On Radio
While Fields was inactive in films due to extended illness, he recorded a short speech for a radio broadcast. His familiar, snide drawl registered so well with listeners that he quickly became a popular guest on network radio shows. One of his funniest routines had him trading insults with Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy on The Chase and Sanborn Hour.
Fields would twit Charlie about his being made of wood:
- Fields: "Tell me, Charles, is it true your father was a gate-leg table?"
- McCarthy: "If it is, your father was under it!"
When Fields would refer to McCarthy as a "woodpecker's pin-up boy" or a "termite's flophouse," Charlie would fire back at Fields about his drinking:
- McCarthy: "Is it true, Mr. Fields, that when you stood on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, 43 cars waited for your nose to change to green?"
- Bergen: "Why, Bill, I thought you didn't like children."
- Fields: "Oh, not at all, Edgar, I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs, I toddled from room to room."
- McCarthy: "When was that, last night?"
Thanks to radio, Fields reached an even wider audience than before, and he was soon in demand for films again.
Read more about this topic: W. C. Fields
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