The Big Show: “ep02 Groucho Marx Fanny Brice”, first broadcast in 1950. Old-time radio music and variety.

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Stupid Potato restores classic radio and TV audio and runs 60 free 24/7 channels and 189 podcasts: old-time radio westerns, detectives, comedy, science fiction and suspense, vintage TV, Saturday-morning cartoons, Halloween and Christmas. No modern ads. Listen free at stupidpotato.com.

Joan Davis, Phil Silvers and hostess Tallulah Bankhead prepare for a guest appearance by Margaret Truman on the Big Show, a Sunday variety program on NBC. Bankhead fusses over her gown and the other performers bicker backstage while the staff rehearses. Meredith Wilson's orchestra plays a novelty tune, and the show introduces a dramatized excerpt from the film State Secret, starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., in which an American surgeon is summoned abroad to perform a delicate operation. Later, Truman joins the cast on air, chatting with Bankhead and trying her hand at singing, while the Sons of the Pioneers and other guests are introduced in turn.

With Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Davis, Margaret Truman, Phil Silvers, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Meredith Wilson, Dr. John Marlow, Dr. Rivo.

Listen for: Bankhead's introduction of Margaret Truman, and the dramatized State Secret excerpt in which Dr. Marlow discovers his patient is the Generalissimo.

First aired in 1950.

Episode notes written with AI from the recording itself; the audio is the original broadcast.

Free, complete and restored, no modern ads. A new episode every week: The Big Show on Stupid Potato, every episode so far and the episode guide.

Stupid Potato restores classic radio and TV audio and runs 60 free 24/7 channels and 188 podcasts: old-time radio westerns, detectives, comedy, science fiction and suspense, vintage TV, Saturday-morning cartoons, Halloween and Christmas. No modern ads. Listen free at stupidpotato.com.

Tallulah Bankhead hosts the debut broadcast of The Big Show, a Sunday variety program on NBC. Jimmy Durante, mocking his own appearance, jokes about a blind date and explains that he has been campaigning for a place on the show. Ethel Merman, Paul Lucas and Russell Knight then perform songs from the Broadway musical Call Me Madam, and Merman and Lucas trade anecdotes about their stage careers. Danny Thomas follows with a comic routine about a horse in a bathtub and a mother-in-law joke, and the broadcast closes with Mindy Carson introduced to sing.

With Tallulah Bankhead, Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman, Paul Lucas, Russell Knight, Danny Thomas, Mindy Carson.

Listen for: Durante's blind date routine, the Call Me Madam songs, and Danny Thomas's horse-in-the-bathtub story.

First aired in 1950.

Episode notes written with AI from the recording itself; the audio is the original broadcast.

Free, complete and restored, no modern ads. A new episode every week: The Big Show on Stupid Potato, every episode so far and the episode guide.

Stupid Potato restores classic radio and TV audio and runs 60 free 24/7 channels and 188 podcasts: old-time radio westerns, detectives, comedy, science fiction and suspense, vintage TV, Saturday-morning cartoons, Halloween and Christmas. No modern ads. Listen free at stupidpotato.com.