East-coast old-timers: Did you listen to Bob+Ray growing up?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been listening to various collections of Bob and Ray–Classic Bob+Ray, The Soap Operas, Best of Bob+Ray–and am wondering what it was like listening to their live radio shows during the 1950s-1970s in Boston and New York City.

Did they typically mix produced/pre-recorded bits like the ones in the above collections with live conversations? I assume they must have sequenced the soap operas an episode at a time; what about the other stuff? Would they just drop them in randomly?

I love these guys–amazed at their versatility. And I enjoyed Chris Elliott’s “Daddy’s Boy: A Son’s Shocking Account of Life with a Famous Father”–

2

Do Bert and Harry Piels count?

I probably could have gotten their radio station when I was growing up, but I had little interest in talk in the morning.

3

I heard them a bit on Los Angeles radio. Another Bob & Ray were with me constantly because they’re my dad and his brother. But their voices were different.

4

My mom was a huge Bob & Ray fan, heard them a lot growing up.

She still is a fan… at 92, and has everything they’ve done, on many many many cassettes.
ETA: In the midwest. Chicago or maybe a Milwaukee AM station in the 60s.

5

I remember those growing up in New York City.

I’m not sure how I first became aware of them as Bob and Ray, and I don’t recall listening to them on the radio. However, I was enough of a fan to see their Broadway show The Two and Only in 1970.

6

Bob and Ray totally fucking rocked!

7

Many slightly older people recommended Bob and Ray, including Kurt Vonnegut (who was much older). A high school English teacher gave me a book of their routines.

I enjoyed the shit out of them, and played the tapes for my millennial kids, who also enjoyed the shit out of them.

8

Born in late 1960, so not around for the real glory years.

9

Well - not growing up. I listened to them on the car radio commuting to work in 1957.

Wally Ballou, Tippy the Wonder Dog, Lawrence Fechtenberger , all non-sense but funny when they did it:

Tune in tomorrow folks
When Edna goes to the village
In the Gathering Dust

10

I didn’t even become aware of them until the late 80s, when a Jacksonville FL afternoon variety radio show would play a clip. I became a huge fan, and was tickled to learn my father was a fan from the old days.

I’ve since collected many sets of cassettes, and some CDs. I also have a CD with hundreds of their over-the-air broadcasts (with commercials!) from, I think, the late 1950s. A very interesting time capsule.

IMO, their best quality, most-timeless recordings are the ones they made in the 80s for…RadioLab, I think. Some of them were polished versions of their old shows.

11

Another West Coast (ahem) fan from back in the day.

Write if you get work.

12

I was just thinking about one of their routines yesterday. The man who has budget advice. Like, he lives in Wisconsin and works in New York City, and has found a really inexpensive airfare to commute every day…

13

“I heard them a bit on Los Angeles radio.”

“ETA: In the midwest. Chicago or maybe a Milwaukee AM station in the 60s.”

“Another West Coast (ahem) fan from back in the day.”

Was their regular NY City radio show syndicated? Or do the above comments refer to their occasional appearances on Mutual and NBC Monitor radio shows?

14

In LA 1957 it was syndicated

15

“Komodo Dragon Expert” and “Slow Talkers of America” were favorite bits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyI6KjpNrh0
16

Anyone remember the Bob and Ray features in late 50’s - early 60’s “Mad” magazine?

17

No but I listened to Jean Shepherd on WOR in NYC in the late 60s and early 70s.

18

My father was a Bob and Ray fan but I remember him listening to Jean Shepard more. I’m too young to remember the shows themselves.

19

Bob and Ray weren’t always syndicated. Their show at various times early on was carried by the NBC, CBS, Mutual networks and, near the end, National Public Radio. These network shows gave them a fairly decent national presence which lead to their popularity in syndication.

20

Cool.

Liked the way he always started off “-ly Ballou, here”, like those cut-off correspondent feeds.

Nifty appearance as commentators in the film Between Time and Timbuktu, which was adapted from some of Vonnegunt’s works.

Mom turned me on to them.
Great i-view bit they did on Carson with Ray as a somewhat mercenary paper clip factory manager.
Pretty hot covering “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” on SNL, just sitting there on stage in chairs, trading off lines, poker-faced as ever.