Stop Me If You've Heard This One
Encyclopedia
Stop Me If You've Heard This One was a comedy radio series, created by the actor-humorist Cal Tinney (February 2, 1908-December 2, 1993) and sponsored by Quaker Oats. Hosted by Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...

, it aired Saturday evenings at 8:30pm on NBC beginning October 7, 1939.

Production history

The premise was that listeners received prizes for jokes they submitted to the program. The panelists, Harry Hershfield
Harry Hershfield
Harry Hershfield was an American comic artist, humor writer and radio personality. A columnist once labeled him "the Jewish Will Rogers".Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Hershfield was the son of Jewish immigrants...

 and Jay C. Flippen
Jay C. Flippen
Jay C. Flippen is an American character actor who often played police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s/'50s....

, were known as "the gagbusters," and their job was to recognize the joke, interrupt Berle and finish telling the joke. If they failed, the listener received more prizes. The show's list of guest panelists included Tinney, cartoonist Peter Arno
Peter Arno
Peter Arno was a U.S. cartoonist.-Biography:Born Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr. in New York, New York, and educated at the Hotchkiss School and Yale University, his cartoons were published in The New Yorker from 1925–1968. They often depicted a cross-section of New York society from the 1920s through...

, Harry McNaughton, character actor Lionel Stander
Lionel Stander
Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...

 and Ward Wilson. Dan Seymour was the announcer. The program's director was Joe Rines, and music was supplied by Del Courtney, Ben Cutler and Vincent Travers.

Hershfield was replaced by "Senator" Ed Ford shortly before the series ended on February 24, 1940. Nine months later, Ford, Hershfield and Wilson became regulars on the more popular panel show of joke-tellers, Can You Top This?
Can You Top This?
Can You Top This? was a popular radio panel show in which comedians told jokes. The unrehearsed program, sponsored at one point by Colgate-Palmolive, was created by veteran vaudevillian "Senator" Edward Ford, who claimed he was taking part in a joke session at a New York theatrical club when he...

, which had a long run of 14 years.

Post-war revival

Stop Me If You've Heard This One was revived on the Mutual Radio Network on September 13, 1947, hosted by Roger Bower (1903-79). Jokes which were used could win $5 plus an additional $10 if the joke could not be completed by panelists Tinney, Lew Lehr
Lew Lehr
Lew Lehr was a comedian, writer and editor known for his humorous contributions to Fox Movietone News, his radio appearances and his popular catchphrase, "Monkeys is the cwaziest peoples."...

, George Givot and Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.-Early life:...

. Ted Brown was the announcer, and Harold Hoffman was an occasional guest panelist.

Comedian Lehr (1895-1950), once well known for his humorous contributions to Fox Movietone News and other film shorts, is mainly remembered today for his popular catch phrase
Catch phrase
A catchphrase is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through a variety of mass media , as well as word of mouth...

, "Monkeys is the cwaziest people." The 1947 revival, which first aired on Saturdays at 9pm and then moved to 8:30pm, continued into the next year, ending on October 9, 1948. Around this time, Tinney lost the election in his bid to become the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...

.

Cal Tinney Productions brought the series to television March 4, 1948, for a primetime run on the NBC Television Network on Fridays at 8:30pm ET until April 22, 1949, with hosts Bower and Leon Janney. Radcliff Hall was the announcer, and the panelists were Amsterdam, Lehr, Tinney, and Benny Rubin
Benny Rubin
Benny Rubin was an American comedian and film actor. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Rubin made more than 200 radio, film and television appearances over a span of 50 years.-Radio and television:...

.

Book

Jokes by Lehr, Tinney, Bower and Rubin were collected in Stop Me If You've Heard This One, a 1949 Permabook published by Garden City Publishing. Permabooks were designed with an unusual format of a paperback bound with stiff cardboard covers (with a "special wear-resistant finish") to simulate the look and feel of a hardcover book, and the company had previously published Best Jokes for All Occasions, edited by Powers Moulton.

The Stop Me If You've Heard This One Permabook featured a two-page foreword by Tinney, a one-page introduction by Bower, 66 pages of jokes by Bower, 85 pages of jokes by Tinney and 82 pages of jokes by Lehr. Under the heading, "P.S.", Rubin only had space for four jokes on two pages, as explained, "Benny Rubin was added to our show just before press time." Tinney's foreword offered some background on the radio program:
The idea for the program Stop Me If You've Heard This One did not come to me in an automat as has been rumored, but in bed. I scribbled a note about it on a nearby pad. The next morning I told the idea to my wife. She said it was no good. So I knew then I had a good idea. The William Morris Agency sold it to the Quaker Oats Company for 19 weeks (1939-1940) on NBC... The show went on ice while I was in the Army. I am happy Norman Livingston of WOR and Phil Carlin of the Mutual Broadcasting System saw fit to revive it. I am happy C.R. Smith of American Airlines provided a commuter service of DC-6's so I could fly back and forth between Oklahoma and New York and perform on it.
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