Wally Ballou Signing Off

February 3, 2016 12:29 PM

Bob Elliott, the legendary radio comedian has passed away at 92. It all began in Boston in the late 1940s, when Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding started goofing around on the air during rain delays of Red Sox games. Soon, they were a hit nationally as well, with such well known characters as Wally Ballou the long-suffering radio newsman and the adventures of Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife. Bob and Ray's comedy career spanned decades until Goulding's death in 1990.

Elliott is maybe better remembered by more contemporary comedy fans as the father of Chris Elliott, and even co-starred with Chris in his series "Get A Life" in the early 1990s. Chris Elliott's daughter Abby is also a comedian, and was a performer on Saturday Night Live. The New Yorker offered this look back at Bob and Ray on Bob's 90th birthday, and what MeFi showbiz obit post is complete without the reminiscences of Mark Evanier

posted by briank (77 comments total)

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posted by Cash4Lead at 12:34 PM on February 3, 2016

Old Bob & Ray tapes were a staple of '90s road trips.

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posted by Going To Maine at 12:35 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fuck 2016, fuck cancer.

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posted by Etrigan at 12:38 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Bob and Ray taught me that my generation hadn't invented weird. I've got a few collections on cassette tape. I wonder if my tape player still works?
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posted by benito.strauss at 12:38 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

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posted by Shmuel510 at 12:39 PM on February 3, 2016

Also looking forward to people quoting their favorite Bob and Ray lines, because every one of them brings a smile to my face. Just from the obit:

-Monongahela Metal Foundry (“Steel ingots cast with the housewife in mind”)

- Einbinder Flypaper (“The flypaper you’ve gradually grown to trust over the course of three generations”)

- “...ly Ballou here”
posted by benito.strauss at 12:43 PM on February 3, 2016 [12 favorites]

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posted by tommasz at 12:50 PM on February 3, 2016

benito.strauss: “Steel ingots cast with the housewife in mind”

My 10th grade English teacher used this one all the time.

I mean fuck cancer and all, but 92? You had a good run.

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posted by Sphinx at 12:52 PM on February 3, 2016 [9 favorites]

I wanted to title the post with "...ly Ballou here", but figured too many people would miss the reference.
posted by briank at 12:52 PM on February 3, 2016 [11 favorites]

Frankly, signing off is the better title.

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posted by Quasirandom at 12:54 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

There are several samples at Old Time Radio

And to explain unto death: Walley Ballou always had his name cut off, as if the feed to the radio cut in a little late (which happened often in radio 'remotes'), so his pieces started "ly Ballou here..."
posted by hexatron at 12:57 PM on February 3, 2016

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posted by Mr.Me at 12:59 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

This Album is burned into my memory.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:10 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Internet Archive also has a bunch of Bob and Ray Show episodes.
posted by christopherious at 1:15 PM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

My first exposure to the duo and their madness would've been their 1979 NBC special Bob & Ray, Jane, Laraine & Gilda (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3). Particularly memorable was the group's rendition of Rod Stewart's then-giant disco hit "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," (about 7 minutes into the Part 2 video) in which Mses. Curtain, Newman, and Radner sing the verses, with Bob and Ray deadpanning the chorus ("If ya want my body/And ya think I'm sexy...").

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posted by hangashore at 1:19 PM on February 3, 2016 [6 favorites]

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posted by Inkslinger at 1:26 PM on February 3, 2016

Aw, damn. But he was older than Australopithecus.
posted by pracowity at 1:28 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

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92 is a very respectable run, but jebus 2016, you're relentless and it's only early February.
posted by mosk at 1:36 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Christ almighty, 2016, just STOP IT already. Dammit!

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posted by Thorzdad at 1:45 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Bob and Ray were cult favorites at my high school. In the 70s they had a gentle, hypnotic and quietly subversive show on WOR every afternoon - here's a sample - that we used to listen to in the car and the kitchen.
posted by maggiemaggie at 1:46 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

One of my favorites ever was Bob & Ray. One day when I was about 14, I saw a copy of a book on my dad's dresser, and flipping through it I found it was a collection of sketches by this comedy team I had never heard of. I started reading it, still standing up in my parents' bedroom, eventually just laid down on their bed and kept reading all the way through, laughing. When my dad came home and saw what I was doing, I asked him why he got this great book, he laughed and said "I got it for you!" Dad knew I'd be into that sort of humor and he was right.

