The Pittsburgh Press (July 18, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Goodness, now it seems there really were wicked-looking giants once. At least, Dr. Weidenreich of the American Museum of Natural History thinks there used to be roaming around men who were twice the size of male gorillas.
Well, I always knew there was a lot of truth in children’s stories. The last time I was at the butcher’s, the cow had jumped over the moon again, and no one who’s been looking for an apartment will doubt the tale of the old woman who lived in a shoe. What’s more, any king would be glad to get a pie with four-and-twenty blackbirds in it.
It’s just as well no old-time giant is living now when even moderate-sized men can’t find clothes. And being a giant, people would expect him to fight Joe Louis. I recently saw Mr. Conn fight Mr. Louis and there’s no future in it, even for male gorillas.
The Miami News (July 19, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a scientist has produced a noiseless paper bag which won’t rustle when a moviegoer eats popcorn or peanuts out of it. Now we’ll have to wait patiently for another scientist to invent noiseless peanuts.
A bag rustler is bad enough, but a cruncher is worse. I’ll never forget a Charles Boyer movie when he took the heroine and pressed her to him. Just then a nearby cruncher went to work on some popcorn and it sounded like Mr. Boyer had pressed the heroine too hard and broken all her ribs.
My suggestion is that diving helmets be issued to eaters in theatres.
They could open the little glass door in front, throw in some peanuts, shut the door and crunch away without disturbing their neighbors. If the idea doesn’t catch on the theatre management could always trim the helmets with a few flowers and sell them as hats. I think I’d like one.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 22, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a few reconversion problems are straightening out. People here in Hollywood with pre-war cars will be pleased to hear the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department just bought a factory-fresh Black Maria.
Now they can get rides in a brand-new car merely by robbing a bank or throwing bricks at their landlords.
And it’s been announced that enough nails to build 30,000 houses are available.
Of course, you can’t get lumber or plumbing, but if your inability to get them makes you mad enough to bite nails, at least you can get the nails to bite.
I actually have a new electric toaster. I can’t wait to see the look on George’s face when he finds it on the breakfast table tomorrow morning.
It’ll be almost as happy as the look that would be on mine if I had some bread to put in it.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 23, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see where a publicity man arranged for a screen comedy to be shown privately to a college professor and three chimpanzees at the Cincinnati Zoo so the professor could observe what struck the monkeys as funny. At first they ignored the movies and kept looking at the professor, but everybody pretended not to notice that.
The chimps seemed pretty bored with the picture, so I don’t suppose Hollywood will produce movies for the monkey trade. Now I’m stuck with a wonderful idea for a plot, all about a little ape who grew up with a family of people. It could be called “Jocko of the Weissmullers.”
Instead of comedy, it might be interesting to test a monkey’s reactions to such things as atom bomb, a session of Congress, or a jitterbug contest. My guess is that he’d develop a terrific superiority complex for having starved in a tree and not becoming civilized.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 24, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that Gen. Eisenhower would never be awarded five stars as a corn meal mush cook. When he and his four brothers went to the North Woods on a fishing trip, Gen. Ike took over the cooking chores and turned out some mush which he said was “passable.” However, the very next day his brothers suddenly announced they had caught their limit of fish and packed up and went home.
It’s a pleasure to have a great man who admits that he’s only passable at something. I’ll bet if Emperor Hirohito made some rice pudding, he’d say it was simply divine, even though he himself isn’t nearly as divine as he used to be.
Anyhow, Gen. Eisenhower needn’t worry about his cornmeal mush. He did the greatest cooking job in history when he made the German leaders swallow their pride and eat their words.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 25, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
SAN FRANCISCO – Well, here is your rolling stone in San Francisco, a town that’s much too lively to have moss on it even if I wanted to gather any. At first I thought the summer fog had affected the eyesight of the men here because so many of them were wearing baggy pants and seemed to have put on their wives’ hats by mistake. Then I discovered there was a Shriners’ convention in town.
Traveling around is lots of fun but it’s going to change my whole life. All summer I’ve spent most of my nights sitting in hotel lobbies waiting for a vacant room. Now when I go home where there’s no vacancy problem, I find that I can’t get sleepy unless I sit downstairs for an hour or so with a lap full of luggage while George, disguised as a wolf, leers at me and says, “Are you alone, babe?”
The Pittsburgh Press (July 26, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that even children have become victims of the tie-in racket. The Pittsburgh younger set is complaining that it can’t buy bubble gum unless it also buys candy bars. If this keeps up, when you see a dog with a bone you’ll know that he had to take a can of flea powder in order to get it.
