THE FUNNIEST SKETCH EVER AIRED ON BLACK & WHITE TELEVISION! (Well, maybe not. But, it's up there with the "This is Your Story" and "The Clock" parodies on "Your Show of Shows".) Anyway, I think it's the best send-up of show business I've ever seen. This is the final sketch of a pilot aired in 1964 on the CBS Television Network. The program was named "The Nut House". It was produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott (of "Rocky & Bullwinkle"), but never made it as a regular series. It had a large cast and a full orchestra. Unlike the comedy/variety shows of the day, "The Nut House" was all-comedy and a precursor to "Laugh In" on NBC-TV four years later. It consisted of sketches, stand-up comedy routines and animated film clips in the Jay Ward vein. The program was pre-recorded on video tape. Several years later, a kinescope recording of portions of the video tape was made available on a VHS cassette by a mail-order house that marketed public-domain material. Because I had recorded the sound track on reel-to-reel tape the night the program aired, I know which material was excluded (unfortunately) from the VHS issue.* This particular sketch begins simply with a soldier trying to make a record of his voice to send home to his mother. Little automated recording booths like the one shown in this sketch were still around at the time. A customer would pop a quarter in a slot, wait for a red light to come on, record a message, sing a song, or otherwise make a fool of oneself; and, then <b>...</b>
The Nut House
precursor to Laugh In
Jay Ward
Anthony Holland
Andrew Duncan
Len Maxwell
Jack Sheldon
Alan Sues
Don Francks
Fay dewitt
Marilyn Lovell
Muriel Landers
Ceil Cabot
Jane Connell
Kathy Kersh
Mara Lynn
Jerry Fielding
Johnny Mann
Charles S. Dubin
Bill Scott
James S. Stanley
