Stoopnagle and Budd

Stoopnagle and Budd were a popular radio comedy team of the 1930s, generally regarded as radio's first satirists and sometimes cited as forerunners of the Bob and Ray style of radio comedy.

Musician Wilbur Budd Hulick and former broker-lumberman Frederick Chase Taylor (1897-1950) were both announcers at Buffalo station WMAK in 1930. The great-grandson of British-born Aaron Lovecraft of Rochester, New York, Taylor was a first cousin of author H. P. Lovecraft.

Radio

Hulick and Taylor came together as a team when a transmitter failure kept the station from receiving the scheduled network program. To prevent dead air, they delivered a barrage of spontaneous, impromptu patter. Hulick called Taylor "Colonel Stoopnagle" while Taylor played "I Love Coffee, I Love Tea" and other selections on the organ. The audience responded with so much enthusiasm that the duo's goofiness became a regular feature on WMAK, generating such local interest that within a year they were headed for New York. Amid much network hoopla, they were heard on "The Gloomchasers", beginning on CBS May 24, 1931. Spouting Spoonerisms, Taylor became known under the full name Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle as the partners appeared in several different formats on CBS, creating a variety of voices for their crazy characters, addlepated antics, and wacky interviews.

Film

The public finally saw them in action when Paramount released "International House" in 1933. Their very brief appearance (which looks like it might have been staged for one of Paramount's "Hollywood on Parade" short subjects) shows the colonel demonstrating his newest inventions, including "a revolving goldfish bowl for tired goldfish." The duo also appeared in the Fleischer "Screen Songs" cartoon "Stoopnocracy," released on August 18, 1933; they appeared in a live-action segment in the middle of the cartoon. They also filmed a two-reel comedy for Educational Pictures in 1934, "The Inventors", in which they show a college class how to assemble a "Stoopenstein," their version of a Frankenstein monster.

As solo performers

The partners went separate ways after "The Minute Men" (1936-37). Neither Taylor nor Hulick ever commented on the separation and did not disclose the reasons for the split. Hulick became a radio game-show emcee, hosting "What's My Name?", "Music and Manners," and "Quizzer Baseball" for the Mutual radio network before returning to local Buffalo radio stations. Taylor, retaining the "Col. Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle" stage name, appeared in comedy movie shorts and whimsical radio programs. After a comedy series with Donald Dickson on the Yankee Network, Taylor was a summer substitute for Fred Allen on "Town Hall Tonight" in 1938. He did the goofy quiz show "Quixie Doodles" on Mutual and CBS (1941-44), continuing through the 1940s with "The Colonel" (1943), "Stoopnagle's Stooperoos" (1943), "Burns and Allen" (1943), substituting for Bob Hawk (1947), Vaughn Monroe's "Camel Caravan" (1947-48) and "Duffy's Tavern".

NBC president Pat Weaver recalled how the two zanies "used to come into my office and, while we talked, lick my supply of stamps, one after another, and flip them up to stick on the ceiling. There was a knack to it that I never mastered, but they carried it off with amazing success. By the end of the summer my ceiling was virtually papered with stamps." [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E6DD1130F937A15752C0A962958260 Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "New York Times". "Books of the Times; Pat Weaver on Yesterday, 'Today' and 'Tonight',"January 24, 1994] ]

Television

Following a foray into television with "Colonel Stoopnagle's Stoop" (1949), Taylor died in 1950 in Boston of a heart ailment at the age of 52. He is remembered for his catchphrases and signature lines, "If it weren't for half the people in the United States, the other half would be all of them," "Stoopnocracy is peachy" and "People have more fun than anybody."

In recent years, Taylor's humor has been revived by Rick Squires in his "Stoopnocracy is Peachy!" website.

References

Listen to

* [http://www.buffalobroadcasters.com/sound_files/stoopnagle_budd.wma Buffalo Broadcasters: "Stoopnagle and Budd"]
* [http://odeo.com/audio/260244/view Odeo: "Town Hall Tonight" (1936)]

External links

* [http://stoopnagle.tripod.com/ Rick Squires' "Stoopnocracy is Peachy!"]