According to John Dunning in his excellent book Tune In Yesterday, 1928 marked Ace's foray into local radio broadcasting. Over KMBC (the local CBS affiliate) he begain reading the Sunday comics at ten dollars per show. He soon added another feature "The Movie Man" during which he read his reviews of films for another $10. Dunning's story of what happened next reads like one of their later improbable episodes. The principals in a 15-minute show which was to follow Ace's "The Movie Man" never showed up, and he was recruited to ad-lib for the fifteen minute time period. Luckily (for him and for us!) wife Jane was standing by and joined in the impromptu discussion of their bridge game the night before and a local unsolved murder. Listener reaction was favorable, and a radio institution was born.
The "broadcasts were informal, the principals sitting around an old card table with a built-in, concealed microphone. NBC built the table to Ace's specifications early in the run.
The "plots" for the earlier "Easy Aces" episodes ranged from single incidents of an evening in their bungalow to extended incidents requiring two weeks or more to play out the chain of events.
Jane Ace is everything feminist extremists abhor. On the surface she is the "ditsy" housewife who ventures forth into a "man's world" with hilarious (if not disasterous) results. Her speech patterns were a Midwestern prototype for the much later Edith Bunker with a whining, infantile voice which wasn't for all tastes.
The adults in the family considered Jane's voice on a par with scraping fingernails on a chalkboard.
He was the long-suffering, hard-working real estate sales executive (later an advertizing executive) who groaned "Isn't that awful!" when Jane tossed off her fractured epigrams or revealed her hairbrained schemes.
Fortunately for us, Goodman Ace turned over electrical transcriptions of their shows prior to 1945 for syndication by ZIV, which is probably why we still have hundreds of their programs available and in excellent condition.
EASY ACES
Excerpted from John Dunning's
Encyclopedia of Radio
Started in 1930-31 as tryouts
- CBS: 1932-1935
- NBC: 1935-1942
- CBS: 1942-1945; 1948
Though never a radio blockbuster, The Easy Aces is held in high regard as one of the shows that made serial radio funny. It was the singular couple, Jane and what was his name? Fans of the show know that he somehow never got called by his first name. That's because Goodman Ace, the creator and writer, kept it just "Ace" for the run of the show. The wife was played by Jane Ace, and was "Jane." She and "Ace" and their neighbor Marge (played by Mary Hunter) and their maid Laura (Helene Dumas) are the central characters.
"Ace" is a realtor, probably the only one in old time radio. Jane is something of a kooky character, much like on Gracie Allen, as Burns and Allen had a major influence on Goodman Ace's slightly skewed view of connubial bliss, where the twain, at least in conversation, never quite meet. Jane's way with words brings to mind the delights of Fibber McGee and Molly. Jane's voice and delivery makes even the simplest conversation all Jane. "Ace" is a little gruff and put-downish with Jane for today's politically correct, but not for then after all, they were on for fifteen years. It's all in good fun, anyway, as the writing of this show is very witty and works on several levels at once. The fifteen minute intimate conversation format works really well for quiet comedy, as perfected by Lum and Abner and Vic and Sade. And don't forget Amos and Andy were the only two talking for most of the 1930's.
The show starts off with the announcer setting up the situation, and the easy talk begins. Immediately you're listening to a conversation. In the way conversations do, the episode's situation moves along. The "Aces" are involved in court cases, realty business, played cards, chit-chatting about the neighbors the stuff of daily life. Fans love the show for just how easy the smiles come in this show that's like Jane, "just fine."
