The Boston Globe (December 31, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, in addition to the secret treaty, it now seems as though we’ve got the secret joke.
According to the papers, Mr. Molotov and Mr. Bevin and Mr. Byrnes convulsed each other at Moscow, but none of this diplomatic humor has been made public. I’m sorry, because a joke told to a Russian by an American that makes an Englishman laugh ought to be sensational.
The secret joke has one big advantage. If it falls flat, at least it has privacy. George and I have to tell our jokes right out in public, and there have been times when I wished either we were in Russia, or the audience was.
However, this mixture of politics and comedy might be very practical. Imagine the trouble foreign countries would have trying to borrow money from us, say, if Jack Benny ran the Treasury!
The Boston Globe (January 4, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, the Japanese government is all wrought up because General MacArthur insists on the emperor paying taxes. They seem to feel that a son of heaven shouldn’t get mixed up with such things and I’m forced to agree that taxes aren’t very heavenly. In fact, just the reverse.
It’s been suggested that Hirohito make a voluntary donation of the amount needed and just not call it a tax. This might be all right, but I think it would sound a little silly for somebody to say, “The money you willingly gave us was sort by 5,000 yen. We expect an immediate voluntary donation to cover same.”
Maybe calling taxes by a different name would satisfy him, but I don’t see much to it. My goodness, castor oil would taste the same if you called it slick champagne.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 2, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, everybody is making a list of predictions for 1946, so here’s mine:
January: Our cook will quit. NOTE: This could go under any month, but I put it under January just to get it out of the way.
February: It will be cold in Minnesota.
March: A returned serviceman will remark that he’s glad to be out.
April: Stocks will rise or fall.
May: George will lose his temper. See January prediction.
June: Girls married this month will be known as June brides.
July: Plenty of nylons will be announced for Christmas, 1946.
August: It will be hot in New York City.
September: Some taxpayer will claim that he’s being robbed.
October: I’ll buy a new hat. See notes on January and May.
November: Stocks will go up or down.
December: Plenty of nylons will be announced for Christmas, 1947.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 3, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, George Bernard Shaw may be a very brilliant man, but he doesn’t know much about politicians. He says our alphabet wastes too much time and wants the British government to provide a new one. But whoever heard of a politician wanting to save time with words?
A congressman who takes less than three hours to ask for a new post office in his hometown is considered a disgrace to the profession. And he’d never get re-elected if he said “all over America” instead of “from the rock-ribbed coasts of Maine to the sunny strands of California.”
The Pittsburgh Press (January 4, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, they’d no sooner organized a cult in England hailing Hitler as divine than Hirohito, announced to the Japanese people that he wasn’t the Son of Heaven any more. So it looks like the standing of the dictator divinities is: Won 1 - Lost 1.
I’m really not an expert on the subject, but I never heard of a god resigning his position before. Of course if cupid, the god of love, ever paid a visit to Reno he’d probably take up some other line of work.
And there are times when the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce would favor the resignation of the rain god, Jupiter Pluvius.
Hirohito’s appearance never fitted what he claimed to be anyhow. I’ve seen pictures of him in baggy striped trousers and a tall silk hat that was too big for him, and not even his best friends could have said that he looked simply divine.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 7, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, we’re still hearing about Adolf Hitler but why, I don’t really know. He disappeared, so why not give three cheers and forget him? We forgot the dinosaur when it disappeared, and the dinosaur was bigger and prettier.
However, one item about him is sort of funny. His photographer said that Adolf and Eva Braun wouldn’t have had a happy marriage because Adolf didn’t have the right temperament for home life. That must be a new record for understatement.
Can’t you just see him coming home late for dinner and explaining in several thousand words why the non-Aryans were to blame? Or screaming for a squad of Storm Troopers to put the cat out? And imagine what would have happened when his wife bought a new hat! He’d have been as bad as old Henry the Eighth who kept his wives from buying hats by cutting off their heads.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 8, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, everybody’s been making lists of the 10 biggest news events of 1945 – even the Japanese.
In nine of their choices, they were either being bombed or were surrendering. Number 10 was the removal of Japan’s price ceiling on fish, which still didn’t make it a very big year for them.
Now here is my own list of 10 biggest domestic news events of 1945:
- Eating of first steak cut from a cow instead of from salmon.