A couple of years later I found some tapes of their old shows and haven't stopped being a fan since.
posted by grubi at 1:50 PM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

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posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:50 PM on February 3, 2016

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"Gee willlikers!"
posted by Mr. Science at 1:59 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hums "Mention My Name in Sheboygan" in a minor key....
posted by Floydd at 2:04 PM on February 3, 2016

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posted by Joey Michaels at 2:25 PM on February 3, 2016

"Papaw was a wonderful grandfather who made everyone around him happy. I'll miss him with all my heart. "
posted by pracowity at 2:26 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Here's one of Bob and Ray's 15-minute TV programs:

The Bob and Ray Show (NBC) (1952) (Part 1 of 2)
This is Part 1 of 2, featuring a profile of the new parking meter system in Fennelsburg, Pennsylvania, and a new quiz show "Fugitive for a Day".

The Bob and Ray Show (NBC) (1952) (Part 2 of 2)
This is Part 2 of 2 and features an episode of Bob and Ray's long-running soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". Audrey Meadows appears as Mary and also as Jessica.
posted by Junker George at 2:28 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can't feel too sad about Bob Elliott. He was 92 and, unlike Ray, he got to see the Red Sox win the World Series.
posted by grounded at 2:33 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh my -- I either missed or forgot that one radio show sponsor was the United States Mint ("One of the nation's leading producers of genuine U.S. currency"). Thanks Wikipedia for that and others.
posted by Quasirandom at 2:42 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

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posted by jim in austin at 2:43 PM on February 3, 2016

Listened to them on WOR every afternoon when I was in high school.

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posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:45 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

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posted by Artful Codger at 2:46 PM on February 3, 2016

Old Bob & Ray tapes were a staple of '90s road trips.

My road trips too.

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posted by larrybob at 2:46 PM on February 3, 2016

I nearly peed myself just reading their routines on paper.

For a while there (like, only a few years ago), Bob and Ray albums were the gift of choice for my dad. My brother and I will never forget hanging out mid-afternoon on Christmas Day as my dad alternately snored and guffawed every three seconds at something only he could hear through his headphones. Dad nearly lost his breath laughing.

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posted by St. Hubbins at 2:49 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

I bought a hardcover printing of some of their routines at a library sale in the early 90's. It was years before I connected him to Chris Eliot.

Thanks for all the laughs.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:51 PM on February 3, 2016

Oh! And I forgot! I'm related to the Piels family who once created Piels Beer. The ads that Bob and Ray did for Piels were basically the last great hurrah of that beer, and a huge water-cooler touchstone when they were on. They're mostly on Youtube, like this one.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:56 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rest...
posted by themanwho at 3:08 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wasn't the sign-off, "Hang by your thumbs, and write if you get work?"
posted by Repack Rider at 3:26 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

...in...
posted by themanwho at 3:37 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

PEACE!!
posted by Shmuel510 at 3:46 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

...peace.
posted by themanwho at 3:49 PM on February 3, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm having trouble finding the pirate ship bit. With the random, unnecessary smacking around of the first mate. ("Whyyyyy, yoooou!" SMACK)
posted by grubi at 3:50 PM on February 3, 2016

FOUND IT! Starts at about 7:07.

(It's actually a sub-skit within Webley Webster's review of the American League Green Book.)
posted by grubi at 3:53 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, heavens. This just happened, seconds ago: I received an email from my company's IT department... from someone with the last name Ballou.
posted by grubi at 3:56 PM on February 3, 2016

Not on that top 100 list, unfairly enough.
posted by BWA at 3:59 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

RAY: Tonight we’re talking to Darrel Dexter, the Komodo-dragon expert, from Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Say, doctor, would you tell us a little bit about the Komodo dragon?
BOB: Happy to! The Komodo dragon is the world’s largest living lizard. It’s a ferocious carnivore found on the steep-sloped island of Komodo, in the lesser Sunda chain of the Indonesian archipelago, and the nearby islands of Rintja, Padar, and Flores.
RAY: Where do they come from?
BOB: [Mystified pause.] The Komodo dragon, world’s largest living lizard, is found on the island of Komodo, in the lesser Sunda chain of the Indonesian Archipelago, and the nearby islands of Rinja, Padar, and Flores. We have two in this country that were given to us some years ago by the late former Premier of Indonesia, Sukarno, and they reside in the National Zoo, in Washington.
RAY: I, ah, believe I read somewhere, where a foreign potentate gave America some Komodo dragons. Is that true?
BOB: [Pause.] Yes. The former Premier of Indonesia, Sukarno, gifted our country with two Komodo dragons—the world’s largest living lizards—and they reside at the National Zoo, in Washington.
RAY: Well, now, if we wanted to take the youngsters to see a Komodo dragon—where would we take them?

