Just Entertainment

Conscientious fans of Old Time Radio are sometimes caught up in a bit of a moral conundrum. The best programs from the Golden Age of Radio were produced for commercial sponsors, of course. What we enjoy listening to is the show itself, and just like listeners to the original broadcast we often mentally tune out the commercial but there is no getting around the fact that some of the sponsors would be considered offensive to modern ears. A prime example includes shows which came from the tobacco industry.

The dangers of tobacco smoking and secondhand smoke are well documented and understood today, but it was not so many decades ago that a "refreshing smoke" was considered a vital and natural part of nearly everyone's daily routine. George Burns and Gracie Allen's first two radio programs were sponsored by Robert Burns Panatelas and White Owl Cigars. Both Camel and Chesterfield brought us several great comedy, music, and variety programs. Lucky Strikes sponsored Jack Benny even longer than Jell-O. Dragnet was such a well-produced program that even today it is hard to listen without the desire to light up a Fatima Long Cigarette at the end of the show.

If the preponderance of tobacco shows is keeping fans from enjoying OTR show, perhaps the solution is to listen to more programs from chewing gum sponsors, like Wrigley's Just Entertainment.

Just Entertainment began as a variety program hosted by singing cowboy movie star and WWII hero Gene Autry. This collection features a couple of episodes from 1956 hosted by Burgess Meredith while Autry was working on other projects. By January 1957, the show belonged to Autry's well-loved screen sidekick, Pat Buttram.

Maxwell Emmett "Pat" Buttram was born in rural Alabama, 1915, the seventh child of a circuit-riding Methodist minister. He entered Birmingham-Southern College to study for the ministry, but just before his eighteenth birthday was able to scrape together enough money to attend the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. Station WLS sent an announcer to the fairgrounds for a remote broadcast interviewing Fair attendees, and the announcer picked Pat as a "typical" visitor from the South. To everyone's delight and surprise, Pat's comic observations and bits of country wisdom kept the announcer and the audience in stitches. WLS hired him for their National Barn Dance program, giving him a nation-wide audience. Pat became friends with Gene Autry while working on Barn Dance.

Pat went to Hollywood during the Forties to become one of Roy Roger's sidekicks, but Roy was already working regularly with two other sidekicks (besides Trigger) so Pat sought other work. By the time Gene Autry had returned from his service in the Army Air Corp, so Gene invited Pat into the role. Buttram appeared in more than forty Gene Autry pictures and became a regular on the Melody Ranch radio program.

Baby-boomers will best remember Pat Buttram as "Mr. Haney" from CBS's Green Acres, which became a victim of the network's "Rural purge". Pat said of the network's move: "CBS canceled everything with a tree, including Lassie!"

A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honors Contributions made to Motion Pictures by Pat Buttram at 6396 Hollywood Blvd, just across the street from the Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen fast food restaurant.