The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour
Encyclopedia
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
from 1929 to 1936, when it became The Royal Gelatin Hour, continuing until 1939. This program was sponsored by Fleischmann’s Yeast
Fleischmann’s Yeast
Fleischmann’s Yeast is a brand of yeast sold to both consumer and industrial markets in the United States and Canada. It is available in a number of different forms, each with its own specific benefit. Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast is the best-known of their yeast products due to its extended...
, a popular brand of yeast.
The person responsible for this major step ahead in broadcasting was NBC executive Bertha Brainard
Bertha Brainard
Bertha Brainard , known to her friends as Betty, was a pioneering NBC executive responsible for setting trends in network broadcasting....
, who became head of programming for NBC in 1928. She began pushing for singer-bandleader Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
to host a variety series by explaining that only a woman could understand the appeal of Vallée's voice.
Regulars
Beginning October 24, 1929, the show quickly became a top-rated program, second only to Amos 'n' AndyAmos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy is a situation comedy set in the African-American community. It was very popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s on both radio and television....
. Host Vallée appeared along with regulars Ole Olsen
Ole Olsen (comedian)
John Sigvard "Ole" Olsen was an American vaudevillian and comedian.Born in Peru, Indiana, he graduated from Northwestern University in 1912 with a degree in music and hit the Vaudeville circuit...
and Chic Johnson
Chic Johnson
Chic Johnson was the barrel-chested half of the Swedish-American comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, known for his strangely infectious, high-pitched laugh.-Background:...
(1932), followed by Tom Howard and George Shelton (1935). Actor Will Aubrey (1892-1958) appeared as the Bard of the Byways, and another regular was character actor Henry Armetta
Henry Armetta
Henry Armetta was an Italian movie character actor who appeared in at least 150 films, starting in silents as early as 1915 to a movie released in 1946, after his death.-Biography:...
(1888-1945).
Guests
On this program, the American listening audience heard many future stars for the first time, as it introduced such talents as Milton BerleMilton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
, Burns and Allen
Burns and Allen
Burns and Allen, an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, worked together as a comedy team in vaudeville, films, radio and television and achieved great success over four decades.-Vaudeville:...
, Alice Faye
Alice Faye
Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...
, the Mills Brothers
Mills Brothers
The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed as The Four Mills Brothers, were an American jazz and pop vocal quartet of the 20th century who made more than 2,000 recordings that combined sold more than 50 million copies, and garnered at least three dozen gold records...
and Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
. Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
made her radio debut. Other guests included Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, Fannie Brice, Ilka Chase
Ilka Chase
Ilka Chase was an American actress and novelist.Born in New York City and educated at convent and boarding schools in the United States, England, and France, she was the only child of Edna Woolman Chase, the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, and her first husband, Francis Dane Chase.Chase made...
, Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...
and A. A. Milne
A. A. Milne
Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...
. Edgar Bergen
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...
became the first ventriloquist to successfully perform on national radio when he and Charlie McCarthy initially appeared on Rudy's show on December 17, 1936. Subsequent appearances led to their inclusion on The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour was the umbrella title for a series of US comedy and variety radio shows, sponsored by Standard Brands' Chase and Sanborn Coffee, usually airing Sundays on NBC from 8pm to 9pm during the years 1929 to 1948....
in May 1937.
In 1937, at Vallée's insistence, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
hosted the show during Vallée's summer vacation. This made Armstrong the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
to host a national network program.
Title change
In the 1936-39 run as The Royal Gelatin Hour, guests included Noel CowardNoël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Willie Howard, Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
, Pat O'Brien
Pat O'Brien (actor)
Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...
, Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
, Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou
Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou
Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou was an unusual radio situation comedy broadcast in various timeslots from 1938 to 1946.Tommy Riggs switched back and forth from his natural baritone to the voice of a seven-year-old girl, Betty Lou...
, Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn was a popular American comedian and actor noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor....
and Roland Young
Roland Young
Roland Young was an English actor.-Early life and career:Born in London, England, Young was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset and the University of London before being accepted into Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
. The yeast and gelatin products were both made by Standard Brands
Standard Brands
Standard Brands was formed in 1929 by J.P. Morgan with the merger of:*Fleischmann Company*Royal Baking Powder Company*E. W. Gillett*Widlar Food Products Company*Chase & Sanborn Coffee Company...
, so the sponsorship remained the same.
The program came to an end on September 28. 1939. Vallée continued on NBC with sponsors Sealtest, Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
, Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
's Drene Shampoo and Philip Morris
Altria Group
Altria Group, Inc. is based in Henrico County, Virginia, and is the parent company of Philip Morris USA, John Middleton, Inc., U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, Inc., Philip Morris Capital Corporation, and Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. It is one of the world's largest tobacco corporations...
cigarettes.