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This episode was originally released 07/2018.
On November 5, 1950 at 6PM, NBC, in an attempt to revive the ratings in its Sunday night time slot, launched a new 90 minute star-studded program called The Big Show.
It was hosted by Tallulah Bankhead, written by Goodman Ace with music by Meredith Wilson, announced by Jimmy Wallington, and a rotating weekly cast that included everyone from Danny Thomas, to Ethel Merman, to Fanny Brice, to Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallee, Danny Kaye, Judy Holliday, Ed Wynn, and Fred Allen.
Ace had long been an admirer of Fred's work. Allen appeared on 24 of the show's 57 installments, including the landmark premiere, and showed he had not lost his trademark ad-lib skill or his wit.
Each episode cost over $100,000 to produce. Hopes were high. Before the show's launch the entire cast flew out to London and Paris for a lavish publicity stunt. The British press was unimpressed. The show was a flop.
The "buckshot" method of throwing enough stars against a wall and hoping they stuck fell on its face. Critics found the songs tuneless, the dialogue witless, and the jokes bad. It was a production that had come ten years too late. Fred Allen sensed the upcoming vitriol when in Paris, he made a few cracks about the french.
Amazingly the show was brought back for a second season, but by the end NBC had lost $1 Million and made no dent into CBS's Sunday night ratings.
The main reason Allen had appeared was that although he and NBC had closed The Fred Allen Show mutually in June of 1949, he was still under contract with the network. After the final broadcast on April 20, 1952, Fred Allen was only too happy to walk away.
Allen did break into television, first as the MC of Judge For Yourself, and finally as a regular panel guest on the CBS quiz show, What's My Line.
Between 1954 and 1956 he also worked as a newspaper columnist and as a memoirist, renting a small New York office to work six hours a day without distractions.
There he wrote Treadmill to Oblivion, published in 1954, which reviewed his radio and television years, and Much Ado About Me, published in 1956, which covered his childhood, vaudeville, and Broadway years.
Treadmill was the best-selling book on radio's classic period for many years. When it was published, he appeared on the Tex and Jinx radio show out of WNBC in New York on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, November 24th, 1954 to talk about his career.
The show was broadcast from Peacock Alley at The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York city. The weather was dreary, which only added to Fred's usual sense of sarcastic humor.
By 1954 Allen had already had his first heart attack. Always a letter-writer, he reflected upon the lifestyle changes he was forced to adopt to his friends Doc Rockwell.
Taking one of his regular late night strolls up New York's West 57th Street on Saturday night, St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1956, Allen suffered a heart attack and died. He was 61.
Fred Allen left a legacy as a profound thinker, tireless writer, and critic of those who he felt unjustly criticized him.
As word spread around the entertainment community all those who knew him mourned. Jack Benny was profoundly shaken. In truth, as funny as Jack Benny was... his humor was never exactly the same afterwards without his old sparring partner.
During the following night's regular Sunday broadcast of What's My Line? at 10:30 p.m., barely 24 hours following Allen's death, host John Daly preceded the program with a special message to the viewing audience. Steve Allen took Fred's place on the panel.
During the final ninety seconds of the program Steve Allen, Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf gave brief but heartfelt tributes to Fred. He was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. Both his real and stage names are engraved on the headstone.
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