User Reviews

At one time, believe it or not, Arthur Godfrey and his ukulele were household words. He was so popular on radio and early TV that he not only had the number two show in the nation but the number three show as well (no one could touch Lucy in the number one slot). "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" barely won out over "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts." He also had a program on how to play the ukulele. The "Ol' Redhead" even tried to sing. Though his singing voice was just a little better than Mr. Spock's, he actually had hit records, the biggest being "The Too Fat Polka," "I don't want her, you can have her/She's too fat for me."

Godfrey cheated just a little. Most of his so-called discoveries were actually professional entertainers who needed a boost to hit the big time. Godfrey gave them this boost by booking them on his shows. One of his "discoveries" was the Italian-American singer from Brooklyn Julius LaRosa whose biggest hit came to be the novelty song "Eh, Cumpari," later used in "The Godfather: Part III." The personality conflict between Godfrey and LaRosa created a national sensation when on the air Godfrey fired LaRosa and eventually replaced him with Pat Boone. I missed the show where this occurred but I recall the TV comics having a field day with jokes about the incident. The careers of both Godfrey and LaRosa never fully recovered from this indiscretion.

I liked Godfrey better on radio than on TV. Like Art Linkletter, he was more effective heard than seen. There were at least three personalities on early TV that would be way out of place in today's TVLand of political correctness where the viewer wants hosts of the caliber of Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford, lots of personality but safe. Dave Garroway, Jack Paar, and Arthur Godfrey were hosts who were entertaining, exuded friendly down-home qualities with exceptional rapport with their audiences, but with dark undertones. These three were skilled at their craft but also egotistical and at times downright mean.

Nonetheless for a few years, Godfrey and his ukulele entertained America and helped popularize the new invention called television.

The only review here is good, but doesn't go far enough. Arthur Godfrey was an amazingly important radio, and then TV, personality from the end of World War II through about 1960. It was his voice that the world heard over CBS radio in 1945 narrating the funeral of FDR as the procession went forward. His radio show, TALENT SCOUTS, was not intended to provide 'discoveries' for his reputation, but many important stars came out of it. It was a Monday night radio fixture on CBS in the late 1940s, then one of the earliest radio shows to be simulcast on TV. Each show had 3 or 4 entertainers competing against each other; all of them were serious professional entertainers just looking for the big break. They were never amateurs (as was always the case with Major Bowes' and Ted Mack's ORIGINAL AMATEUR HOUR). Around this time, Godfrey also had a 90-minute radio show every morning, from 10am to 11:30am, which I believe also was simulcast for a period of time. It was really the same show that he did for one hour on Wednesday nights and included all (as he called them) "the Little Godfreys". The winner of the TALENT SCOUTS program usually then appeared on the morning show for the next week. A lot of great exposure. My best friend and I attended many of those morning shows during the summer while school was out, and they were delightful. In time, the 8pm Wednesday show (which ARTHUR GODFREY AND HIS FRIENDS is taken from) totally replaced the morning show, as the latter was just too much work for the Godfrey clan, but it took several years for that to happen. Back to TALENT SCOUTS. I recall one particular episode where a very young Black mezzo-soprano sang "O don fatale" from Verdi's DON CARLO. Godfrey was so astounded by her performance that he immediately pulled her out of the competition right on the air. I'm not certain whether or not she then appeared on his morning radio show for the next week, as the winner of each TALENT SCOUTS contest was always determined by the level and length of audience applause, but that 17 or 18 year old singer went on to become arguably the greatest Black American mezzo-soprano of her time - Grace Bumbry! Only Marilyn Horne was greater during that period, but she and Bumbry sang little of the same repertoire. The reviewer mentions that Godfrey Jack Paar and Dave Garroway could be 'mean'. Maybe so, but I do not recall Paar ever being so, and he was my favorite TV performer of my entire life, even down to this day.. But Godfrey certainly could be and there were two movies made in the late 1950s, the protagonist of each reputedly based on Arthur Godfrey - the first was A FACE IN THE CROWD, starring Andy Griffith, which documented a good old boy rising from nothing to become a major TV star while simultaneously developing a somewhat fascistic personality. The other was THE GREAT MAN, which starred Jose Ferrer as a writer investigating a recently-deceased TV star (the Godfrey-inspired character) and learning that he had gone through his career in a most fascistic manner, ruining the lives of so many people with whom he came into contact. The very fact that it was thought by experts that these two films were based on Godfrey says much, none of it good, about this most popular of male stars of the late 1940s and 1950s radio and TV eras. I haven't seen ARTHUR GODFREY AND HIS FRIENDS here, but am giving it a high rating anyway, because it could not be anything other than greatly interesting, based on my hundreds of hours of exposure to these shows, both on TV and in-person.