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posted by dannyboybell at 4:03 PM on February 3, 2016 [10 favorites]

Bob and Ray was something I could share with my father.
posted by acrasis at 4:04 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Gee willlikers!"
posted by Mr. Science at 4:59 PM on February 3 [2 favorites −][!]

"A candle!? Wait till I tell the kids at school I saw one of those!" Such a classic. Such a class act.

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posted by The Bellman at 4:51 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Every "radio comedy team" in the '60s and '70s identified Bob & Ray as a direct influence, from Your Local Morning DJ Duo to members of the Firesign Theater.

It was incredible how their old 1940s-1950s radio bits were NOT dated. (Okay, "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife" was a direct reference to an existing soap opera - "Mary Noble, Backstage Wife" - but the bits themselves were applicable to every soap of the time and those for decades since)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:52 PM on February 3, 2016

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posted by key_of_z at 5:10 PM on February 3, 2016

Paraphrasing from memory:

"Rudy?"
"Yeah, boss?"
"Open the door before you come in, Rudy."
"Sorry."
*door opens*
"Yeah, boss?"

First time I heard Bob and Ray was an excerpt that got played on some syndicated comedy radio show I stumbled across one night when I was in my early teens. It was a bit where they reunited two people in the audience (brother and sister, I think) who hadn't seen each other in fifty years; it was an amazing moment hampered by the fact that, despite Bob and Ray's encouragement, the two of them couldn't think of anything to say to each other ("So... how've you been?" "Fine." "..." "..."). A few years later, I found a copy of the script book Write If You Get Work in the school library, thought, "Hey! Those guys!" and ended up checking it out over and over and over and over.
posted by brianrobot at 5:12 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

"The Bureau of Edible Condiments, Soluble, Insoluble, Indigestible Fats and Glutinous Derivatives."


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posted by 0rison at 6:18 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

My dad grew up in eastern Massachusetts and became a huge, huge fan of their radio show while he was in college. Much later but still decades before the World Wide Web, when we were young he once brought home a copy of Write if You Get Work, and it was one of the formative influences on me and my siblings, despite living out in the sticks and being unable to ever hear Bob and Ray perform until we had all grown up and left for other parts of the world. Their variety of lunacy, even in writing, remained a kind of deadpan transcript of the news from a much stranger yet gentler universe, compelling even if I couldn't understand why.
posted by ardgedee at 6:20 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

...and wow, I just found this mention in the Wikipedia entry on Bob & Ray:

The duo did more television in the latter part of their career, beginning with key roles of Bud Williams, Jr. (Elliott) and Walter Gesunheit (Goulding) in Kurt Vonnegut's Hugo-nominated Between Time and Timbuktu: A Space Fantasy (1972), adapted from several Vonnegut novels and stories. (Vonnegut had once submitted comedy material to Bob and Ray.) Fred Barzyk directed this WGBH/PBS production, a science-fiction comedy about an astronaut-poet's journey through the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum.

posted by ardgedee at 6:32 PM on February 3, 2016

I can't recall exactly when I became aware of Bob & Ray. It feels like I've always known skits like the S.T.O.A. and Komodo Dragon. I think the first time I heard the word "wry" I immediately thought (and still do think) of Bob & Ray. Very soon after I could listen to audio files on my computer, I had procured a whole ton of old Bob & Ray shows from some OTR website. I keep some of their stuff on my iPod at all times. And yes, old Bob & Ray cassettes that my friend taped were always in my car too.

This was one of my favorite FPP's to research and post here.

I'll be hanging from my thumbs for a little while tonight.
posted by not_on_display at 7:03 PM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

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posted by kinnakeet at 7:20 PM on February 3, 2016

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posted by lester at 7:30 PM on February 3, 2016

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The Cranberry Man
posted by kozad at 8:15 PM on February 3, 2016

> There are several samples at Old Time Radio

Once again I curse the soul of Real Audio and renew my oath to never store data in a format lacking an open specification.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:15 PM on February 3, 2016

Discovering Bob and Ray when i was in high school was a revelation. So hilarious while being totally deadpan and low-key. Their The Two and Only album was just brilliant.