- Return from cleaner of clothes that actually belonged to us.
- Purchase of tire with only two retreads on original retread.
- Acquisition of half a pound of butter.
- Auto trip to Pasadena.
- Return of cook from job in war plant.
- Departure of cook to get married.
- Final collapse of vacuum cleaner.
- Final collapse of washing machine.
- Final collapse of George, subbing for both.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 9, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I just can’t get over that liquor dealer in Texas who smashed $80,000 worth of his stock because it wasn’t fit for people to drink. My goodness! If some butchers had acted that way about the meat they sold during the war, we’d have had fish seven days a week instead of the customary five.
I hope this doesn’t start a fad with other businessmen such as those who operate the second-hand car lots. There just wouldn’t be enough junkmen to haul away the wreckage of jalopies not fit to drive. And the housing shortage would be ten times worse if landlords smashed up all the places not fit to live it.
And suppose the idea spread to the voters of America? I can just picture thousands of them, armed with axes, swarming into Washington to look for the congressmen they had elected to office.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 10, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – According to the American Dairy Association, butter is now being bootlegged in New York and other cities.
During prohibition, people went to speakeasies, so the day of buttereasy may soon be with us. You won’t be considered a real sport unless you sneak into some underworld dive and gobble up three or four pats of butter at a dollar a pat.
If butterleggers use the old bootlegger tricks, they’ll get some lard, paint it yellow and tell their customers it came right off the farm, but I don’t think they’ll mix butter the way gin used to be made. It would be pretty hard getting a cow into a bathtub.
I certainly hope that butterlegging doesn’t lead to gang wars. I’d hate to pick up my paper and read that The Creamery Kid had been bumped off by Oleo Joe.
The Atlanta Journal (January 11, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, Sen. Pepper of Florida made a statement that Premier Stalin is a doodler and I certainly hope the Russians understand that a doodler is a person who makes squiggly marks on paper and not something unpleasant. The word has a sound that might make an uninformed Russian patriot start reaching for a bomb.
It seems that Sen. Pepper was with Mr. Stalin for an hour and watched him doodle and he had no idea what he doodled, which is too bad. With international relations as they are, it would be nice to know whether he drew great hammers and sickles or little doves with olive branches in their beaks. In fact, right now, descriptions of Stalin’s doodles could well come under the heading of important news.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 14, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see that a London newspaper has discovered that American girls get married a lot earlier than British girls. Over there the average age for saying “I do” is about the same as the average age over here saying, “Junior, come down out of that tree!”
I suppose British conservatism has a lot to do with it. They don’t even speak to each other until they’ve been formally introduced. As for us, I’ve heard of American marriages where the boys had trouble filling out the license because he only knew the girl by the name of “Toots.”
Personally, I don’t think the British girls should despair. They know that they’re bound to get a husband some time or their country couldn’t make the claim that there’ll always be an England.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 15, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, Albert Dekker, a movie actor, got himself elected to the California State Assembly and temporarily left Hollywood. I’ve heard of stars who had to choose between home and a career, but he’s the first one who had to choose between a career and a career.
Mr. Dekker’s studio is worried about a picture in which he is appearing, so I’d suggest they go to the State Capital and finish it there. It’s a Western picture, and they could use all the other assemblymen as Indians in a mob scene. It would be sort of a novelty for politicians to say “ugh” instead of having other people say it about them.
I wonder what laws Mr. Dekker will try to pass. As a movie actor, he might be in favor of more humane treatment for crooning actors, or short jail terms for movie critics.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 16, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I take back what I’ve said about congressmen. A lady in Oklahoma without stockings wrote a letter about it to her congressman – a Mr. Wickersham. Also a man in Missouri couldn’t find shoes big enough for him, so he wrote to his congressman – a Mr. Cole. The lawmakers went shopping in Washington and delivered the goods. Two politicians had actually become public servants.
As soon as I heard about it I sent a note to my congressman and asked him to pick up a new suit for George. I also suggested that he might increase the circulation of the Congressional Record by having its name changed to the Congressional Shopping Guide.
Goodness, at the elections this fall we may see posters that say “Elect John Jones – honest representative, cars greased, lawns mowed and washing taken in.”
