The Great Malarkey

The difficult distinction of being radio's most revolting personality has been won hands down in the past two months by an NBC character named The Great Malarkey. A loud-mouthed know-it-all with a noisome laugh, he breaks into two sustaining programs (Let's Fight, All Out For Victory) long enough to have his 200% American say about the war effort. His success as a listener-provoker has been provocatively virulent.

"Now don't get me wrong," confides The Great Malarkey. "I'm as good an American as the next guy. But . . ." This painful introduction prefaces The Malarkey views on meat rationing ("Not me! Not so a lot of profiteering meat packers can make themselves some more millions"), travel restrictions ("I'm goin' to travel to Atlantic City in protest"), gas rationing ("If I don't get the gas, somebody else will"), and other subjects from scrap metal to war bonds.

Almost superfluous is the announcer's withering characterization ("We know you. All belly and no brains") and swift deflation of The Malarkey. He is radio's first try at creating a caricature to point a patriotic moral through horrendous example.

The Great Malarkey in person is jumpy, pink-cheeked, prematurely white-haired Radio Actor John Griggs, renowned in the trade for his huge professional calling cards which display old-style Police Gazette engravings and the information: "John Griggs, accurate, conscientious, and, if necessary, inspired." Griggs also plays Father Creighton in the NBC serial The Crazy Creightons (TIME, Oct. 12).

Malarkey's malodorous patter is pounded out by swarthy Herbert Little Jr., onetime health-journal editor, author of NBC's soapy The O'Neills, who sired Malarkey with Griggs last spring in a pet over the sameness of radio's patriotic messages. The Office of War Information decided last fortnight that Malarkey was sufficiently obnoxious to deserve a wider audience. He will soon be drawn as a cartoon character, under OWI auspices.

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