Actually, there’s nothing new about the tie-in ticket. For example, there’s the old political tie-in deal where a man says, “I’m going to vote for J. Cheever Chisell because he’ll get our town a new post office. What if he does put his whole family on the public payroll?”
Or take marriage, for instance. If a man knows he can’t get the sweetest, prettiest, cleverest little wife in the world without getting her hat bills, too, he just goes ahead and takes both. At least, George did.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 29, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see the congressmen are going to adjourn for a vacation and I’m sure they need one because sitting around and doing very little is the most tiring thing in the world.
However, I’m wondering where they can have any fun. In Washington, at least, people need a pass to get in and bawl them out. But a congressman in his home town couldn’t stick his head out of the house without having it bitten off.
If he went to a beach resort, the waves would remind him of investigating committees coming closer and closer. And if he went to the mountains those yawning chasms would make him think of how the other members looked when he was making a speech.
Personally, I’d just as soon not be a congressman. I’ll limit my political career to telling the neighborhood butcher what cute children he has.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 30, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that Rep. Clare Boothe Luce, talking before Congress, pictured how the human race might be changed by the atomic energy commission. She pictured an America where all the women had been turned into Lana Turners and all the men into bureaucrats, which is sort of silly. If all the women looked like Lana, no man would waste time working in a bureau.
Mrs. Luce said that the bureaucrats would have just one hand with a thumb and forefinger for signing papers and would have no legs because they’d spend their lives sitting in swivel chairs. As another nice feature, I’d suggest an extra long tongue that could be unwound and used as red tape.
While imagining results of atomic energy, why not politicians who are all lungs and movie unionists who are all ears and maybe just one landlord who is all heart?
The Pittsburgh Press (July 31, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that the English Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose are learning how to peel potatoes and do other K.P. chores. It’s encouraging to note that at least two members of royalty are aware of the rising unemployment problem among them.
Goodness, royal people never learn any useful trade and when they lose their job, they’re stuck.
The ex-King of Italy would feel more secure right now if he had learned to cook and could put cans of Umberto’s spaghetti sauce on the market. The ex-King of England wouldn’t be so short of spending money, either, if he’d taken up plumbing in his youth, and could solicit work as David Windsor, Knight of the Bath.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 1, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that the Japanese newspapers have thanked Gen. MacArthur again for the way he’s occupying their country, and if he’s not careful he may wind up as emperor of Japan.
The poor man can hardly attend to business because he’s interrupted so often by delegations of Japanese who come to tell him how much they appreciate the pasting he gave their army.
I understand that Douglas is a very popular name for Japanese babies now.
At first, I was startled by the way the Japanese kowtow to the man who put them in their place, but I suppose it’s only natural. I’ve noticed that I get very little attention from George when I’m nice to him, but when I lay down the law, I get candy and flowers.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 2, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce certainly is slipping. The newspapers reported that Los Angeles had passed Detroit and was now America’s fourth largest city. I expected the Chamber of Commerce to follow that up by warning New York that it had better take in New Jersey if it wanted to stay in first place. But no, the Chamber of Commerce announced that the papers were wrong, and Detroit still led Los Angeles by 9,195 people.
In the good old days, we’d have gotten the names of those surplus Detroiters and sent each of them a railroad ticket to California.
Maybe it’s right to avoid trickery and be known as the city of the Angels, but we’d get ahead faster if we were the city with the angels.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 5, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, there was a telephone strike in Paris and the Peace Conference delegates couldn’t call each other up after the meetings to talk over what happened. This eliminated what is known in card-playing circles as the post mortem.
I’ve been in bridge games where a hand was played very quietly but when it was over one girl would say: “We’d have made it if you’d led the king,” and her partner would say, “Well, in the first place you should have bid hearts,” and then, in no time at all, the place was a shambles.
I can just imagine a diplomat saying, over the telephone, “you made a fine speech today, but you shouldn’t have demanded part of West Hoositland.”
Then, with the other replying, “well, you started it by wanting a piece of East Whichavania,” we’d have the perfect set-up for another shambles.
I think the phone strike was the nicest thing that could have happened for the world.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 6, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that a Detroit police precinct is going to enforce an old ordinance that makes a man liable to arrest if he ogles young ladies.
I don’t know why it’s being limited to just one precinct unless they’re planning to put there all the young ladies who don’t like to be ogled, like we put buffaloes on reservations.
