The Burns and Allen Show

About The Burns and Allen Show

The Burns and Allen Show is the old time radio comedy built on Gracie Allen's logic. George Burns played the patient straight man, and Gracie delivered the dizziest lines in radio as if they made perfect sense. Burns liked to say that all he had to do was ask "Gracie, how's your brother?" and she talked for 38 years. The real-life couple met in vaudeville in the early 1920s, married in 1926, and were on network radio from 1932 to 1950.

Their radio years fall into two acts. In the 1930s it was a variety show, and Gracie's stunts made headlines: a hunt for her missing brother across other programs, and a 1940 run for president on the Surprise Party ticket that drew real write-in votes. By 1941 the ratings were sliding, so Burns rebuilt it as a sitcom about the two of them at home, with neighbors Blanche and Harry Morton. The new version stayed in the Top 10 for the rest of its radio life.

Gracie's comedy works because she never winks at the audience. Burns said her lines were the hardest in the business: they made no sense, so she had to memorize every word. Listen, too, for George's patient setups; he wrote most of the act and was happy to let Gracie have the laughs. The show is light, clean and quick, good for a family drive, and it is the radio root of the Burns and Allen TV show that began in 1950.

What you’ll hear

• Gracie's twisted logic, played completely straight
• George's shaky singing, which Gracie lovingly called "Sugar Throat"
• Bea Benaderet as Blanche Morton, Gracie's ally in every scheme, and Hal March as Harry
• Gracie's ladies' club, the Beverly Hills Uplift Society
• Mel Blanc as the gloomy Happy Postman: "Remember, keep smiling!"
• Meredith Willson, later the writer of The Music Man, as the shy bandleader asking for advice about women
• Announcer Bill Goodwin, credited as the first to weave the commercial into the story

Where to start

• The 1930s shows are quick variety: Gracie's routines with George, songs and a dance band.
• The sitcom years run from 1941 to 1950, and most of the shows here come from them. The opening changes with the sponsor: Swan Soap from 1941 to 1945, then Maxwell House Coffee Time.
• Follow the podcast for a new episode twice a week, in the order they first aired; released episodes also play free right on this page, no account needed. Plus members ($5 a month) can play every episode now.
• When you'd rather not choose, Laugh Track streams old time radio comedy like this live, around the clock.

The Burns and Allen Show on the radio

CBS / NBC Radio, 1932-1950. With Gracie Allen, Bea Benaderet, Meredith Willson, Mel Blanc.

Where the recordings come from

The these recordings here come from the Internet Archive item the-burns-and-allen-show-1934-09-26-2-leaving-for-america (265 episodes) on the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the uploader and the collectors behind it, and to the Archive for keeping it. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.

Every The Burns and Allen Show episode: the full list, with air dates and stories

More to listen to

• The Jack Benny Program
• The Great Gildersleeve
• Our Miss Brooks
• The Life of Riley
• The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show
• Christmas on old-time radio
• New Year's Eve on old-time radio
• Thanksgiving on old-time radio

Spotted a wrong date, title or name? Report a mistake · Missing a series? Request a show · Suggest a note

Questions