Word: unctuous
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Russians have, according to Mrs. Gordon, most fully adapted radio to education. A special network broadcasts exclusively for children. Children's programs are presented before a sample audience of children. The listeners are questioned on the merits of each scene, and their suggestions are often followed. No unctuous uncles talk down to Russian children for the purpose of selling breakfast food. The entire system is directed toward acquainting the child with great art and preparing him to live in Russia (which means propaganda, of course, for the Soviet State...
...programs are a mixture of monologue and weird recorded music. A favorite of Robert Benchley, James Thurber, Stuart Chase, Morgan follows a simple formula. He breaks all the rules. As a result he is the envy of every announcer who ever gagged politely while rolling off an unctuous commercial. Once when reading a plug for Adler Elevator Shoes "Knockabouts come in ten colors . . . beige, cinnamon, blue . . ."), Morgan ad-libbed remarks on the probable habits of a man who would wear blue shoes, remarked "I wouldn't be seen in them at a dogfight." When the sponsor objected that...
...Comedian Frank Tinney: "He fertilizes the most sterile wheeze with the persuasive manures of his unctuous manner, and makes it blossom with laughter unabashed...
...Bigger Thomas (Canada Lee), a brooding, violent Negro whose father was killed in a Southern race riot, who lives with his mother, sister and kid brother in one room in the Chicago slums. With his pals he indulges in fantasies of machine-gunning white enemies. Through an unctuous social worker, Bigger gets a job as chauffeur to the wealthy landlord of the tenement he lives in. The landlord's handsome daughter (Anne Burr) is a neurotic, alcoholic Fellow Traveler who adopts an intimate manner toward Bigger...
...Most popular program was that of Edgar Bergen, with a rating of 40 per 100 set-owners polled. Runner-up with 39 was the unctuous Jack Benny, with Lux Radio Theatre, Fibber McGee & Molly and the Kraft Music Hall trailing along after...