22 November 1940, with guests Deems Taylor and Lewis E. Lawes, then warden of Sing Sing.

Fadiman: Elizabeth Strauss, of this city, sends this one in: What have these four men in common? Very simple question. The four men are: John Bunyan, Oscar Wilde, Adolf Hitler, and Warden Lewis E. Lawes. [Laughter.] Well, we have two hands. Mr. Lawes?

Lawes: Their books [were] all writtem in jail. It’s too bad some of those you mentioned, besides myself, are not now in jail.

Fadiman: Yes, I can think of one. We hate to put you in the company of Mr. Hitler, but it’s just for the sake of of the question, and just for fun. Can you name the four books, Mr. Lawes, that were written in prison by these four—by these three gentlemen and Mr. Hitler? [Laughter]

Lawes: Well, Mein Kampf, by a non-gentleman, and …

Fadiman: Oscar Wilde?

Lawes: Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol …

Fadiman: I don’t know if that was the one written in prison. Mr. Kieran?

Kieran: I think he wrote Suspiria de Profundis.

Fadiman: Just De Profundis, you’re thinking of de Quincey. And Mr. Taylor?

Taylor: I think he did write The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Fadiman: I’m not certain of that. I take it back, Warden, if Mr. Taylor says so, he’s probably right.

Taylor: Pilgrim’s Progress might be right.

Fadiman: John Bunyan’s famous book Pilgrim’s Progress also written in prison, that’s quite correct.

Taylor: Warden Lawes’s Meet the Murderer!, I’ll give you the last one, it’s still selling.

Fadiman: Did you write that one while in the prison walls, Warden?

Lawes: Yes.

Fadiman: I thought it was Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing.

Lawes: Well, I was in the same walls.

Fadiman: Haven’t moved.

Taylor: Well, he could go home, couldn’t he?

Fadiman: You have a home, haven’t you, Warden Lawes?

Lawes: Yes I have a home, but the radio programs are getting so good, like Information Please, I’d stay home and listen to the radio all the time.

Fadiman: Isn’t he a nice man?

Adams: You trying to flatter me?

Lawes: Yes, Mr. Adams.

Adams: You’re doing all right.

If you haven’t heard Information Please, an old American radio panel quiz show, give it a try. Two hundred and nineteen episodes are available on the Internet Archive and easy to download. You’ll have days of good listening.

Now, my list of the best radio comedies includes The Great Eastern (a Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland arts and culture show picked up by the CBC); Frantic Times by the Frantics (sketch comedy, also on CBC, which evolved into a montage of memorable repeated characters such as the Ultramind, “the greatest evil genius in the history of evil geniuses”); I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again (BBC comedy from 1964–1973); I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue (BBC’s “antidote to panel games”, running since 1972 but missing Willie Rushton, who died in 1996, and the great Humphrey Lyttelton, who died in 2008); Cabin Pressure (John Finnemore’s perfectly scripted and gorgeously acted BBC situation comedy about four people working at a one-airplane airline); and Our Miss Brooks (CBS radio show from 1948–1957 with deadpan and sardonic Eve Arden).

For radio panel shows, though, it’s Information Please. The BBC has a lot of fine panel shows—in fact, they have so many I wonder what it is about the British and panel shows—but there are none so good-natured, enjoyable and informative as Information Please. It’s hosted by Clifton Fadiman, with regular panelists Franklin P. Adams, John Kieran and Oscar Levant. Each week there’s a guest (or two, if Levant isn’t there), such as Christopher Morley, Fred Allen, Faith Baldwin, Moe Berg, Clare Boothe Luce. It vibes New York, The New Yorker and the Algonquin Round Table.

It’s a simple format: people send in questions, and if the panel can’t get enough of them right, the sender wins a prize. It starts off that they get a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but as time goes on and the US enters the war, they get war bonds. The show is sponsored first by Canada Dry, then Lucky Stike (“Lucky Strike means fine tobacco”), then Heinz. There’s a break in the middle where an announcer does an advertisement for the sponsor.

https://archive.org/details/InformationPleasepage1

https://archive.org/details/InformationPleasepage2

https://archive.org/details/InformationPleasepage3

for I in Information_Please_-_*;
do  DATE=`id3info $I | grep TALB | sed 's/.*: //' | sed 's/[Y,].*//'`;
TITLE=`id3info $I | grep TIT2 | sed 's/.*: //'`;
NEWTITLE="$TITLE ($DATE)";
echo $NEWTITLE;
id3v2 --TIT2 "$NEWTITLE" --TALB "Information Please" "$I";
done