Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace (15 January 1899 – 25 March 1982), born Goodman Aiskowitz, was an American humourist, radio writer and comedian, television writer, and magazine columnist.

"Goody" (as he was known to friends) is not always the most recognisable writer/performer of his era by today's reader or listener, but his low-key, literate drollery and softly tart way of tweaking trends and pretenses made him one of the most sought after writers in radio and television during the 1930s through '60s.

Early years

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Latvian immigrants, Ace grew up wanting to write, and proved it as the editor of his high school newspaper, where he inverted his first nom de plume, Asa Goodman. Ace worked as a roller skating messenger for Montgomery Ward while he studied journalism at Kansas City Polytechnic Institute. He also wrote a weekly column called "The Dyspeptic" for the school's newspaper. In due course, after also working at the post office and a local haberdashery to support his mother and sisters after his father's early death, he became a reporter and columnist for the Kansas City Journal-Post.

Easy Aces

Easy Aces, a long-running American serial radio comedy (1930–1945), was trademarked by the low-keyed drollery of creator and writer Goodman Ace and his wife, Jane, as an urbane, put-upon realtor and his malaprop-prone wife. A 15-minute program, airing as often as five times a week, Easy Aces wasn't quite the ratings smash that such concurrent 15-minute serial comedies as Amos 'n' Andy, The Goldbergs, Lum and Abner, or Vic and Sade were. But its unobtrusive, conversational, and clever style, and the cheerful absurdism of its storylines, built a loyal enough audience of listeners and critics alike to keep it on the air for 15 years.

Accident of circumstance

Goodman Ace (b. Goodman Aiskowitz, 1899–1982) was a film critic for the Journal Post in his native Kansas City. On radio station KMBC, he read comic strips to children on Sunday mornings and reviewed films on Friday evenings. One night in 1930, the cast of the 15-minute show that followed his slot failed to show up, and Ace found himself having to fill in the time. His wife, Jane (b. Jane Epstein, 1897–1974), had accompanied him to the studio that night, and the two engaged in an impromptu chat about their weekend bridge game. This brought such a favorable response that the station invited Ace to create a domestic comedy---even though neither of the couple had ever really acted before.

Old-time radio

The old-time radio era, sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of Radio, refers to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until the 1950s, when television superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming and radio shifted to playing popular music. During this period, when radio was dominant and filled with a variety of formats and genres, people regularly tuned into their favorite radio programs. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners.

Origins

The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone, commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept.