Smilin' Ed McConnell

Smilin’ Ed McConnell was the son of a minister. At the age of three, he started to sing. Also at this time, he quickly learned how to play both drums and piano.

Early life and career

After attending William Jewell College, he did some prize fighting, for being very athletic since his teens. He also became a veteran by fighting in World War I.However, he was in an incident in Arkansas. According to one NBC press bio, it read:

"A troop train on which he was traveling was wrecked in Arkansas by a German sympathizer and Ed wound up in a river. When he was pulled out, an Army surgeon pronounced him dead, but a buddy finally revived Ed with artificial respiration"."

After his Army service, McConnell sang for various evangelists. In 1922, He then gotten his first radio show in Atlanta. When a performer who was on schedule didn’t show up, McConnell took his place.

Married in 1928 McConnell joined the CBS network in 1932 until 1937 moved to NBC as their "Sunshine Melody Man," offering hymns and uplifting messages.McDonnell’s blend of "songs, humor and philosophy" was scheduled and aired over network affiliates in the 5:30 to 6pm time slot, and guests included the Doring Trio, The Four Grenadiers, The Campus Choir and the Rhythmaires.

He also became known in New York City when he was heard over WJZ, even though the show was from Chicago and he was living in Elk Rapids, Michigan.

Over the years, McConnell’s time changed, as did the sponsors. At one point, he shifted to 10:30 am for a fifteen-minute program that was sponsored by the Air Conditioning Training Corporation of Youngstown, Ohio.

In a review of Variety, the magazine noted that aside from such hymns as "God Understands," he "unloads a hokey hodge-podge of songs and you-know-me-I wouldn't-steer-you-wrong-blather."Variety then quoted McConnell's patter to the line: "'Are ya gitting what ya want out o' life? Maybe ya present job is beneath yer ability and dignity.'"

The birth of Froggy

McConnell then gotten the attention of younger viewers when he created the character Froggy, along with Irma Allen on the organ or Del Owen on the piano.

But even when McConnell had become famous to kids as "Smilin' Ed," he continued to host programs for religious adults. For instance, while the Buster Brown show was running, Ed presided over a five-minute show sponsored by the American Poultry Journal It reached over fifty stations.

Once again, Variety reviewed:"Anyone who's been laboring under the impression that a dash of American folk music and a hymn or two is strictly for farm listeners is apparently off the beam, because here's a series of 48 shorties that two metropolitan stations - Chicago's NBC flagship, WMAQ and Minneapolis' WCCO-CBS have latched on to for a 16 week ride....

"Packaged by E. H. Brown Agency for American Poultry Journal, (transcription) disks which feature two songs apiece by Smilin' Ed McConnell, with Irma Glen accompanying on the Hammond, are blanketing the east and midwest now. McConnell plugs the mag ("If you've got a poultry problem, write to APJ's Problem Corner and get a personal reply from the editor...send in a subscription too, only fifty cents for two years!") and sings.

Variety also added:"Cornfed delivery of a song like "Come Along My Mandy" and hymn "When Cares of Life Distress You" on one platter, cues the general format, but the star of NBC's live "Buster Brown" airer knows how to put over the old "neighborly feeling." And he's no slough at plugging the Journal it might be added."

Another Smilin' Ed show that turned up for a while was a fifteen minute program sponsored by the Purity Baking Company. Once again, Variety reviewed:"One of the veterans of radio, Ed McConnell mines the rich veins of American sentiment among those who are white-haired, churchy, rural and simple. He has a disarming style that has been analyzed in these columns on previous occasions and for other sponsors. This show differs only that he sticks to hymns and is necessarily serious in comment, with none of the semi-light homefolksy gab he could more appropriately introduce in a framework not devoted to ecclesiastical music alone.

"Aiming at a selective audience, the program will no doubt do well. McConnell puts it o a personal basis. Even while telling his listeners this is one program that will not "be cluttered up with long-winded advertising" he is sledge-hammering the important thought - no chekee no hymnee. "My friends who love me will support me by buying Tasty Bread" he announces..." "McConnell has a good Epworth League baritone and a down home rhetorical sloppiness. It's "you-all" or "ya" and no fuss. In fact, this is about the most calculatedly unpretentious program of the season. McConnell is probably the most humble man in America, making $100,000 or better, a year."

The show’s money was due to the "Buster Brown Show" and Froggy the Gremlin. For this show, Ed had the right sponsor, and great support from producer Frank Ferrin, writer Hobart Donavan, who also wrote the Buster Brown comic book giveaways, and director Arthur Jacobson.

When Ed started his hit kiddie show, radio audiences knew Buster Brown faintly...from a 1929 radio series on CBS. By the time Smilin Ed' got his kiddie show, Buster Brown was no longer well remembered as a comic strip because the character was merely the trademark symbol for a shoe company.

Buster Brown and Smilin' Ed were then collided in 1944, with "Smilin' Ed's Buster Brown Gang" taking to the airwaves on September 2. The show continued on NBC radio every Saturday morning at 11:30 through April 11, 1953.

The format rarely varied. There was an adventure story to open the show, a lot of plugs for Buster Brown shoes, and finally towards the end, Froggy the Gremlin might sing a song or annoy a guest, such as Shortfellow the Poet or Alkali Pete the Cowboy. The character Midnight the Cat actually spoke a few lines on the show and Smilin' Ed was always prone to sing a novelty song or two by plunking his magic twanger.

The term "plunking" may have come from McConnell's habit of plunking the strings on his piano to emphasize some of the action in his stories. McConnell was the voice of Froggy, putting on a low, gruff, Popeye-like croak.

However, whenever McConnell had to sing a duet with Froggy, announcer Archie Presby was the voice of Froggy. And when there was a live audience, Archie would sometimes dress up in a frog costume and carry on to the delight of the screaming kids.

The full cast of the radio show had included June Foray, Wendall Noble, Conrad Binyon, John Dehner and Jimmy Ogg. All of them took part in the adventure stories. Foray was called upon to voice Midnight and Bud Tollefson, the sound effects engineer, growled the voice of Tige the Dog.

Smilin' Ed used the show to promote not only the Buster Brown shoes, but as well as the comic books, which featured McConnell and usually a little story involving the "Buster Brown Gang" of Midnight, Squeaky and Froggy. To his credit, Ed would tell the young audiences that they could go to their local store and get a comic book without having to make a purchase.The comic books had many premiums to offer, including a Buster Brown Gang neckerchief, various games, music records, and trinkets.

Smilin' Ed was the one who originally brought Froggy and the whole gang to television, and some of the shows were filmed in primitive color. He was one of the kiddie world's most beloved and jolly fat men, going by the height of six feet tall, weighing over two hundred and fifty (250) pounds. But the hefty, aging days of “The Smiler” were numbered, and the end came in 1954. Andy Devine then took over the show and it's "Andy's Gang" that most people remember.

External links

* [http://aladdinknights.org/smilin_ed.php Aircheck audio of Smilin' Ed McConnell singing "Aladdin Lamp Man" jingle.]