The ventriloquist/comedy act of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy was a huge success during the "Golden Age of Radio" but ventriloquists and their dummies also made excellent fodder for radio thrillers and horror shows. The ventriloquists portrayed in these shows were often down on their luck, tortured souls working in seedy places -- a stark contrast to the perennially sunny Bergen & McCarthy Show.
(Bergen & McCarthy are pictured here from their appearance in the movie Stage Door Canteen in 1943. Bergen is the one in the turban.)
The Suspense episode "Flesh Peddler" follows a typical "haunted" ventriloquist plot but it remains interesting because of the casting.
This is an old radio show with two performers who are familiar to any Gen-Xer. It stars Deforest Kelly, whom we all know as Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, but it also has Daws Butler, who was the voice of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Elroy Jetson and numerous other cartoon characters. Anyone who watched cartoons in the 1970's will recognize his voice.
Deforest Kelly plays a booking agent who takes an interest in a ventriloquist act he finds at a carnival. Daws Butler provides the voice of Arthur, the slow-witted knife-thrower. It is unfortunate that they did not choose Butler to play the ventriloquist, given his enormous talent for providing character voices, but this was before he became famous for his work in cartoons.
This show was broadcast on August 4, 1957.
Daws Butler used the voice he would later use for his "Mr. Jinks" cartoon character in the Pixie and Dixie cartoon.
Posted by: Gary | February 13, 2008 at 07:06 PM
Not only is this a good story start to end it has De Kelley in it! Not to familiar with the voice work of Mr. Butler but there was no Yogi in this story. I used to do a half decent Yogi bear. I tried to look but didn't find any other radio work by Kelley so this must have been rare. I know he played in western film/tv so maybe he's in some westerns radio shows. I have heard Gene Roddenberry's name as writer on a few western shows, makes you wonder what Star Trek would have done had it come earlier to radio.... I have heard several sci-fi radio shows which it is painfully obvious that some of early Trek borrowed from. Of course I think some of the same writers of those radio shos did work later on Trek scripts as well.
Good show, thanks!
Posted by: Kevin | October 12, 2009 at 11:04 PM
YAY~!!!1 I LOVE DeForrest Kelley!!!
Bones FTW!!! ^^ <3
Posted by: Vulcan Girl | October 13, 2009 at 09:24 PM
According to the L.A. Times (8/4/57), this was the first professional script by writer Robert Juhren (who at the time was a member of the CBS radio transcription department).
From 1974-82, Mr. Juhren scripted 30 episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
Posted by: Morgen Fliegen | November 30, 2009 at 08:54 PM
Thanks for the info about the scriptwriter! "Flesh Peddler" is an impressive first effort. - Christine
Posted by: Cmillinsf | December 01, 2009 at 01:14 PM
It was great, up to the point where we discover that the dummy is actually... an evil midget. Cornball!
Posted by: Jman | April 08, 2010 at 03:53 PM
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