Partygoers1 Wit

For years, Hollywood partygoers have shrieked with laughter at the impromptu gags and satirical songs of Radio Writer Abe Burrows (TIME, Feb. 11, 1946). But his celebrated fans have kept Abe jealously to themselves, assuring him that the sentimental public would never appreciate his acidly unsentimental humor. Columnist Earl Wilson once gloated: "Only us hot shots get to hear him." Last week, anyone with a radio set could hear Abe do his stuff. CBS had given him a one-man sustaining spot (Sat. 10:30 p.m., E.D.T.). Beefy, 36-year-old Abe Burrows was so delighted at getting up to a microphone that he took about half the salary he could be making scripting for others.

Abe's program is 15 minutes of casual rambling. He tosses out wisecracks, parodies travelogues, concert ballads and popular songs, rasps his offbeat lyrics and thumps out his own piano accompaniment.

He opened last week's show by announcing: "My rich, velvety baritone is ready to bring you . . . songs that all America never heard of." Abe's song titles include: I've Got a Gal in Calico Who's Dying for a Mink and You Ate Up a Hunk of My Heart.

Manhattan-born Abe, a onetime coat label salesman, thought his radio listeners ought to know what he looks like. "Am I fat?" he asked them. "Am I sloppy? Am I bald? Well, my answer is yes. . . ."

Abe defines himself as a parlor wit who thinks of radio as a parlor instrument ("some homes got them next to toilets"). But he seems hard-pressed to transport the highball-and-cigaret intimacy of his friends' living rooms into the U.S. parlor. His cement-mixer voice strains with eagerness to wow the audience. And while most of his parodies and songs are funny, the jokes which string them together sometimes clank (sample: "As for personal habits ... I ain't got none").

But his impromptu off-the-air cracks show no sign of weakening under the pressure of his new venture. When he recently saw MGM's apologetic version of the radio-baiting novel The Hucksters, he remarked in the theater lobby: "This is the greatest expose of the movie industry I have ever seen."

His reputation as a court jester for Hollywood sophisticates troubles Abe. He resents being called a cynic: "Cynics disbelieve real things; I disbelieve phonies." He claims he is working roughly along the lines of Will Rogers, except that he uses a piano instead of a rope. "The people . . . are just like me. ... I don't want to talk like Carl Sandburg, but I like the people."

CBS, expecting to get a sponsor for the new show, hopes that the people learn to feel the same way about Abe.

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