess the husband saw the bill and dropped dead.

WW: That does it. We all better drop dead at this point.

JL: Just seeing you one about that mink gag.

WW: But I must invite you to join “Can You Top This?” originated by Senator Ford next week. Same time, same gang, other jokes, some new, some old. Until then, we remain yours for bigger and better laughs:

SF: Senator Ford.

HH: Harry Hershfield.

JL: Joe Laurie Jr

PD: Peter Donald

WW: Ward Wilson

DAN DONALDSON: And Dan Donaldson