Bergen was born Edgar John Bergren in Chicago, Illinois
to a Swedish family and grew up in Decatur, Michigan. He taught
himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet when he was 11. A few years
later he commissioned Chicago woodcarver Theodore Mack to sculpt
a likeness of a rascally Irish newspaperboy he knew. The head went
on a puppet named Charlie McCarthy, who became Bergen's lifelong
sidekick. At age 16, he came to Chicago, where he attended Lake
View High School and worked at a silent movie house.
His first performances were in vaudeville and one-reel movie shorts,
but his real success was on the radio. He and Charlie were seen
at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noel Coward, who recommended
them for an engagement at the famous Rainbow Room. It was there
that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended
them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallee's program. The appearance
was so successful that the next year they were given their own show.
Under various sponsors, they were on the air from December 17, 1937
to July 1, 1956. The popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when
one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled
many critics, then and now. However, it was Bergen's skill as an
entertainer and vocal performer, and especially his characterization
of Charlie, that carried the show over.
For the radio program, Bergen developed other characters, notably
the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry Effie Klinker.
The star, however, was Charlie, who was always presented as a child
(albeit in top hat, cape, and monocle)—a debonair, girl-crazy, child-about-town.
As a child, and a wooden one at that, Charlie could get away with
double entendre that adult humans could not under broadcast standards
of the day.
Bergen was not the most technically skilled ventriloquist—Charlie
McCarthy frequently twitted him for moving his lips—but Bergen's
sense of comedic timing was superb, and he handled Charlie's snappy
dialogue with aplomb. Bergen's wit in creating McCarthy's striking
personality and that of his other characters was the making of the
show. The fact that Bergen was widely popular for a ventriloquism
act on radio (where the trick of "throwing his voice" was not visible)
indicates that his appeal was primarily the personality he applied
to his characters.
Bergen and McCarthy are sometimes credited with "saving the world"
because, on the night of October 30, 1938 when Orson Welles performed
his War of the Worlds radio play that panicked many listeners, most
of the American public had instead tuned in to Bergen and McCarthy
on another station and never heard Welles' play. Conversely, it
has also been theorized that Bergen inadvertently contributed to
the hysteria. When the musical portion of Bergen's show, The Chase
and Sanborn Hour, aired approximately 12 minutes into the show,
many listeners switched stations and found the War of the Worlds
presentation already underway, with a realistic sounding reporter
detailing terrible events.
This collection of Bergen & McCarthy Greats includes
64 different shows and appearances for a total of 32+ hours of listening
enjoyment.
This product is a DVD collection of Old Time Radio mp3s. It is
designed to be played on your computer DVD drive with standard mp3
software - like Windows media player or its equivalent on Macintosh
computers. The mp3 files on the DVDs can be copied onto CDs for
play in your car stereo, home entertainment center, etc so you can
take your favorite shows with you anywhere you go.
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