If so, they should put buffaloes in it. They’re much easier to find than young ladies who don’t like to be ogled.
According to the lieutenant of that precinct, ogling means “looking ‘em over,” but I think that’s unfair. Goodness, they’ll be arresting innocent men who stare at every girl approaching to see if she’s their own sweetie-pie who’s 45 minutes late.
To be fair, every policeman should carry a small tape measure and release any ogler whose eyes pop out less than an inch.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 7, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that Rep. Clare Boothe Luce has decided not to run for re-election, which means that Congress will just have to get along with that much less glamor.
Her record as a maker of laws may not go down in the history books, but she will be remembered as the politician who was first in charm, first in chic and first in the chair at the beauty shop.
Her presence had a good effect on congressional males, too. Elastic-sided Congress gaiters gave way to sporty oxfords, and men of the people discarded their baggy suits in favor of neatly pressed pinstripes. And never before had Washington barbers trained so many scant locks of hair over so many senatorial bald spots.
Speaking of barbers, while she was in office Mrs. Luce singed quite a few people herself. In fact, she burned some of them up completely.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 8, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see that a Los Angeles singer got a divorce from her musician husband because he came home nightly and staged one-hour jam sessions on his saxophone until four in the morning. He was known in orchestra circles as a solid sender and he certainly “sent” his wife – straight to a lawyer.
I think it’s fine for a man to be interested in his work, but he shouldn’t drag it home and pester his wife with it.
Insurance salesmen would have happier wives if they brought them bunches of flowers instead of bunches of statistics on the accident rate. Plumbers’ wives would rather be told how pretty they are than about the installation of galvanized sinks.
George used to come home and try his jokes out on me, but I cured him. I just showed him a bill for a new hat and he immediately forgot all about comedy.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 9, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, while men are complaining that they can’t buy enough things to wear, along comes the head of the Sunbathing Association and urges them to wear even less!
He says that in hot weather men already have started to wear sport shirts and sandals and he sees no good reason why they shouldn’t go further and start wearing shorts. Well, I’ve seen two good reasons why they shouldn’t – George’s knees.
The masculine leg simply isn’t a thing of beauty. I understand that leg-revealing newspaper pictures of girls are known as cheesecake, but if similar pictures were taken of men they’d have to be known as pretzels.
Shorts for males would have an immediate effect upon American street life. Instead of men standing in front of poolrooms and whistling at us, we girls would stand in front of beauty shops and laugh our heads off at them.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 12, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see that a discharged GI climbed ‘way up on the Brooklyn Bridge and refused to come down unless the police told his estranged girlfriend that he still loved her. Well, I’ve heard of men going out on a limb where love for a lady is concerned, but it takes a Brooklyn boy to go out on a suspension cable.
I wonder what would happen if other discharged GIs adapted this idea to more practical use. Suppose all the homeless ones swarmed up on bridges all over the country and wouldn’t come down unless the authorities found them a place to live?
Wouldn’t that remind us that these men had helped to cross a very important bridge in our national life?
But George said Congress would solve that situation by appropriating a billion dollars to build more bridges for homeless GIs to climb on.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 13, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that the delegates to the Paris peace conference were asked to wear evening dress when they went to a ballet performance at the National Opera. This seems a little ironic when you consider that most of the nations they represent are going around in barrels.
Putting on evening clothes might be dangerous for the delegates. I can just picture one of the after a hard day of reparations disputes and boundary arguments. By a supreme effort he has kept himself calm; but then, when he starts to dress, his collar-stud rolls under the bureau and he explodes.
But goodness, I’ve noticed that diplomats never appear to be really happy unless their wearing tails, and I wonder if a psychiatrist wouldn’t find that interesting. He might say that subconsciously it leads a lot of the to make monkeys of themselves.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 14, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that an artist complains that all women are beginning to look exactly alike because of the identical make-up they put on their faces and the girdles they put on their figures. He says that before long women will come in standard models like autos, and a man can order the type he wants F.O.B. the nearest beauty shop.
This theory has its weak points. A man might order a sports model with a red top which, after marriage, would quickly convert itself into a gray family model. Or the cute coupe he ordered might remove its girdle and be revealed as a truck.
I asked George if he thought I looked like all other women and I’m glad to say that he scouted the idea. He said, “Gracie, you have a charm and beauty that’s completely your own, and for goodness sake, put down that carving knife.”