Wayne and Shuster were a Canadian comedy duo formed by Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster. It was active professionally from the early 1940s until the late 1980s.
Wayne (born Louis Weingarten, May 28, 1918 – July 18, 1990) and Shuster (September 5, 1916 – January 13, 2002) were well known in Canada, and were two of Ed Sullivan's recurring guests.
They enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1942, and performed for the troops in Europe during World War II as part of the Army Show (they would also later perform for the army in the Korean War). They returned to Canada to create the Wayne and Shuster Show for CBC Radio in 1946. They first performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States in 1958, and set a record there by appearing 67 times over the next 11 years.
Wayne and Shuster turned down many offers to go to the U.S. permanently, preferring to remain in Toronto. (They did co-star in a CBS-TV sitcom, Holiday Lodge, which aired as a summer replacement for [and produced by] Jack Benny in 1961.)
In 1965 The Wayne & Shuster Hour won the Silver Rose at the Rose d'Or Television Festival.
In 1965, the duo made a series of six short documentaries about comedians such as W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers, titled Wayne and Shuster Take an Affectionate Look At..., which were telecast on CBS in the summer of 1966. (This, incidentally, was the last US network prime time series to premiere in black and white). The programs were scored by the young composer "Johnny Williams".
Supporting players in Wayne & Shuster's television sketches included Don Cullen, Jack Duffy, Tom Harvey, Bill Kemp, Paul Kligman, Ben Lennick, Sylvia Lennick, Peggi Loder, Les Rubie, Eric Christmas, Joe Austin, Larry D. Mann, Paul Soles, Marilyn Stuart, Roy Wordsworth, John Davies, Carol Robinson, Lou Pitoscia, Peggy Mahon, Don Ewer, and Keith Hampshire.
After the opening of the Stratford Festival of Canada in 1958 they created a baseball-themed skit involving characters from Hamlet and Macbeth. The duo treated these sketches the way singers treat their most popular songs by performing new renditions many times over the years.
Some of Wayne's characters were scientific in nature, and used Professor Waynegartner, a derivation of his birth name, which he created while still in high school. The duo often based their sketches on contemporary events, trends and television programs.
They spoofed All in the Family as "All in the Royal Family", with the king calling Hamlet, "Meathead", and his queen "Dingbat". As Paramount was about to release , the duo spoofed it with "Star Schtick". When The Equalizer went on the air, they responded with "The Tranquilizer", dealing with mysterious deaths on a game show that was a cross between The Price Is Right and the $64,000 Question. Similarly, The Six Million Dollar Man became "The Six Hundred Dollar Man", assembled with body parts such as "rump: $6 at Loblaws". When Dallas was popular, it was spoofed with a character determined to corner the fertilizer market, and featured a cameo by Barbara Frum. Fantasy Island was spoofed with "Fantasy Motel".
The duo spoofed the commercials "we love to hate" with their own versions: Crazar TVs spoofed the "Quasar" TV brand with the high pitched overture; Oil of Oyvay spoofed the de-aging Oil of Olay; Macedonian Formula spoofed Grecian Formula, and questioned why a man would say he used it and thus reveal he has grey hair; Russian Express spoofed American Express, with a muscular KGB agent saying "Don't leave home!" Occasionally, the troupe also satirized Canadian politics; when televising the proceedings of the Canadian House of Commons was first proposed in the 1970s, Wayne and Shuster responded with "Question Time", a sketch which depicted Question Period as a musical revue, with politicians in red and blue suits engaging in song and dance routines and "debating" the issues in vaudeville-style quips and puns.
They spoofed accents and dialogue. After Wayne brought down an escaping felon with a gunshot (off screen), Shuster would say, "You got him in the rotunda/cloisters/etc.", with Wayne looking wryly at Shuster. "Srightry ahead of Panasonic!" "Srightry?" (Later...) "I go plug it in." "Don't you mean, 'prug it in'?" "No. One ethnic joke per sketch is plenty... or prenty if that's the way you like it." In another sketch, Shuster was calling on the phone for "Inspector Slattery." Wayne said, "Slattery will get you nowhere."
Shuster was a cousin of comic book artist Joe Shuster, who co-created Superman with writer Jerry Siegel, and in this context is referenced in one of the Government of Canada-sponsored Heritage Minute short films broadcast on television in the 1990s.
As of 2005, the only Wayne and Shuster material available on DVD is the 1991 special Wayne and Shuster: 50 Years of Comedy which Shuster hosted.
Category:CBC network shows Category:Canadian comedy duos Category:Canadian sketch comedy shows Category:1952 Canadian television series debuts Category:Old-time radio programs Category:Jewish Canadian culture
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