Hangashore, you can thank Al Franken and Paul Shaffer for talking them into Do Ya Think I'm Sexy.
posted by pmurray63 at 9:56 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

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posted by bongo_x at 11:03 PM on February 3, 2016

Awww. A favorite of my mother, and I loved Get A Life.

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posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 11:24 PM on February 3, 2016

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posted by On the Corner at 12:57 AM on February 4, 2016

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See you in the lesser Sunda chain of the Indonesian Archipelago, and the nearby islands of Rinja, Padar, and Flores.
posted by oneironaut at 6:22 AM on February 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Papaw was a wonderful grandfather who made everyone around him happy. I'll miss him with all my heart. "

. . . ut you're saying is that the Elliotts is the brand we've gradually come to trust over the course of three generations?

I thought it was just that the gas pedal got stuck . Had me up on two wheels!

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posted by Herodios at 7:25 AM on February 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

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posted by valkane at 7:59 AM on February 4, 2016

"Write if you get (find) work . . . Hang by your thumbs . . . "

This is a great sign-off for these guys, and it makes sense that they'd come up with it in the 1950s. "Hang by your thumbs" is classic surrealism and contrasts nicely with the mundane sounding "write if you find work". But this latter phrase held significance for Bob & Ray and their 1950s audience, a generation of people who'd survived the Great Depression.

Here's a meditation on the phrase excerpted from A Capital Upbringing: Coming of Age in the 1930's in Montpelier, Vermont by Robert Webster:

"Write if you find work.” The expression sums up the plights and trials of the depression years of the nineteen thirties. It is remembered by those of us who lived through it, bringing back stark and real memories of that bygone era. . . .

[Unemployment] meant much more than a loss of spirit. It meant total and absolute poverty, only staved off by the occasional charity of other individuals. Families were diminished through necessity as members left home so that those left behind could have at least a modicum of sustainable existence. This was the time of itinerant wanderers who approached each farm or town with hope of some sort of employment . . . wood pile to be split . . . temporary work in the fields . . . a meal or board for a period of time.

Men who lost their jobs left home and family in the hope of finding employment elsewhere. If found, they would send word for the family to join them. Those at the send-off uttered the statement “Write if you find work” with fervent prayer.

We now use this phrase in jest when one or the other of us leaves the house on some mundane errand . . . We mean no disrespect by doing this. . . . . You had to experience it at that time to appreciate its essence and importance in our lives.

To further illustrate (heh) the geneology of our 20th century humor heritage, notice that the playbill for Bob and Ray The Two and Only was illustrated by the prolific Jack Davis, probably best know for his work in MAD Magazine.

The pair also had a parody of the detective show Mannix called Blimmix, a lackwit detective who would be beaten up at the end of each of his segments by whatever thug served as the antagonist.

I never saw Blimmix, but I can tell you that its a pretty good parody because Joe Mannix got pistol-whipped unconcious in just about every episode. Wiccupeedia sez he was shot and wounded over a dozen times and knocked unconscious around 55 times.
posted by Herodios at 8:14 AM on February 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

I forgot that I talked my wife into recording an episode of "Mr District Defender" with me years ago.
posted by grubi at 8:59 AM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

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posted by allthinky at 10:06 AM on February 4, 2016

Bob & Ray (radio, Monitor) every weekend. Even a dumb elementary school kid had to laugh at these guys. Years later I realized it was just their act. Even better.

Adios.
posted by mule98J at 12:34 PM on February 4, 2016

To further illustrate (heh) the geneology of our 20th century humor heritage...

Yeah, I just looked up Tom Koch, their never-credited writing partner, strictly by mail, FOR 33 YEARS. His Obituary has the Best Headline Ever. It really ties in to the MAD thing happening simultaneously. I remember reading MAD comics that were written by Bob & Ray, too.
posted by not_on_display at 5:36 PM on February 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

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posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:56 PM on February 4, 2016

Yeah, I just looked up Tom Koch, their never-credited writing partner,

Wow, that is a crazy story.
posted by bongo_x at 10:09 PM on February 4, 2016

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posted by nothing.especially.clever at 2:56 AM on February 5, 2016

He really was fun on Get A Life, too.

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posted by Chrysostom at 8:52 AM on February 5, 2016

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posted by Ignorantsavage at 11:18 PM on February 5, 2016

I hear them at 10AM every Saturday when Robert Emmet plays a sample on his Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show. Another important radio voice (which, unfortunately, I don't hear anymore), instrumental in keeping their legend alive: Larry Josephson.
posted by Rash at 10:21 AM on February 7, 2016