The Pittsburgh Press (January 17, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I just read about a San Francisco woman who married the same husband the fourth time – after divorcing him three times – and I don’t quite understand it, unless her brother is a divorce lawyer and she wants to throw some business his way.
Personally, I think that sort of revolving romance would be pretty hard to keep straight. Suppose he took her home after dinner and a show – he’d have to think twice before deciding whether to tip his hat at the door or go on in and go to sleep.
She claims she put Cupid on a merry-go-round because she doesn’t want her husband to stop getting up when she enters a room, or lighting her cigarettes for her.
Aren’t people amazing? She gets upset if her husband doesn’t do those things, but if George did them for me, I’d think he wasn’t well and I’d worry my head off.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 18, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, girls, here it is again. Lisette Verea, Rumanian actress, says that American men are too concerned with business to be romantic.
She says our men think their wives are contented as long as they get diamonds, fur coats and refrigerators, but it’s really romance that counts. Well, lots of women have come here from Europe and made the same remark and the funny thing is that most of them wind up marrying Americans. And I notice they don’t pick the kind of Americans who can only afford to give the rhinestones, cloth coats and old-fashioned iceboxes.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 21, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I can see that Canada has named a mountain after Gen. Eisenhower and I think that is a wonderful tribute. A mountain was an appropriate choice too, because when he hit the Germans they must have thought one had fallen on them.
The same sort of tribute could easily be paid to other celebrities. For instance, in honor of a mouth that sold many war bonds, Mammoth Cave could become the Joe E. Brown Cave. For the pleasure he brought to thousands of G.I.’s, Mt. Baldy could be renamed Mt. Edgar Bergen. And if Italy has a small but very active volcano, the perfect name would be Mt. LaGuardia.
When I mentioned the idea to George, he said some attractive body of water should be called Veronica Lake, and then he laughed and laughed. It takes so little to make him happy!
The Pittsburgh Press (January 22, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, every time you look up these days you see one of those sky writers zooming along and leaving mile-high advertisements behind him. It must be awfully hard on poets who used to look at the clouds and the sunsets to get inspiration for their love lyrics. Now the sky just urges them to see the new Boris Karloff movie or buy a bottle of Koolsy Kola.
I understand the sky writers are planning some improvements, too. Before long they expect to advertise at night and then to add technicolor. This should boost the sale of dark glasses and if they add some sound effects there’ll be a big boom in ear muffs.
However, there’s one way that sky writing could serve a fine purpose. Instead of squadrons of bombers, every country should have one plane that flies over other countries and writes “best wishes from a friend” in the sky.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 23, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, there have been so many divorces in California’s Los Angeles County that an official thinks the schools should give courses teaching young people to stay married. If it goes through, I’d be glad to give the girls lessons in such things as laughing at husband’s jokes, and not wearing cold cream or curlers at the breakfast table.
Ever since I married, I’ve conducted sort of a private school myself. At present George’s grades aren’t so good – C in remembering anniversaries, D in looking at pretty girls out of the corner of his eye, and F in appreciating my hats.
But I think the school idea is good. Boys should learn that many pin-up girls would faint at the sight of a clothespin, and girls should learn that a hep rug-cutter may never qualify as a household rug-beater.
The Boston Globe (January 24, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, if we must have strikes, I wish we’d adopt the Chinese system. During a bus and streetcar strike in Shanghai the conductors kept running their cars, but didn’t collect any fares. Until it was settled, everybody got free rides and had a wonderful time.
My goodness I’m sure that sort of arrangement would be very welcome here. Striking meat packers could leave free hams and roasts on our doorsteps and striking automobile workers could put a free car in every garage. I’m sure the heads of the companies would take the hint in a hurry.
And it could work out nicely the other way around, too. If the drug manufacturers had a strike, they could start the ball rolling by giving us all free aspirin. There’s no skimping in take-home headaches these days anyway.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 25, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a lucky Brooklyn girl has married a man who earned his way through college as head of a baby tending service. He and his helpers took care of about a hundred babies a week and when he was given his sheepskin, he probably folded it into a triangle from sheer force of habit.
Of course, there are a couple of drawbacks to being the wife of such a person. He’s already so well trained that the fun of breaking him in will be lost. I can just hear him bragging about the way he used to write the answers to a history quiz with one hand and jiggle a baby with the other.